Over recent years, it’s really come to light how much Social media Affects celebrities.
We have been investigating and getting real life case studies from influencers on how social media affects them and what its like being a social media influencer (Checkout our mini podcast interview to hear what they had to say).
This post is to raise awareness on online bullying and also to show that celebrities and influencers are just like use and do have feelings.
One celebrity that Social media really affected was Caroline Flack. I spoke about this on another post but I wanted to talk about it further here. Caroline's story really touched the nation when she passed away and it opened a lot of people’s eyes around Social media and trolling. Recently a new documentary has been released called ‘Caroline Flack, her life and death’, this documentary has shown further how much words can affect someone. As of February 2020 A new law was suggested and put together to take to parliament - Caroline’s law. This was first put together by Stephanie Davies after the sad death of Caroline Flack after she was the victim of harsh bullying from not only the public but also from many media outlets. The law is to ‘bring in new and stricter laws ar
ound safeguarding celebrities and people in the public eye.’ This petition got over 800,000 signatures, so a lot of people do want to see a change with what happens online but clearly there needs to be stricter laws to enforce it. Everybody deserves to feel safe on social media and not be at risk of having hate thrown at them for just trying to have fun. I really hope Caroline's story will change the way we all use Social Media and think before we say/type.
Another celebrity who has been at the front of alot of hate online is Jesy Nelson from little mix. In 2019 Little Mix star Jesy Nelson made a documentary with BBC about the hate she has experienced throughout her whole career.
In the documentary Jesy Nelson describes that what should have been the happiest time of her life when it was one of the worse. When winning Xfactor she was at one of the lowest points in her life because of the hate she was getting. She talks about all the weight she lost and how she was excited for everyone to see her on the Xfactor tour. However she got just as much hate as she did when she was on Xfactor originally. Jesy Nelson also talks in a BBC online interview about how "online trolls made me want to die." Its really important to her fan especially younger fans that no matter who you are, how skinny or big, people will always have something to say about you. And no matter what you do to change their words they will always want to bring you down.
In 2021 Jesy left Little Mix due to getting alot of hate and having panic attacks. This is the affect Social media has on celebrities!
How many times have you been scrolling through social media and have seen a hateful comment or a trolling comment? I must say this is a daily occurrence for me and one of the worse apps for it, is TikTok. Every single video gets hate and it’s turning Social Media extremely toxic. Many people’s attitudes are, ‘well they put them selves online so they should be prepared for the hate’ or ‘its only a joke’....... No, this isn’t the case at all, just because someone puts themselves online or in the public eye, it doesn’t suddenly get rid of all their feelings and they should never have to put up with it And how would you feel if these things were being said to you?
We need to make a difference because social media is going down a very dark hole and is beginning to be filled with so much hate and toxicity. One thing that a lot of people are suggesting is, that you have to be verified before you can create an account online so by ID or another form of verification so no one is anonymous and can be found if they leave hate or troll, I personally think this is a great idea not only will it mean people can stop creating fake accounts to troll but it means, it will be easier to find out whose behind it. What do you think of this idea?
Something definitely needs to change before more people become the victim of online bullying and trolling.
Please think before you type and report anything you see online that you deem to be hurtful, offensive or trolling. Let’s stamp out online bullying today.
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