Amanda Hocking

Amanda's Blog Post

Enough Already

August 26th, 2011 by
This post currently has 68 comments

We have become a society of bullies.

The magazines, the television shows, the twitter, the youtube – so much of it is about making fun of somebody else. Most of the time, it’s celebrities, and we all seem to think that’s okay because celebrities aren’t people. If you’re famous, it’s automatically assumed that you’re made out of the same material as Barbie, so no matter what is said about you, it can’t hurt.

I am so sick of making people famous just so we can hate them. This whole thing with the Jersey Shore and the Kardishians. People never say anything nice about them, bitch about them being famous, and then keep watching the shows to keep them famous. It’s like we’ve been addicted to looking down on people.

(Side note: I do watch the Jersey Shore. But I watch it because I like Jenni, Snooki, Pauly, and Vinny. I think they seem like nice people, and Pauly is really funny).

Making fun of people has become a part of our culture, and I’m not expecting to change that. But I am sincerely asking that everybody stop with the kids – and I mean all kids, from Justin Bieber to Rebecca Black.

I just this really inspired post by Jensen Karp, who is a generally very funny person which is what made this piece so moving. I urge you all to check it out: Why My Daughter Will Never Have a Webcam: The Jessi Slaughter Story. (You should also follow him on the Twitter, because he really is hilarious).

But this is something that’s been on my mind for awhile. I actually wasn’t familiar with the whole Jessi Slaughter debacle until I read that post by Jensen, but I’m getting so sick of the way people talk about kids.

Take Rebecca Black. She’s thirteen years old. I want you to remember your thirteen-year-old self and how most of you would be thrilled to have a recording contract and also probably not be world weary enough to realize how terrible the song was that you were recording. You didn’t write it or produce it, and you don’t know enough about the music industry or even music in general to know that this wasn’t going to make you the next Miley Cyrus.

She was vilified in a way that is totally inappropriate and completely unjustifiable. She is a kid who dreamed of being a singer and sang a crappy song. She did not kill a million Jews. She is not responsible for the recession. She didn’t step on a puppy. She sang a song.

I haven’t gotten 1/1000th of hate mail she’s gotten, and I’m an adult, and I find it rough sometimes. I cannot imagine what that must be like for a child.

Really, honestly, Jensen said everything better than I did. So read his article.

But I beg of you, when it comes to kids, enough already. I don’t care if they’re in the public eye or not – most of them don’t even realize what that means. They’re just kids doing stupid stuff. And nobody deserves to be ridiculed, humiliated, and judged like that just for being an awkward adolescent. 

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  • Great entry. I’ve ranted and blogged about the same, the way American society and media (which gets its roadmap from what we, the public, have shown that we will watch, read, blog and talk about) create and then destroy adolescents (Britney Spears) and those who’ve become addicts or demented (Lenny Dykstra). I call it bear-baiting, after the wonderful Elizabethan sport of tying bears to a stake, and then unleashing dogs upon them. Sure, the bears fight off all the dogs for awhile, but soon they tire, and then one dog nips and bites it, and then them all…And the people laugh and clap and cheer. High school hallway fights are much in the same vein.

  • Nacomy Blue says:

    I totally agree.

    I think we have brought up a society that needs to put others down so that they can hide their own flaws and faults.

    It’s sad really!!!

    Great Post!!

  • Anonymous says:

    I’d been thinking quite a bit about this topic, Amanda. Yours was the springboard for my current FB Note. I agree with you, and appreciate this post.

    Agy Wilson
    http://www.Yellapalooza.com

  • J. Sterling says:

    i PROMISE you- everyone who talks trash about all those people… do it because they don’t KNOW them, they never think they’ll KNOW them and they never have to OWN UP TO THEIR WORDS OF HATE! being from LA, working in the entertainment industry- i have a lot of friends that people like perez hilton and so forth talk a lot of smack about.. spread lies.. say mean, cruel things. because it’s easy to be mean and awful when these people we talk about are simply “celebrities”.. and not our “friends.” you know? i’ve done it- i’ve talked badly about a celebrity, only to meet them at a later point and time and feel like an asshole because now i actualyl LIKED the person- and here i was, making fun of their gigantic forehead or something, as if i’m some perfect work of art (as if!!!)…

    anyway- it would be better if we gave those kinds of people (the exact OPPOSITE OF PEREZ HILTON) attention and made POSITIVE messages, and nice things said about celebrities just as popular as we do the mean, awful, negative, bashing and tearing down things….

    one post at a time i guess?

  • Jess says:

    I recently noticed some bullying against a 13 year old girl who had commented on a book review I wrote, and it seriously made me sick to my stomach. The adults can throw mud at each other all they want, but I put my foot down when they started threatening a little girl. I might link the review back to your post, if that’s alright.

  • PJ Lincoln says:

    I agree, Amanda. Jealousy is at the root of a lot of the hurtful things people say and do. The old Eagles song, “Dirty Laundry,” sums it up pretty well, I think.

  • Redblog says:

    your post made me think a lot, it doesn’t matter who you are, you deserve respect. Thanks

  • I completely agree. I think about my 2 kids growing up all the time and am scared to death that they’ll get picked on or zoned in on by the other kids and ridiculed because people/kids can be so cruel. So much has changed in tofday’s society than sixty years ago, but you didn’t see the kind of blatant, cruel kind of bullying that you see now-a-days. What’s scary too though, as you touched on, is that there are so many adults that do the same thing, that are so mean without reason. I read something a couple months ago that almost led to a very similair post on my blog. It was a picture of Kristen Stewart from the MTV movie awards and everyone commenting was ruthless and so mean without justification. It’s one thing to say you thought someone’s dress was ugly but people were tearing her apart limb from limb saying how ugly they thought she was. I found it appauling that they felt they could insult her like that just because she’s a celebrity. Frankly, to others like me reading the thread, it made them look really bad (although I’m sure they didn’t care).

  • Jesse says:

    Problem is, you’re preaching to the choir, darlin’. Too bad the ones who really need to hear this, won’t.

  • Stephanie says:

    I couldn’t agree more, but no one at any age should be bullied.
    I also watch Jersey Shore for the same people, Pauly is hilarious, and we rewind it all the time just to catch little stuff he says. Who cares if they are famous for being famous? Haters be jelly!!