Some thoughts

I guarantee this post will trigger contemplation and I would appreciate beyond belief if you read this, whoever you are.

I have this feeling that has been bugging me for a couple of years now, niggling away, and I think I’ve finally realised what it is.

I detest social media. I despise it because it ruined my life at one point, and because I see it ruining both my friends and my generation as a whole. And I’m reminded of this constantly. A conversation with three friends and my sister the other day at lunchtime really got me thinking.

What the hell are we doing?!

We are wasting out adolescent years and at this rate, our childhood too, living in an intangible, fictional online realm.

Our purpose as teenagers now is to create and uphold an online image by competing with our peers across the rest of the North Shore in grades both above and below us.

I am filled with fury and regret and pity and disturbance when I think of how close social media was to destroying me as person, and how I have seen it destroy others.

I feel obliged to explain why, and I don’t intend for this to be any kind of sob story because I do not want any pity or sympathy, or if it comes to it, praise.

I went to a public primary school and in Year 6, I had many guy friends. I had my first proper kiss at the age of about 11, and I kissed many guys in my grade during our games of spin the bottles in the playground and at band camps.

I eventually made it to high school, where in year 7, I was determined to be friends with the people my cousin had described to me as “popular.” Of course, I had a Myspace account, which was considered quite “cool” at this time.

I remember before I even began my first day as Year 7, I had netball tryouts with the girls that were soon to be my peers. I remember sitting there on the gym stairs, resolute in my attempt to make a name for myself on that day. Somehow the conversation was directed to the area of boys, boyfriends and kissing. By the end of the 3 hour tryouts I had told about 15 girls that I had hooked up with a boy named Darcy for 20 minutes at my year 6 dance and that he even felt my breasts. I had absolutely no realisation that that single confession had me heading on a downward spiral.  

The next incident occurred at year 7 Camp, week 3 of term 1. I barely new 5 people’s names, let alone enough about them to trust them. I was prompted by a girl who asked me more about Darcy. Again I told the story, and soon enough I had a crowd surrounding me. With the attention I gained some confidence. I said I loved him, and told them all what happened, not very much really. I was still innocent but I was obviously at a point where I was sexually inquisitive and I’ve realised now that feeling that way is nothing to be ashamed of. We all are, I guess I just acted on it more than others chose to.

From that camp, I suddenly had a reputation amongst my peers. And it wasn’t a positive one. I was called a slut, called disgusting, people were gossiping about me behind my backs because I had kissed a boy. My lips touching another person’s lips and it was as if someone had died. But to be fair, someone has to be the first girl to be gossiped about. Someone has to be the first one to have a boyfriend or to do this and that. And that is how I look at it now, I was that person and in the end I came out fine.

The year continued on and I had very few friends. Most of my friends were in fact people outside of school who I met on the Internet. I would go to Chatswood shopping centre on the weekends and hang out with people who had as cool a Myspace profile as me. People, I knew nothing about.
I had three boyfriends in that first year. Sure they didn’t pick me up on dates in their cars, but we spoke a lot through text and we went to the LAV dances together and we kissed. ¾ of the way into year 7 I’d romantically felt for about 4 or 5 guys in my life. Which implies that they were idiotic and immature relationships, but one wasn’t.

Then one Saturday, I met the guy who was to be my boyfriend for the following five months. This boy was far more innocent that I was. Regardless, we soon believed that we were in love with each other and to this day, I still think if it wasn’t love, it was a deep and caring friendship, while it lasted. This boy and I did everything together and had a pretty lame summer romance. I don’t want to drag this on longer than it needs to, but I went away with my family on a big holiday, and when I came back, he had been speaking to other girls on Facebook, (yes we’d migrated to Facebook by now,) and he dumped me the morning I arrived back home.

