"I would like to eat your eye": How models cope with cyberbulling
Baiting on the Internet can be found almost everywhere: in social networks, personal blogs, telegraph chat rooms, on publication sites and still live forums. Aggressors are armed to the teeth: insults, humiliation, persecution and threats - a typical set of bullying.
In the UN, cyberbullying has already been recognized as a real threat - moreover, women suffer the most from it. Aggressors are ready to show aggression for any reason - neither appearance, nor profession, nor way of life is spared. We talked with seven Russian models, whose lives are usually watched by thousands of people, about how they cope with cyberbulling.
I take the criticism hard - and it’s nice to hear that their business is not super, and their efforts are in vain. But criticism criticized discord and in each case produces a different effect. If it is essentially from a competent person, then it can become a stimulus - but a simple “woof” arm beats off the desire to do something. I read comments on social networks, and not only my own. Sometimes I check what they say in publics, videos and materials about me - I love, I find it interesting. And, of course, I come across cyberbullying and negative comments.
Strangely enough, I heard the harshest remarks and frank insults about my “success story” after the release of the show on “Rain”: children from YouTube are just flowers compared to the trolls who speak under the video of this TV channel. They walked around: from appearance and nationality to the fact that they were completely obvious to me that I was a “prostitute” and did not deserve my money. Reading is unpleasant, but I forget about it after five seconds - I myself understand that this is not even a criticism. I had a strong school of "bad comments" when I participated in the show "Top Model in Russian." There were no social networks in the usual format, but there were insults from strangers - I remember, I read them on the program's forum and was very worried.
Cyberbullying affects all known people on instagram: if a page has a lot of subscribers and a lot of activity, people stop understanding that you are human too. They see only millions, funny videos or thousands of likes, but definitely not you with a phone in their hands, and start writing everything, without even thinking that these are insults. Or, a person understands that he is tough and rude, but he believes that you live on another planet, so you can not be afraid to write the dirtiest words: no one will catch the hand and will not have to answer. This is a field where you can mentally put yourself higher. It is hard to believe that I will write any insult to Selena Gomez, and she will read and be upset - but this is quite real! People do not invest much sense in words, but, unfortunately, they offend, spoil the mood and develop complexes.
Compared to other popular accounts on my page, everything is calm and bad comments are rare, it is not a constant stream. Therefore, in 90% of cases, I do not react only when it is already completely intolerable - the bath. There were several cases that I am not proud of: when I wrote something very offensive, I answered in the same spirit - I know that it is ugly, but not I have come to you with insults. Feel how disgusting it is.
Smartphones and social networks gave a false sense of importance and the fact that someone needs our opinion. It is strange and cruel to write insults to a person about appearance (who has grown old and who recovered). So, having read something similar about yourself, know that a strong, intelligent, confident person will not allow himself to do so. Do not respond to insults, do not make excuses, do not be rude in response, and never take it seriously.
I am good only to constructive criticism - sometimes it can help. For myself, I clearly identified a mock-up of a critical assessment to which I will pay attention: relevance, validity plus suggestions for correction - then I will enter into conversation. I am fortunate that family members, close friends and colleagues are delicate and polite people, so most often the criticism on their part fully meets the criteria for sound error analysis. It is important for me and helps to develop.
I read comments on my social networks, and, surprisingly, negative ones almost never meet there. I do not know why - it is possible that there are discussions of other kinds on third-party resources. In high school, classmates reacted very aggressively to my appearance, helped my mother, who convinced that the "flaws" - this is actually part of the individual. Then I enrolled in a theater studio, where no one noticed that something was "wrong." Since then, the discussion of my appearance does not bother me at all, including in social networks.
Insults and threats do not happen, but come across pristavuchie. These are mostly guys who can write ten times in an hour: "Hello! How are you? Why don't you answer?" But the matter is solved quickly - I press the "reject message" button, and this ends the conversation. I do not think that my experience is indicative, so I can’t give advice to people confronted with bulling and cyber-bullying is a very difficult topic. The main thing in no case blame yourself and be sure to seek help.
I believe that the model should respond only to criticism of the agent who manages its management - they must have 100% trust. I do not have enough time to read the comments in social networks, except that friends can send screenshots, and we can laugh together. My "favorite" comment: "I would like to take you to the forest and eat your eye there!" Often, they want to do something with me - of course, this is scary, but I try not to think about it, otherwise you can not leave the house at all, sit and be afraid.
Other comments that I get all my modeling career sound like this: "She's very thin, she probably takes drugs," "She looks like an alien or a man," "It's not her hair," "How can she exhibit semi-nude photos?" . I treat this with a positive attitude: neither strength nor emotion is enough to explain to someone that this is art or that I am not as thin as it may seem. Sometimes, when they get it, I get a bath, but this happens rarely. I have a very kind audience who sees me as a heroine of fairy tales or Merida from Braveheart. I block a lot of negativity in the telegram, which appears after the stories, for example, about what the models earn besides modeling or what they have to go for the sake of space.
