"Be Kind”: Stop Preaching. Start Practising.
Through recent events, specifically the tragic death of Caroline Flack, the world is continuing to unveil and discuss the power of social media. With its benefits of sharing, socialising and celebrating, sadly there also comes a lot of cruelty and pain. Social media is, of course, a factor to blame but then again, is it just a platform that encourages and allows interactions that are already occurring in real life? The nastiness seen through tweets, direct messages and comments was and still is very much present within non-virtual settings as well. If we can’t just blame social media, what can we blame?
Nastiness is embedded into the world in one form or another and we’ve all been a part of it. Whether that be giving, receiving, contributing or even just watching it happen. Shamefully, I remember when I was young, finding it extremely hard to give people compliments. I remember actually feeling and thinking ‘I don’t want to compliment that person’. That thought existed because of jealousy. I know that now. But at the time, I embraced a jealous culture of hostility, a culture that was particularly significant within the female community and I thought that it was normal. I thought it was normal to not want to be nice to someone.
Without polarising nasty and nice into their extremes, I don’t think I was nasty or lived in an outwardly nasty world but what I was embracing definitely wasn't a nice attitude. This makes me wonder, does the ability to practise kindness rely on progressively learning it? Is it entwined with human growth and development? Does the ability to be kind and celebrate others depend on your own ability to be kind and love yourself?
I believe I can begin to answer these questions by thinking back to a community where that hostile culture was the norm.
A place where there was malice, disunity, self-deprecation, loneliness and facades wherever you turned. That's right, I am talking about the hell hole that is secondary school. Okay, maybe I’m being slightly dramatic... I have many fond memories from being a teenager. I made the most incredible friends of which I am incredibly grateful and proud to still call my best friends to this day.
However, I think there is a lot to say about the interactions that occurred during our teenage years. When life was so dramatic and exciting but also confusing and heart-breaking because, at that point, everything mattered. We knew no difference because that secondary school and the community that was established there became our entire worlds.
I’d like to start by saying that I don’t feel like I was bullied in school. I feel very fortunate that what I experienced was not on the same scale as to what others I know experienced. For me, when I think of bullying, I think of DARE in primary school. I think of the extreme, scary stories the teachers used to tell us about being coerced into taking drugs and a big bully in school that was mean to someone every day, that shoved people’s heads into toilets and gave people wedgies… okay maybe my understanding had been tainted slightly by American tv shows.
Either way, that is not what I experienced at 15/16 years old. I experienced bitchiness. The same bitchiness that still corrodes social media and has its devastating effects. The same bitchiness that I think every single girl and woman has or still experiences. I experienced dirty looks, mean comments, people laughing and sniggering behind my back, being vulgar to my face on the rare occasion they were feeling generous. But usually it was meanness in a less direct, snide and cunning manner, enough for the facade to hide it.
I know what you’re thinking, “stop being dramatic”, “that was a long time” “just forget about it”. Trust me, I don’t think about it every day, nor do I think it traumatised me in anyway but after a lot of self-reflection, I can see the effects in myself that those experiences had.
What I had to decipher between was who I was as a person and who I became due to some of these experiences. I can hold my hands up and say that I have always been a sensitive person. I accept that that is who I am. But equally, although I know it was not an effect of what happened, my sensitivity certainly didn’t help things. I do believe that some of my self-deprecating attitude, insecurities and paranoia that people don’t like me are effects of experiences like those and have stemmed from being a teenager.
You know the typical insults; slag, whore and bitch were regulars. On the odd occasion I got pancake tits… oh and I can’t forget the “I wish I could be like Charlotte Coleman because she’s so perfect”. The sarcasm there was ingenious...I remember going home an hour into a non-uniform day in school because I was so embarrassed and upset about the looks I was getting and the comments made about what I was wearing.
Even with my “pancake tits”, I was made to feel so slutty and dirty. I never wore that top again because I felt so insecure in it. But looking back on it, I couldn’t have looked more normal. Without getting too woe is me, I bet we’ve all had reality checks when reflecting on past moments. That moment when you realise that what happened was not okay.