I was shattered. Not only had I lost the boy who I had whole-heartedly believed I would marry, he was interested in friends of mine, and friends of mine were on his side. It became this division of opinion amongst a previously close-knit group.
Not only had my world been turned upside down, but I arrived back at school and heard from one of his friend’s that he had told this particular friend that we had had sex. From there, rumours escalated to an incredulous extent. I felt like I was Cady in Mean Girls, one particular day I walked down the corridor and I could feel everyone’s stares and I could hear the whispers. Girls who I thought were my friends were feeding the rumour. Once a few people knew, it didn’t take long until I was known to the year above me, and to the three years consecutively below me. And this wasn’t just at my school; it was over the majority of the North Shore. Everyone knew my name, and who I had supposedly had sex with.

To this day, I meet people and I introduce myself and they say “Oh, Annie… wow, right haha”. Or they say, “Yeah I’ve heard a lot about you.” These comments still get to me. I had my little sister asking me the truth; I had my own mother hearing other mothers’ gossip about me. I had people not wanting to do groupwork with me because they were afraid my “slutiness” could be caught.

I can’t explain what it feels like to know everyone is talking about you behind your back, and not being able to explain. If I were to accept the rumours and act as if they were true, I would only become more infamous. I even had people sending me anonymous messages asking what I would name my baby. Like seriously? But denying them too, made people pity at me and call me an embarrassed slut.

I know that people still look at me and think, Annie… the girl who had sex in year 8. And it is so far from the truth, it isn’t even funny.

The whole point of this story is to explain how my name and profile being accessible on Facebook, lead to my infamy. I do not say that everyone was talking about me for attention, but it is the plain truth that most people I met from that point on had heard my name and knew a little of what was going on.

I am not defined by my past or my actions or the words that other people labelled me with. But I know that if social media hadn’t existed at this time, that girls in Year 9 at Wenona and boys in year 8 at St Pius would not blink if they had met me.

Ellie Campbell is one of the only other people I can think of who has undergone what I underwent. And she’s given me permission to mention her in this post. Ellie will be the first person to admit to anything she considers a mistake. And she is infamous, but her infamy is misguided. Having only heard of a single Skype call she made, that unfortunately went quite viral, you wouldn’t associate her with being the mature and intelligent person she is. Ellie is thoughtful and interesting and kind. She is bright and a human too. And I have heard so many nasty things said about her. I could tell you, in fact, 10 other people who have committed her so called “crime” too, of - (agreeing to the requests) on a webcam for a boy. I don’t understand. Ellie’s actions did not detrimentally affect anyone, yet we concern ourselves with her personal life. Why do we not blame the guy who sent the video around? Why don’t we gossip about bullies or bitches? It seems the people that are the most innocent and undeserving are often the ones dealt the most hate.

Social Media can help someone make a name for themself, but it is not necessarily a good one. Social media for me almost destroyed my happiness entirely. I can think of so many other times where social media was used, and the result was one that upset me. Relationship status breakups and the comments on those, the courage that people suddenly have to lash out on the internet. Facebook and Myspace rendered me in a light that made me appear stupid, idiotic, self-obsessed, thin, rude and popular. People would never have guessed that at the time I was fired abuse of being a slut (let's just keep in mind that the real definition of slut is someone who is sexually promiscuous with multiple men, and that there was no mention of more than 1 man I had been sexually involved with), that I was achieving straight A's, that I played the trumpet, that I was on the whole pretty nerdy, quite big and curvy (I managed to edit my photos to appear otherwise), and that all I really wanted was to fit in, rather than stand out, which is exactly what happened. 

Ellie and I, thanks to social media, and the morals, priorities and minds of our teenager peers will never be able to truly escape what people have heard, and the assumptions that were made, or are made about us. This brings me to my next frustration; recognition.

If you want to share this with your friends, please do. I think the post below is more relevant to a wider audience however, and it was written by my sister who is 15.
 If you agree with anything I'm saying or have your own stories I'd really like to hear about them, or post them. I have many more wider-reaching sort of posts I'd like to publish, but I guess I'll just see how this goes to start with.

Annie