What up, guys?
Kristin, here from "Be My Travel Muse" coming at you from a beautiful day in Berlin, Germany.
Today, I have kind of a different topic, I guess you can say.
I have had an interesting past month with one follower in particular.
So it started out as what I really thought was just a joke.
I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and I got a really weird comment from someone
offering me money for a selfie.
Just to kinda give you a little bit of background.
YouTube is a new platform for me, but I've been traveling and blogging about solo female
travel for almost six years now.
So my main things have been my blog and Instagram, so these are platforms where I have a bigger
following and this is, kind of, where it all started.
This was back in April.
It's been an ongoing thing, but after this first comment, I was like, "Oh, haha, that's
kind of funny," laughed it off and try to forget about it.
But then I got a comment from a girl account saying, "This guy is legit.
Let him send you the money."
And I was, like, "This is so weird," so I deleted everything and, yeah, just let it
go.
But then a few days later, I got messages from another account and using the same avatar
and just a slightly different name, saying the same sort of stuff, like, ''Please send
me a selfie for $10,000."
So it went up, you know, that was nice, I guess.
And switching from not just following me on Instagram, but over the last few days, it's
increased in frequency and it's actually going to my email inbox now.
And he's found me on Facebook, so I just received a friend request from this guy or at least,
you know, his alias.
Then also commenting on my blog, sending me emails.
Really just trying to cover all the bases aggressively requesting a nudie selfie from
me.
Now, this person has probably created a good 30 accounts now, all of which I've blocked
and reported to Facebook, which unsurprisingly, isn't really doing much about it.
You know, it's not really fun getting harassed every time you open up your phone.
It made me not want to go on Instagram.
It made me not want to share what was going on with my life because I know who's watching.
You know, it made me feel a little bit unsafe for a while.
And there are feminist writers out there who get it so much worse than I do, in terms of,
regular death threats.
Although I did get a death threat on one of my videos on this channel, so that was interesting.
I do get troll comments from time to time and most of the time, what I decide is this
person is in pain and this is how they're expressing it and it's really not personal.
And I do tend to think that's what's going on here as well, even though I've said, "No."
And this person has said, "I will not stop."
Despite that, I've really gotten to the point now where I can just ignore it, I don't care
anymore.
But I want to address a bigger issue here.
I think that there is no surprise that the comments that I'm getting from this person
are on photos where I post an empowering caption and where I'm, sort of, encouraging other
women to get out there and do the same.
This person is saying things like, this $10,000 could help you so much.
But the fact is, I started a business from the ground up and built it all by myself and
I don't need anyone's help.
And I think that this is where it can be very threatening.
I also encourage other women to do the same thing, to really be independent, and not depend
on anyone, and go get their dreams.
And I think it's a beautiful thing when everyone can do that for themselves, so that is very
threatening to some people to see a woman so empowered.
And I believe that's what's really going on here with this person.
I believe that he is expressing some pain, some really deep pain here and loneliness,
profound loneliness.
And once I started to see it at that way, I started to really pity this person and all
the people who leave trolling comments because it's not about me, it's not about someone
wanting to see me naked, I believe.
I believe it's more about someone being so painfully lonely, that he will continue to
make accounts just to try to get me to respond in some way.
There are a lot of options out there for you, even if you don't want to leave your house,
even if you feel very isolated and alone, you can find communities where you can share
how you're feeling, whatever issue that you may have that makes it difficult for you to
connect with people in real time.
If you want to reach out and be honest with me about what's going on with you, maybe I
can help in some way, you know.
Empower yourself to heal.
A lot of people advised me to not speak out about it, to just kind of pretend like it's
not happening.
And all too often, women are encouraged to be quiet about it, just ignore it, hopefully,
it goes away.
And this is horrible, this is something that we can't stand for anymore, and that's why
I'm speaking out.
To be completely honest with you, I shot a different version last week where I was a
lot angrier and I wanted to call out this person by name.
And then I realized I don't want this to be what that's about.
I want this to be a message that's greater than one person.
Thanks for pointing out to me that as someone who encourages women and really wants them
to be empowered and strong, we have to address that we live in a society where stuff like
this happens and we need to speak about it.
We don't need to be quiet about it.
I want to send a very clear message to everyone out there who is also experiencing this or
maybe being the perpetrator of it, we are moving toward a reality where we are going
to speak out about things like this.
And hopefully one day, Facebook and Instagram will take a lot more responsibility when someone
is sexually harassing rather than saying, "We've looked into it and we found nothing
suspicious on this account."
Really?
Additionally, there need to be better resources out there for women who are suffering from
this.
A lot of feminist writers out there get death threats, rape threats, and they're basically,
kind of, just left to deal with it and hope that no one actually makes good on that threat.
There are a lot of stories and resources that I've been looking into to learn more about
this.
And what I'm finding is really shocking.
So I think we have to talk about this stuff, I think we have to be very open about it and
we have to say, "No.
It's enough.
And this is where it ends."
And there's one huge thing I'll need to address before I end this video and that is that men
are not the enemy.
I don't believe that demonizing anyone is the answer to this.
It's a small minority of people who are just really sick and they need to get better.
And by having open and honest conversations, we can absolutely get there.
So I have also asked some other female bloggers about their experience.
And I included a lot of resources and information that I could find in a blog post about the
topics, so give that a click.
It's in the show notes below as well.
If you want to share your experience or your story, please feel free to leave that in the
comments.
And to the person who is following me and popping up in my inbox and my feed constantly,
get some help, do what you can to heal.
And I just want you to know that you've been a little bit careless and it's pretty easy
for me to take this further if I need to now.
So thanks, guys for tuning in to this super important topic.
I hope that you've found something here that was useful to you or you can relate to maybe.
Subscribe to this channel for super empowering travel videos that most of the time, take
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Thanks, guys.