a very fuzzy ‘bullying’ line
As anyone with a wireless connection knows, the last month and a half has brought about a new epidemic in our society; kids bullying other kids to the point of no return.
The state of emergency started when a few kids posted a live webcam of a fellow college student kissing another man, poking fun at the fact that this man was a homosexual. The joke was passed around on Twitter, and it ended up in a suicide by the boy.
While I spend a lot of my time joking on the Internet, it is things like this that really get me going. I watched Ellen Degeneres speak on her show’s set about this problem. I messaged Joel Burns on Facebook after he spent 12 of the toughest minutes of his life explaining to gays at a Fort Worth city council meeting that things get better, telling him how amazing I thought the speech was and if there was anything I could ever do to help him in his push to rid the world of this problem, don’t hesitate to reach out. Hell, I even wore purple the day you were supposed to wear purple, in my futile attempt to make a difference.
The entire Internet is down to back a movement like this, but then the entire world spends a Wednesday making fun of a guy with a mental disability he can’t help.
See, at something called Blizzcon last week, a gentlemen stood up during the question and answer segment of the convention, to pose a very detailed question about a wronged detail in World of Warcraft game. The young man, now dubbed “Red Shirt Guy,” slowly posed his question to the panel, who ended up telling him he was right about the mistake that Red Shirt Guy found, and that they’d change it. Instantly, the meme was born. His YouTube video has already garnished over 2.2 million hits. It was dubbed “The Nerdiest Thing You’ll Ever See” by Deadspin, a website initially put on this planet to focus on sports.
It was picked up all over the web, and people laughed and laughed at who this guy was and what the hell was wrong with him. It became such a big deal, that the young man responded in a YouTube video that lasts 1 minute and 16 seconds. The whole time I watched it, all I could think was how mad we get about gay bashing, yet the cheek we turn when someone tells us to watch something and make fun of it, even if we don’t know the backstory.
The Red Shirt Guy has Asperger’s Syndrome, “an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development. Although not required for diagnosis, physical clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently reported.”
He has a disorder that forces him to struggle with his ability to speak in social settings. This is one of the BIGGEST problems in this kid’s life, yet a lot of us sit back and laugh at it. “He’s a nerd!” “What a loser!” “Who is this guy?!?”
If making fun of someone for their insecurities caused a few kids to decide to end their lives early, how is this any different?
If anything, we should be praising him for standing up in a crowded room of fellow gamers and bringing up something to people he obviously respects. It was probably a huge moment for this guy, and if anything, we should be applauding him for having the guts to do this.
But we don’t. We sit here and laugh and call him names because, for some reason, this isn’t the same as berating a guy for being gay.
Hate it hate, and it comes in many forms. If this world is ever going to become a better place (And I’m not so sure that is possible), it is moments like this that we should handle with excitement, not negativity. We should be sending this kid messages about how well he performed and how tough that must have been, not calling him the leader of nerds and seeing how many page views we can rack in.
By doing so, you’re making the same mistake those kids did with the video camera in that dorm room. You let your stupidity overshadow your judgement.
