Have we accepted a bullying culture?
Published by May 9, 2018 | By Jennifer Padilla
“Liberal Snowflake” was a comment left on my Instagram after posting a photo at a #MarchForOurLives protest in NYC captioned with, “Lucky to have been part of history.” I wasn’t inviting a political discussion or debate. Someone, however, was triggered because I supported the event, and therefore, had to insult me.
USNews stated that personal insults and attacks are mainstream, even among those in power. We have influencers like Sean Hannity, a commentator— known for his show “Hannity” on Fox News— who has published articles on his website with the term “Liberal” used in negative context: “Liberal nut… Deranged Liberal… Vicious liberal…” among others. Twitter users, for example, respond with comments that include “Libtard,” which UrbanDictionary defines as the combination of a “liberal” and a “retard”.
Jimmy Kimmel, known for his late night TV show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, made fun of Melania Trump’s accent as she read a book to children at the White House’s Easter egg hunt; Fox News radio and TV host Laura Ingraham mocked Parkland survivor David Hogg in a tweet for getting rejected from four colleges, saying that he was “Whining” about it.
Our president once tweeted about North Korea’s Military Leader: “Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old’, when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?’” In April, The New York Times published a list of the 446 people, places, and things that Trump has insulted on Twitter.
Social media is a hotbed for bullying and social separations, and I believe it transitions broader than children in school playgrounds— it’s in our government, in Hollywood, on radio and on TV. The mainstream mentality is, “I don’t agree with you, therefore, you are unethical.”
A study by Columbia Journalism Review concluded that 27 percent of the posts on Twitter included harassment. A Yale University Psychiatrist, Robert L. Leahy, wrote on PsychologyToday that name calling becomes easy when we disagree with another person or party: “We label them as idiots, racists, bigots, homophobic, and terrible people… Trying to make people feel guilty or ashamed of their beliefs.”
Many stories of bullying involve children, which lead me to a question: Does America believe bullying is only a phenomenon for children on school grounds? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines bullying as acts or written or spoken words intend to intimidate or harass a person (or cause physical harm)— but it doesn’t say it’s limited to minors.
There are entire social media accounts and hashtags dedicated to “trash talk” Trump supporters, as well as others dedicated to bashing non-supporters; Christian accounts made to denigrate atheists or Muslims, and vice versa. A local news organization, the Press Herald, published an article of a man whose car was vandalized for having a bumper sticker that went against what their neighbors believed in. We are being conditioned to a culture where differences of beliefs are intolerable.
Just like children bullying on school grounds, as adults, we have adopted labels and generalizations to insult those whose perception and upbringing we don’t understand. Author, Educator and Psychiatrist Dr. Steve Fehl, wrote an article for Saybrook University suggesting that we can be citizens of a country and have different opinions without calling each other names or speculating that they are “terrorists” or “unpatriotic”.
“I can connect with my neighbor and participate in a meaningful friendship while being apart from him in our political perspectives, or for which baseball team we root,” wrote Dr. Fehl. “I do not have to physically beat him, call him names, or vandalize his property because he does not think or see the world the way I do.”
My Instagram post supporting the lives and safety of children in schools made me a “Snowflake,” which is someone who takes offense to anything, according to USAToday. I am a “Snowflake” for showing concern for human lives; I am a “Snowflake” for acknowledging that 17 kids were killed and will never come back.
The hardest thing for bullies is saying what they really mean to say: that the growing attention to mass shootings has brought a wave of cognitive dissonance to gun advocates, but they’d rather make up terms like “Snowflake” and insult children marching for their safety than to admit that there is a problem.