But to be honest, I want to give a quick shout out to the girls that called me “pancake tits” a few times. I should thank them because after five years, a big budget and a big shopping spree in Anne Summers later, I had enough motivation to physically alter my body in order to feel good. I decided to get a breast enhancement.
Now, I’m not going to blame that decision on all on those comments- the shout out I just gave them is enough credit. I can't deny that vanity supported my decision because it did. I did want to love myself. I wanted to be able to look into the mirror and be happy with what I saw, despite all of the mean comments that tainted that view. I can't deny that my confidence has grown massively, my feelings of femininity that I once longed for, have flourished and I genuinely don't regret my decision.
But I also wonder, had I given myself more time, the time I think all of us need to love ourselves for who we are, not just what we look like or how popular we are, would age, personal growth and understanding have brought with it the opportunity to find my own self-esteem? I hope not because that money could have covered my trip to Australia...
In all seriousness, being a teenager is a really confusing time, your body is changing, you’re learning about the world, you’re experiencing new things everyday. So with the power of hindsight, I understand now my lack of confidence in the same way I understand all of the bitchiness. I think we needed these experiences of confusion and instability in order to grow.
Apart from my honesty at the start about my unwillingness to give compliments, I am being extremely self-indulgent and self-pitiful; talking one-sidedly about my experiences and being ignorant to the fact I was making myself out to be the good guy and those girls the baddies. Life isn’t as simple as a film or storybook in which there is one main character. We are all main characters in our own lives and ideally we’d all like to play the good guy but sadly that is not how it works.
We all play roles in each other’s lives and more often than we think, we can impact each other’s stories. I can imagine that from the perspective of those girls who made those comments, they were simply passing moments, insignificant to the point that I bet they don’t even remember saying them. And that idea hurts. It hurts because I remember every word. I can picture it in my head and even thinking about those moments now, I relive the vulnerability and embarrassment that I felt then. That one throw away comment from them, still causes me pain now. And that’s when I realised. What if I once made a throwaway comment? I don’t vividly remember making one, but why would I? I’m not the bad guy in my story so I wouldn’t remember making one. But another person might. So I’m sorry. I genuinely want to apologise if I ever made anyone feel vulnerable, embarrassed or hurt through a minor interaction that I can’t even remember being part of.
I would like to think that those people that once hurt me are also sorry. I’d like to think they have had a moment like I just have. Or maybe that is yet to come.
I strongly believe that through self-reflection and self-discovery, you understand what morals you want to live by. In order to do that, you have to undergo all types of experiences that life can offer in order to come out the other side. Through growing, learning and understanding myself I thank the people that were unkind and bitchy to me because I learnt from that bruising. I toughened my skin and I learned to appreciate what I did have rather yearn over things that I didn’t.
Yes, I still get jealous and want things that I don’t have- who doesn’t? But appreciating what you have, who you are and celebrating that is the key to having so much kindness that you have enough to be able to share with others. I know first hand the impact a dirty look can have. I have also now learnt the strength of a compliment and how easy and welcoming it is to give. Our generation has been given such a powerful tool that we take for granted and abuse everyday so let’s start sharing love and commenting with care. Let’s prove we grew up and out of that jealous mindset. Let’s stop preaching the words of Caroline and start practising it both inside and outside of our phone screens.
‘If you can be anything in this world, be kind’ Caroline Flack
RIP the beautiful Caroline Flack and anyone else that this world has taken too early but the limelight of being a celebrity overshadowed. You are all important.
Written by Charlotte Coleman
“Theatre and performance graduate from the University of Bristol, class of 2018. Now working in Student Recruitment and Outreach whilst attempting adult life in the big city of Brum. I am probably that person that takes life too seriously but I love creating, debating and discovering new things about myself. All of which I hope to overshare about in lighthearted but hopefully relatable writing.”