I'm trying to think of another intro than "hey guys!"
or "hey there!" or "howdy doody!"
So this week's video topic is bullying. What do we do about it? Stay tuned!
So like I said, this week's video topic is bullying.
And I know it's been getting a lot of heat.
Not the good kind of heat, the bad kind of heat,
on the television, the radio, everybody's talking about people getting bullied
so I've been thinking about it, and I've kind of been hesitant to do a video
because I thought "well, I don't know what else to say, I guess,"
but you know, the other night I was contemplating, I thought "I think this is a good topic to talk about,"
because a lot of you have brought it up and said "Kati, I'd really like you to,"
And you know, I listen to you, so here I am.
But bullying is getting more and more prevalent.
And the main reason I think this is, is because of how accessible everyone is.
24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it never stops. Trust me, I know. The internet never sleeps.
(it never sleeps!)
But that leaves us more open and more vulnerable to more potential mean things.
Because when I grew up, not to age myself, but you all know that I'm a little bit older,
but I didn't have the internet the way that it is now.
I had a pager, (hey anyone have a pager? What good were those? No one knows.)
I also had my mom's cellphone, emergency use only, it had a battery that was like this big,
right, and you flip it out, you're so cool with your phone, right?
But I didn't have all the things that you guys have now.
We didn't text, we didn't tweet, I didn't have Facebook until I was in college,
we didn't have any of this stuff.
So what that meant was, there were honestly less ways for people to be mean.
How are you gonna get a hold of me unless you actually know me?
And I hang out with you?
And the easiest thing at that time in my life was if someone was mean,
I could just be like "I'm not gonna hang out with them anymore. I don't want to see them."
And voila! Problem solved.
Right? So, what do we do now? Because it's everywhere, all the time.
And I know for many of you, especially if we're struggling with something,
if we have depression, we have anxiety, we have an eating disorder, we have self harm,
and we're online and we're trying to get help for it, which is amazing,
but it can also open us up to people being really hurtful and really mean, and bullying.
Trust me, I even get it from people. I just ignore it, honestly,
and that's one of my tools!
Tool #1: Don't mess with "It"
If somebody sends you a nasty whatever, right, I'm just gonna say a nasty "thing,"
because it could be a tweet, it could be a message, it could be they poked you on Facebook
and then they sent, I don't know, they posted into your feed, there are so many terms now,
I don't know, but somebody's doing some mean stuff, don't respond.
And I know it's hard, but what I do is if someone's being really mean, is I vent to someone.
I vent to Sean, I vent to Liz, I'll call my mom and be like "you're never gonna believe this person's such a jerk,"
Right? So I don't need to talk to them, because that person's just really unhappy,
and they have no other way of expressing their unhappiness,
and they have no other outlet other than putting other people down for no good reason.
So as my friend Brit says, "don't pet it."
That's what she always says about people that are mean and bullying, "don't pet it, don't stir it up, let it lie there." Right?
So let's let it lie. And I made notes, handy dandy notes, because I don't want to forget,
because this is very important. Also, see, it's good that I write these things down
because sometimes I forget about it
Also, if this happens, if you're being bullied, if you're at school, if you're at the workplace,
and someone is being really mean to you and making you uncomfortable, tell someone about it.
I know, people are like "blah blah tattletale.." no!
You don't deserve to be uncomfortable at a place that you have to go to 5 days a week.
School, work, whatever it is, you deserve to feel safe, you deserve to be anxiety-free to some extent,
like if you have your own anxiety, I mean anxiety related to other people,
you deserve to feel okay there.
And it's not up to someone else, like they don't have that power over us! Right?
We are strong, we can fight. Don't let them take that.
We will tell somebody, hopefully a superior, go to HR if it's your work, go to HR and let them know.
You can do it anonymously, I know that because Liz works in HR (hey Liz!).
You can do that, and also if you're in school, go to your school counselor and tell them.
Go to your teacher, tell them.
I know some of you have told me you've had bad experiences with your teachers,
so that's why I'm saying school counselor,
because I think they're more well-equipped to manage this and deal with it,
and give you some helpful tools and things like that.
And don't be afraid to speak up,
because if it's happening to you, I can guarantee you it's happened to like 25 other people before now,
and they were just too scared to say anything,
so somebody has to speak up, right?
So we're not gonna do anything, we're not gonna respond, because we don't want to pet it,
we don't want to make it worse. And we're also going to tell someone.
I don't want to miss anything, and also as Miranda Sings says, "haters back off!"
Nobody likes a hater. Why are people so rude? Oh, and the last thing,
I would delete it, because for me, and I'm sure many of you are like this,
if I get something nasty, or if I get something that is, I don't know, the title even cues you,
You might know it's nasty from the very beginning. Delete it!
Because if we're feeling a little low and we're trying to feed that nasty voice,
that self harm voice, that eating disorder voice,
we'll go back and we'll read that! Argh! Why, why? But we do, it tempts us.
Like those nasty voices: "go read it? what if they have something to say, what if..?"
Who cares? They're nasty. Delete it right away.
And on the internet, the great thing you can do and I've done when people are just posting horrible stuff
and ridiculous things, you can flag it.
you can flag it. Flag as spam, delete user, block user, you can do all sorts of stuff.
The internet may give people a lot of access, but it also gives us tools to block them out.
So go into your Facebook settings, make things private,
unfriend people who you know are a link to that person and that's how they're getting through to your stuff,
because that's the tricky thing, friends of friends can look through, so sneaky!
But we can block them. So I would take that time, protect yourself.
We don't deserve to have these people, like I said, haters back off. So annoying.
I don't know why people are out there just to bully, but that's all they are, is a big ol' bully.
And those people are just hurting, and they have no other outlet,
and it's sad that they have to put people down to feel better.
And we're better than that, right? So no more bullying.
And keep working with me. I know that this is a big topic, and I just wanted to make it kind of short and sweet,
so that you have helpful tools that we can use right now,
because I know that for many of us this has been going on for years and years, right,
So hopefully some of those are helpful.
And because this has been such a hot topic, leave what's helped you below, please.
Because that's like I said, I grew up in a different time than now,
and you'll have some tools and some tricks and things that I wouldn't even have thought of,
So please please please leave your comments below about what's helped, what's worked, stuff like that,
and "like" it if you want me to keep talking about this kind of stuff.
That's how I gauge what to do and what topics to revisit, and stuff like that, is from the "liking".
And don't forget to subscribe to my channel, because I promise to keep putting out positive information
I know our community is growing and some people get scared,
they've been following me for a long time and they're like
"Katie, you're gonna go away!"
I'll be here. I'm always posting videos. And when I do, you wanna know about it.
So subscribe, leave your comments, and we'll work together - haters back off!
Fight the bullies, as we work towards a healthy mind and a healthy body.
I don't know why I do that, I kick my feet out like a little kid...
reminds me of that TV show when she's like, "and that's the truth,"
And she's in that huge chair, she's very small, because the chair is so large..
(sighs) Haters back off. Ain't that the truth.
Don't read it, delete it, don't respond, good good good,
Vent, yes, tell someone about it, flag it, yes..
Check check check!
Subtitles by the Amara.org community