My main advice is not to react to the negative, to ignore, not to respond. It angers the most because people want to see the reaction: they tried, they wrote, but you didn’t notice.
“Once in an interview, Andrei Zvyagintsev said that for a“ creative ”person, the critic is like a dog for a lamppost. I don’t like these definitions of“ creative - not creative, ”but I agree here. rather good, competent kick.
I read comments in my social networks, but I do not react to everything. Negative statements are pretty often: sofa psychologists on the other side of the screen give me diagnoses, draw conclusions about my lifestyle, give stupid advice and instructions, someone goes by external data. Somehow I saw a girl's comment on this: "Sorry, I didn't create myself in Sims." In any case, the instagram such exactly not to be avoided. It seems to me that if a person puts out interesting things, then he signs up to be the subject of discussion beforehand - otherwise what is the point? You can simply close the account, but also uninteresting.
I have always treated this the same way: I try to keep cold indifference; too lazy to spend it. You do not need to pay attention, but if it is difficult, then you need to try to keep yourself as close as possible from such people - they are only eager for your reaction.
I bath users who endlessly flood, trying to remind myself. Perhaps they are annoyed that too many people, perhaps they sincerely do not understand why it happened. Someone is jealous, and someone, perhaps, is really annoying your image, and he is no longer able to be silent - he really wants you to find out about it and get into a corner. Maybe they see that there are some compliments under the photo, and they decide to throw in garbage so that life does not seem like honey. I noticed that so often make fake accounts, where there are zero publications, and children of eleven or twelve years old - but at this age some are aggressive and still don’t understand much.
Personal pages, if they are not under lock and key, are automatically public. This is a fence on which you can write anything. I do not scold vandals for vandalism and do not enter into disputes with a man who himself does not fully realize what he is doing and what he is angry about. In social networks they condemn my lifestyle and my profession in the spirit of “plants stand, only guitarists in the country”, but I didn’t come across any tin. Aggression, as it seems to me, has no focus - it's like saying obscenities to an open microphone, simply because it is open and does not interfere with speaking. Before, I deleted obscene or boorish comments or ignored them.
The last couple of times, when I was in a vulnerable state, I tried to talk to the commentator - in fact it turned out that he was simply offended by the whole world and this has nothing to do with me. The main thing to remember is that the trolls on the Web are just offended or angry people, and not your own mother and not Shakespeare's jester, who always tells the truth, even when trying to play the fool.
I have a positive attitude to criticism: without it, in my opinion, not a single case can be adequately developed. Of course, I mean constructive criticism, which is often quite difficult to obtain. It makes sense to turn to her for a person who understands what he is talking about. And the “Internet” and instagram are often too superficial, from the category “I like - I don't like, why - because”.
I mostly read comments in my social networks, but I have few followers: people who I already know or friends of acquaintances often write. Honestly, in my address I see negative comments rarely. Probably, I was just lucky and my profile is outside the zone of interest of people who are engaged in cyberbulling. But on the street a little differently: at least at a younger age, when I lived in Russia and wore short hair of different colors, there were more than enough commentators.
In France, my skinhead look also haunts some — but comments on the appearance of a person, of course, cannot be called constructive criticism. This is the fear of the other: why is he or she not so and not so? The easiest way to ignore such people - apparently, they have nothing else to do. This is such a way of emotional nourishment. Answer - just give a reason to continue. If you are a public person, you need to build up thick skin, because you will have to deal with bullying a lot.
I am positive about criticism; if it is adequate, I can listen to something. But I have never seen adequate criticism under the photos of models. Rather, it was an insult, the girls are always either “too fat for models”, or “painfully thin”, or, finally, simply “terrible”. I do not have the darkness of subscribers, so I don’t come across negative in the comments in my social networks. I don’t read what they write under my photos in profiles of other people or brands, I just don’t see any reason to waste time on it. I take everything with humor; once an inadequate woman wrote to me on direct, so I blocked her. I do not think that an adequate person will write insults to a stranger.
Unfortunately, few people think that there are a lot of teenagers among the models. Naturally, a positive stream of insults and negative will not affect anyone. There were cases when, in the social networks of the brand with which the model worked, they left comments in the spirit: “Why did you take such a terrible girl? Even you don’t want to buy things”. After that, the girl lost a regular customer. People still do not realize that the Internet is not their personal diary, where they can write whatever they want.
Even famous people should not face insults in their own social networks. If someone does not like them, you can simply not go to their page.