Game for Change

I'm Just Saying - game

The main thing I wanted to focus on with this game was, honestly, how easy it is to become a cyber bully. People are much more aware of it nowadays, as opposed to when I was in middle school--dreadful middle school--and had to deal with this new way of mean people making other people feel sucky.

Only that wasn't the only problem anymore. 

The classic bullies still got physical, but now anyone could sit behind the safety of a computer screen and say what they wanted without fear of physical retribution. 

That was of course middle school and these issues should've been left behind long ago, but the truth that I see is that it hasn't gone away at all, and part of the reason--the part that I wanted to focus on--is that in its adolescence, cyber bullying wasn't treated as wholly as it should have been. It isn't just mean people deciding to get on the internet and put other people down. It isn't always horrible things like "you should just die" or "you're such an idiot, no wonder your dad left" and other horrible things like that. Those are of course a huge problem, but there are secure ways of going about being confronted with that because it's so polarized. But cyber bullying goes beyond that. 

StopCyberbullying.org identifies multiple types of cyber bullies. Along with the "Mean girls" (the type that springs to mind) there are people who have arguably decent intentions, such as validating themselves as proud nerds or delivering what they perceive to be fair come-uppance, and even some who don't do intentionally; those who are impulsive and just don't think first. 

There are plenty of institutions being put in place to address these rounder cases, making sure that no one is denied help because the bully's intentions were "not to harm". Tumblr has a blog that post uplifting messages and hosts forums for people who have been bullied, allowing for interaction between those who have been targets, rather than those who might not empathize as much because their case might be considered "softer" than someone else's. 

Part of my choice in making the game as I did was just to draw attention to the fact that it hasn't stopped, even though it seems like people have stopped talking abut it. Cyber bullies have just gotten craftier, and people have stopped paying attention to what they say. It hasn't stopped. In fact, in the last couple years there have been more victims of cyber bullying than there ever were when I was in middle and high school. 

It's not something to be forgotten about. Just because you and I might technically be adults doesn't mean we can't fall victim anymore. Age doesn't matter behind a screen.

Even worse than ignoring it is becoming part of the problem. When we forget we get sloppy, and when people get sloppy they don't stop to think of the person who actually reads what they're typing.