SHERBURNE – In response to a Twitter page created to bully her peers, Sherburne Earlville Central School student created a Facebook account to “spread love” by writing positive messages about her classmates in order to combat the negativity.
16-year-old sophomore, Colleen Eggers, never actually visited the infamous Twitter page that was a hot topic of conversation at her school, but she overheard conversations about it and saw Facebook statuses and tweets that egged the anonymous account on.
According the Eggers, the account was fortunately taken down, but she heard the page was “absolutely awful” in every way.
“The name was even ridiculous ... Not only was the person behind it cruel, but they were also extremely childish. It really frustrated me that someone would do such a thing,” said Eggers.
Eggers said classmates laughed about the bully account because they thought it was funny people were being “exposed” online “for no good reason.” Students were getting hurt whether they wanted to admit it or not, she said.
“At this point, [some students in] our school practically lost hope for some of our classmates,” said Eggers. “Students like to say bullying rarely happens, but that's only because we never really hear about it going on.”
The high school sophomore said bullying should be called “harassment” at this point, because students ages 13 to 19 are old enough to know better and that it is not “okay to be malicious.”
“The students who are harassed tend to keep to themselves. They're quiet and tend to try and stay out of the spotlight,” said Eggers.
“I see some people walk around with scars on their arms or legs. It makes you think about what drove them to do that. Was it their home life? Or was it someone's cruel words or actions? You never know who's getting hurt, and you never know what they're thinking,” she added.
Eggers said although minorities or students who do not fit into a “stereotypical clique” get bullied the most, you do not have to be “different” to get bullied. She said you can be “completely average” and still get picked on.
“The usual targets though are honestly some of the sweetest people. It just doesn't make any sense,” said Eggers.
Bullying does not only hurt the targets of the bullying, according to Eggers, it can also hurt the bully. She said it can hurt their future by parents pressing charges or their social life because “who honestly wants to be with someone who gets a kick out of calling someone ugly?”
After Eggers saw how students were negatively affected by the Twitter account and bullying in general, she became frustrated and decided to do something about it. She said she wanted to help people and make things better. Eggers also related to her peers who were being bullied, because she had her own experience with bullying after a fall-out with one of her friends.
“An old friend of mine would gag and call me fat or ugly. He always made sure it was loud enough for me to hear it. I was upset at first, but then I got frustrated once again. Why do people get away with this stuff?” said Eggers.
Eggers created the Facebook account called “Spread Love,” because she was tired of how mean people were and of her voice not being heard.
“I wanted people to hear me out and to stop feeding the Twitter account's ego. A girl who posted a status about how funny the Twitter account was had previously mentioned that she would get bullied at her new school. I tried to speak up and get her to see that people were probably feeling the way she felt. She deleted my comments,” said Eggers.
Spread Love started out with Eggers making random compliments about people and evolved into her receiving anonymous compliments about people from others and posting them. She said the account was made to see the good in people. She made the account anonymous because she said “no one would ever listen if they knew who was behind it all.”
“I receive many messages about how this page is affecting students. According to them, Spread Love is really great and is really helping people,” said Eggers.
“Mr. Sherry, a teacher from our school, told me he talked about Spread Love in his class and how it 'gave a voice to the voiceless,' and said he read a status about a girl in his class who cried tears of joy when she heard it. She had not heard about Spread Love, and apparently had been made fun of a lot in the past,” she said.
Eggers said when she heard the story about the girl in her teacher's class, she also started to cry, because she did not know she could affect someone “in such a way.” She was happy to hear that people were positively affected by something she did.
“Spread Love is important because it encourages us to embrace the kinder sides of ourselves. I think that Spread Love opens people's minds a bit. I think people become more aware of other peoples perspectives and how it could negatively affect them,” said Eggers.
Despite bullying at her school and the mean-spirited Twitter page being the catalyst for Eggers to create Spread Love, she does not really consider the account to be an anti-bullying page. She sees it as encouragement to be a better person.
“People seem to forget that we're all human, and we all have the same needs and emotions, give or take a few. I want to be able to walk through the hallways at school and see everyone treat others as equals,” said Eggers.
“I'd like to see the message of Spread Love branch out to other counties. And by 'message' I don't mean create another page like Spread Love, just to be a nicer person overall,” she added.
Eggers believes kindness is really what the world needs, and she hopes people take that message from Spread Love and pass it on to others.
For more information about Spread Love, add the account as a friend on Facebook.