This Is Not Okay

Hello, lovelies!

I was scrolling through Twitter the other day, and I saw a picture that completely shook me to the core.

My first instinct was pure shock. I reread what the caption was, and slowly, as it sank in, my shock turned to fury. The internet is full of cyberbullies and people who will spit disgustingly horrible things at you, but normally I think we find a way to look past that and focus on the positives instead. But this was too far. I was burning with anger. Not only because someone took pictures of this man in the first place and made fun of him, but especially because of what they called him. A "specimen". SPECIMEN. And on top of that, they added that he stopped dancing when he saw them laughing, which means for sure that he was hurt. So not only did they laugh at him, but they decided to share what they thought was hilarious with the world, to try to get millions of other people to laugh at him too.

I don't remember the last time I got this angry about something. This was some random guy I'd never met, but I couldn't believe how awful this picture was. How dare someone rip apart another person just because they're different, and because they don't fit the social ideal? That is not okay.

Let's fast forward to the next day, as I returned to the Twitter black hole of the internet. There was a woman named Cassandra who had tweeted that she and a group of people in Los Angeles wanted to find this man and see if they could do anything to make him feel better. She was asking people to help her find him, so that they could have a dance party and give him a chance to simply enjoy life instead of being ridiculed.

Even people like Pharrell Williams (who wrote the song Happy that everyone adored) got involved.

This made me feel so much better about the whole ordeal. Yes, this man would still feel emotional scars from it, but I was so happy that there were people in the world who thought that it was just as wrong as I did, and that there were others who were willing to step up and do something about it.

Even so, this picture should not have ever circulated. I hate that someone was laughed at and ridiculed just because he was seen as overweight and some sort of circus act to poke fun at. Let me just give you a little bit of Seana advice, okay? Do not ever purposely tear someone down just because it seems funny to you. You don't know what their life is like, and one snide comment from you could break their heart for good.

In honor of this brave man, who has been found and is going to party like there's no tomorrow, go say something nice to someone today. Give them a hug, and tell them how much you love them. It's not worth it to destroy someone just to make yourself feel better for a few seconds. Why not spread some love today and make someone feel good instead?

I have no idea if any of you saw this whole thing going on the other day on Twitter, but if you did or this is your first time hearing about it, please let me know what your thoughts are in the comments. (:

That is all.

Cheers,
Seana

(Also, apologies for a week hiatus. Things got hectic and I barely had time to breathe! Things should be slowing down for a while now, so hopefully I get more chances to hang out with you lovely people.)