Remember in high school where we had certain cliques? There were the athletes, band kids, theatre kids, student council, weirdos, etc. Everybody had their own group. But remember when people started to spread rumors? Not only did they spread to people around the school; those rumors spread to social media. Whether it’s the latest on who did what with whom last weekend or inappropriate pictures that nobody needed to see, I thought we would leave it in high school when everybody went their separate ways.
Apparently not.
People still act the same way in college.
You would think everybody would mind their business and go on about their lives because we are supposedly adults. Try again. It’s like high school 2.0. All those exposed pages that people post “anonymously” to apparently never go away.
Not every college acts the same way. Or each college has their own way to be childish. So you may think “my college/university doesn’t do such nonsense.” That’s where you thought wrong. Everybody talks about everybody. It’s just how society works. What’s worse is that you would never know.
Like high school, the rumors are mainly about the most popular at the school. So, if you’re like me and have no idea who they are personally, you already have a bias about someone you don’t know. “Oh this what he/she does in their free time.” A lot of the times it’s fake or made up. Which I don’t have the time or energy for to figure out. If it’s true….Well.
People are constantly slandering others and their reputations behind this mask we created for ourselves on the internet and it’s pitiful. Keep that same energy in person and stop making it public if you wouldn’t say it to the victim. The real tea is think if we did all of this on Facebook where our families better, yet our parents saw. Our “innocent” lives would go down the drain very fast and we would never hear the end of it when we come home from the holidays.
Now of course I’m guilty of entertaining the rumors because it’s interesting to see what people are saying about others. Is it right? No. Am I still laughing? Yep. Not necessarily because what being said is funny (even though a lot of the comments and wild) but more by people are so bored that they say all this stuff for attention. Or what students say “clout.”
The real lesson that everyone should still follow is the golden rule we learned in kindergarten. Treat others how you would want to be treated. If someone posted something embarrassing about you, you wouldn’t like it. Some might just shrug it off and not be bothered which is great. For others it cuts down deeper than we think.
Cyber-bullying ring a bell?
At the end of the day, this stuff is getting old and it needs to be saved for the middle and high school drama days.