Dreams of Vengeance

            Many of our thoughts or memories from middle school come with the thought “I’m counting down the days till middle school becomes a thing we can refer to in the past tense.” Then we all theoretically “move on” and laugh about all of those silly things that happened that were humiliating and relish in how fabulous we are now. But what happens when you have a daughter or a niece or a close family friend’s 13-year-old queer child who is going to school each day ashamed, insecure, or terrified of what the “popular girls” are going to put them through today? Do you sit and calmly reassure them that it will be better one day, or do you put on your “steel-toed ass kickers” and march down to that school?

            Ayun Halliday writes about her feelings as her daughter lives a similar experience in middle school. She talks about her “dreams of vengeance” for her daughter and the surreal and liberating experience it would be to tell-off Emma (the clique leader) and “totally shaming her into realizing what an awful person she’d become and all her friends were there to witness it”.

            Overall, most young people experience bullying at some point from elementary to high school, but technology gaps and advances look differently over time, class and geographic location. In the article “Mean Girls: Making it Through the Misfortunes of Middle School”, Halliday also discusses the differences in how relationships are formed and maintained with the advent of Facebook. She writes,

           

“Facebook can be a great reward for those of us old enough to wonder what ever became of all the folks we lost along the way. But thank God it didn’t exist when I was in middle school. Overhearing classmates chattering on about their in jokes, social hierarchies, and the many parties to which I’d not been invited was fun enough as it was. No need to compound the gaiety with an avalanche of photographic evidence.”

But it goes far beyond just photographic evidence reminding one how marginalized from the “in group” they were. Facebook and other social networking sites have transformed relationships, especially among the young people who use these sites most actively and regularly. The effects of being cast of being marginalized are exacerbated by repeated photographic evidence, by the ability for people to so immediately and readily “comment” on one’s entire life essentially. Now, groups of students don’t even have to be communicating with one another to collectively target another unfortunate teen.

            Once ridicule and humiliation happens now as it does over the internet, it cannot be forgotten or move past as readily as if it was not immortalized online. Pictures, statuses, clips, videos, conversations…etc can all be accessed at any point, by any computer theoretically and can never really be deleted or erased. “Screen shots” and the “save image” option make every decision, every fault, every wrong angle, every grammar mistake, every slip or accident subject to infinite mockery, which is a far different dynamic than any other generation. We may have been able to forget our misfortunes in middle school, but what about the future generations where technology dictates nothing can be erased and nothing will be forgotten?