The Bystander and The Cyberbully

In this weeks reading week focused on cyberbullying and this had me thinking about something I witnessed on Friday. To begin, Danah Boyd defines bullying as “a practice in which someone of differential physical or social power subjects another person to repeated psychological, physical or social aggression”. What I saw was definitely an act of aggression, so much so that I had to call the police to intervene. To put what I saw simply, I witnessed a fight in-front of Venice High School on Friday before I was leaving to work. The fight was very bad, with a couple of kids throwing punches and others throwing each other into oncoming traffic.

I witnessed an act of real physical bullying, an all out brawl. The time was around three thirty and I was getting ready for work when I heard screams from outside. I live across the street from Venice High School and my view of the school is quite possibly too good. You may be wondering how this real altercation involves cyberbullying so I will elaborate. Amongst the screams of kids both yelling for the fight to stop and others yelling for the fight to continue I saw the something the left me in shock. While I believe violence should not be used or considered, I do feel that fights are ultimately inevitable, especially among high school boys.

 

I watched a group of about four or five boys throwing punches at each other. Throwing each other on the ground and kicking each other. I even saw one kid almost get hit by a car. What left me the most scarred emotionally though, were the bystanders. I watched in a saddened awe as stampedes of kids were watching the fight. Not only watching but recording and taking pictures with their phones. I saw just about every kid pull out their phone to to record this fight in some way. It blew my mind that instead of trying to stop the fight, it seemed as though these kids were too busy trying to get the perfect video, or snapchat of the altercation to do anything about it.

I called the police and within a couple minutes they came and as soon as the sirens rang all of the kids ran in spearer directions. It was as if someone had poured liquid into an ant hill and all of the ants were rushing to escape. It was definitely a sight, but in the back of my mind I had this lingering feeling of despair. I was left feeling that these kids were too concerned about taking the perfect picture of the fight to do anything. I was left wondering if anyone else tried to stop the fight, if anyone else called the police. Worst of all I was left wondering how long the fight would have gone on had I not called.

So after reading this week I am left wondering. Would Danah Boyd classify a bystander as a bully. I ask this because I imagine plenty of these kids posted the fight videos on snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and even youtube. I believe that sharing and further exposing this fight online is a sign of bullying. In this weeks reading, hen cyberbullying is introduced, Boyd writes that the “persistence and visibility of bullying in networked publics” enables “larger audiences to witness acts of bullying”. Again, by posting this online these kids are only enabling more people to witness the fight, creating a larger audience.

I hope if anything, that because of the amount of potential footage available, justice will prevail. After that experience I feel more and more so that I am loosing faith in humanity. We live in a world where people are more concerned about taking a perfect snapchat than intervening and helping those in need. I am still left in awe. I wonder what Boyd would make of this situation.

– Felipe

One thought on “The Bystander and The Cyberbully

  1. samanthaong

    This reminds me of people who slow down on the freeway just to watch an accident. People seem naturally drawn to disaster and calamity- even the media seems to enjoy reporting on disasters and fashion faux pas more than, say, the latest Nobel prize winner.

    Regarding your question about whether bystanders are considered bullying- I would say that bystanders are complicit with the act in not taking action against it, but in some sense, sometimes people just don’t know how to react in a situation. Snapchatting the scene is probably worse than just watching though- might be as bad as the Auschwitz selfie.

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