Cyberbullying In The United States

Cyberbullying is widely recognized as a major issue in the United States and, when applied to teens and adolescents, is often credited as a major factor of Internet-related suicides. Although cyberbullying is the broader term applied to suicides caused by cruel comments online, the more specific term would more often than not be suicide baiting, which is exactly what it sounds like: taunting and coercing and pushing someone into suicide. In her article “Twitter Trolls and the Refusal to Be Silenced,” Myisha Cherry provides one of the most classic example of a suicide bait message – “‘kill yourself before I do’” (Cherry 222). Suicide baiting is a disappointingly frequent occurrence and the current preventative measures that are in place aren’t
However, this is not the case, because suicide baiting isn’t strictly Internet-based like cyberbullying is; it can happen offline just as easily. However, suicide baiting someone in person is much harder and much more risky for the person doing the baiting, since not only is the victim usually able to tell who their tormentor is, but if they have both a face and a name, they can report the baiter to the proper authorities, making punishment much more likely. Suicide baiting tends to be short-lived when it happens offline, because the baiter can physically see the emotional and psychological damage they’re doing to their victims and that, in turn, takes its toll on the baiters themselves. Since the Internet offers anonymity and easy, uncomplicated emotional distance, it has quickly become the more heavily used method of suicide baiting. In her article “The Art of Digital Breakup,” Lisa Bonos explores the ways that the Internet removes emotions from situations that, had they taken place offline, would have been highly personal and emotional (225). When she describes the issue with online reactions as when they’re “more callous than nice,” which is exactly the case (Bonos 227). It’s so emotionally frigid that it’s all too easy to be cruel to strangers, which is why baiters love the Internet so much. The Internet also almost entirely removes the concept of time
Victims of suicide baiting are often labelled as merely victims of “bullying” – or, in rarer cases, “cyberbullying” – when they’re noted by the media, if they’re mentioned at all. More often than not, suicides aren’t given any recognition in the news or by any sort of social media not run by their immediate family or close friends. And, when suicides do get public attention, it usually isn’t the helpful sort. For example, in 2010, Dylan Yount was filmed jumping off the roof of a Forever 21 building in New York (Samaha n. pag.). Even though upwards of a thousand people were crowded around the building, watching, no one bothered to call the police or try to stop him (Samaha n. pag.). Instead, they taunted and encouraged him to jump, then filmed it when he did (Samaha n. pag.). The video was later posted to YouTube by several of the spectators (Samaha n.