Everywhere You Go, Like MTN: The One That Follows You Into the Bathroom

Looking back, I cannot recall being bullied, but I can remember a classmate of mine, also my friend, who was slapped by one of these senior prefects back then in secondary school. It felt so wrong, though; that slap was painful because she later cried shortly after that. But later when we were talking about it that week, she said a lot of things, but I cannot recall all of them. But one of the things she made mention of was, “Dave, you know that slap really hurt me. Thank God people were not around, and the slap and the whole situation left me before I left the school compound.” The whole experience couldn't follow her home, including the slap and the senior. Even when we talked about our whole secondary school experience last year, she said she still has the memory but not the torment because it has a border that she refused to carry about. And yes, online bullying hits different. Because from what I have seen, it has zero border compared to offline.

When I open my X account sometimes and I see what people post, I see that when these people mean business and they decide to pull down another person, they usually go to the extreme, and they do it from a place of total comfort. They are sitting properly in the comfort of their homes, offices, or shops with their minds totally fixed, either laughing or with a straight face, while they continue to press and compose the bullying messages without remorse. And that barrier of “No one knows me” or “I just want to destroy the image of this person,” that distance and heartless mind, is what makes it uniquely brutal. When it comes to face-to-face bullying, that requires me looking into someone's eyes and deciding to hurt them anyway. But when I put myself into this online bullying, it doesn't require that, and that is why all those thoughts often flow like tap water because it only demands just a little thing with no human being. A lot of people's reputations have been destroyed online by online bullies, and they never feel any remorse while doing it because it took them less time and energy.

After some people got bullied online, I have seen how some reacted by just telling those who got bullied to just close that app like it was the best solution. They said it like their mental wounds have a flip switch where they can just turn it on and off. Just as the dismissal hurts, I can equally say that is the exact way the bullying does too. Because when something bad happens to our body, almost everyone can see it. But when such a thing happens online, only the person sees it. And such a thing can quietly destroy someone, which they bear the pains alone, and those who are around them can barely understand what they have been passing through. And when I look at it, that inside suffering that is not seen comes with a special damage.

Do not get my whole point wrong; physical bullying is not small either because it does it own damages and it leaves some kind of marks that hardly heals too. But when distance is created, physical bullying also ends because of the distance in-between. But when we look at online bullying, no matter where you go, it will continue to follow you there. Into those new jobs, new life, marriages, schools, environment. Because just with a old post or screenshots, all those old wounds that someone has closed will reopen at once.

It won't be bad that if both can be taken serious and handled the same way by law. But when we talk about the long term effect and how they can damage someone in the long run, I will say that online bullying has a longer, more dangerous effects. Because like I said earlier, you don't need to be physically present to get bullied online. Just a quieter reach is enough to keep breaking someone mentally.

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