Unfriended

This is a real-life digital mystery, even though it's fiction.

Let's face it. It is a fantasy of anyone who has ever been cyberbullied.

It starts with a video of a girl passed out at a party, and the video, including suggestive viewpoints, was posted on YouTube. As what might happen in real life, there is a piling on of shaming and laughing at the subject. Her response was to post a video of her own: of her shooting herself in the head.

On the first anniversary of her death, a group of friends, who were part of the shaming, are trolled in a Skype call by an unknown guest who is using the dead girl's account. One by one, each of the group gets picked off and murdered online for all to see. The mystery person seems to be in control of their devices and they can't shut them off.

It's revenge on steroids.

While this movie only received one star in the cable description, I thought it deserved at least two and a half. 

Anyone who lives online like I do, who communicates mostly through video chat and Facebook, will not be able to look away. The entire movie takes place inside a Skype call and a Facebook chat. If you live in that world, you'll be able to relate.

It's a brilliant way to capture the essence of how this story line might impact the characters. The aesthetics could be better in that it was difficult to read the screenshots.

There may be a lot of people who don't understand the concept of this screenplay, not because of a generational gap, but because of the digital-analog gap. If you use your phone simply for telephone calls, you may not get this movie, outside of the creepy terrorizing part. 

But for the targets of cyberbullies, we can only dream.

Winning Against Your Childhood or Online Bullies

Leonardo DiCaprio paints Kate Winslet

Success is what you would call the last laugh. Imagine if these targets had given up?

Never let someone else dictate your life based on what they might perceive as a flaw. It's only a flaw to them, to you it is your strength and your power.

So what do Kate Winslet, Eminem, Jackie Chan, the Dutchess of Cambridge, Elvis Presley, and YOU have in common?

Kate Winslet was called "Blubber" in school. Perhaps there was an internal smile of revenge during the scene in Titanic when costar Leonardo DiCaprio was painting her naked.

You will be empowered when you click this link.

Growing a Thicker Skin Is the Upside of Being Cyberbullied

"It has shook me to the core."

That is how +Stephanie Frasco describes being cyberbullied by an adult.

It's true that even if your intentions are good in doing, saying, or sharing something, there are people who will rake you over the coals for it. Haters hide behind the keyboard, lying in wait, for the sole purpose of ruining someone's day and there is no amount of explanation or counter-argument that will be good enough to get them to stop or take it back.

Stephanie responded to the web by posting this blog piece, to which her key advice is to just play nice.

That's probably the best advice ever. By fighting hate with love, venom with inspiration, we can change the Internet for the positive, one post at a time.