On bullies who target stroke victims

For those just joining us:

Lissa Albert is a Montrealer and a very active social media user. She lives in Montreal, and she chose to share in her feed something I felt was rather offensive to John Fetterman, Senator-elect from Pennsylvania, and a stroke survivor. As this wasn't the first time she's shared such offensive commentary, I chose to call her out - not because I have some unmet need to go down the social media rabbit hole, but because I know bullying when I see it, and I have no tolerance for it, particularly when it targets me, as well. Here's what I said:

Hey Lissa Albert, as a stroke survivor, I find it offensive that you, a supposed anti-bullying expert, would share this. Would you say these things directly to my or anyone else’s face? I suspect not. This saddens me tremendously. #DoBetter

Here was her response:

A self-described “wannabe-decent soul” doesn’t copy a post from someone HE blocked, using his wife’s account to circumvent access to their account, to try to twist something making fun of a clearly incapable political figure into a cyberattack on the person who posted it, and leaving it open for his friends to pile on with further cyberbullying.

A “wannabe-decent soul” wouldn’t do that, but would swiftly remove the entire post from their timeline to get closer to being a decent soul, instead of remaining a mere wannabe.

So I responded. Because someone seems to have missed my point. Because bullies always seem to think they're the victim. Or they're blind to their bullying. Or both. Because some folks will never get it.

And because it was too long for Facebookistan, so I moved the whole thing over here, to my blog. Let's have a look, shall we?

Ooh, touched a nerve, did we? I find it amusing that you’d assume I used my wife’s account to gain access to yours. How sweet that you think private means private in Facebookistan, or that it’s anything but trivial to pull a post off of anyone’s feed. Hold onto your naivete. For a “techno-geekette”, some might find it charming.

You deftly miss the point, as I expected you would. I called you out because of one post, among many, in which you wantonly chose to bully the now-duly elected Pennsylvania Senator because, as you say, he’s incompetent. (I’ve included another one, from your Twitter feed, over there on the right, lest our audience think this is an isolated thing. It isn’t.)

Let’s call a spade a spade, Lissa: he had a stroke. Yet for reasons clear only to you and your small band of largely anonymous digital randos, you derive glee in calling him out for…having had a stroke.

So here’s the deal. As you know, I, too, had a stroke. Like Mr. Fetterman, every day I wake up is a stark reminder that this happened to me. Every day is an opportunity to raise my middle finger to the universe and fight to do the things you and the tiny band of oh-so-clever social media warriors you call your besties take for granted.

So if Mr. Fetterman chooses to wear a hoodie, why the hell would you care? If it matters, I wear hoodies because, like many stroke victims, elevated sensitivity to touch makes it hard to wear tighter clothing. I can only wear one specific, very soft winter hat because all the others are just too tight and give me headaches. I choose to wear more formal clothing when I do on-camera media work, then as soon as I’m clear, I’m back to hoodies and sweats. but that’s my choice. Maybe Mr. Fetterman really loves his Carhartts. He’s served his community well, so I imagine he deserves to wear whatever he wants without comments from the peanut gallery.

You mentioned that I blocked you. I’m glad you did, as you deserve to know why. One day a while back, one of your rage-posts-to-a-journalist popped into my feed. Funny thing is, I had worked with this journalist many times over the years. She’s a passionate, dedicated media professional who’s paid her dues and then some. Every conversation I’ve had with her, I’ve learned something new, and she has always inspired me to raise my own game. As I was pondering the smallness of a world in which someone I called a friend would now spew digital bile at a journalist I respected, another rage–post-to-a-journalist of yours found its way into my feed. To another journalist who I had worked with.

See where this is going? Apparently this is a thing with you.

It bummed me out that you, someone who f-ing WENT to j-school, would dare to speak to anyone, let alone a working, respected journalist, in anything but the tone you’d expect others to use toward you. I shook my head ruefully at the irony of your profile description - "Cyberbullying Awareness Educator" - and thought back to the philosophy that took root after my stroke: spend time wisely, around people of substance, who matter, who care about others, who repair the world, who leave things better than they were when they got there.

And I looked again at your feed, with the potshots at working journalists and the elementary-school-bully-targeting of those just trying to get through life despite all the universe has thrown at them, and I realized you’re not it. It bummed me out that this was routinely hitting my feed, hence the block.

Your profile starts off with the degrees you’ve earned - yet to the best of my knowledge you, unlike the hated targets of your social media activity, have never worked in a newsroom, developed a beat, carved out a career, fought to work to keep the lights on, or tried to turn the other cheek in the wake of the relentless torrent of the social media peanut gallery. Instead you choose to spend your time spewing invective at people you’ll never meet while failing to share the full context of your privilege with the randos you gleefully feed off of. You engage in the very behaviors you claim to be an expert in identifying and eradicating - yet you patently fail to recognize that behavior in yourself. That’s quite the ironic legacy you’re leaving.

Far be it for me to dictate how anyone else chooses to spend their life. I don’t know what you do for full-time work, and honestly, I don’t care. But when your abusive social media messaging stream crosses into mine, and casts shadows on a community I involuntarily joined but am now a passionate member of, I’ll politely inform you that you’ll get no breaks from me because you’ve been my wife’s friend since way back when.

Your behavior normalizes bullying toward an identifiable group, full stop. One that I’m now a part of. And every time I get up in the middle of the night to write because my brain’s working overdrive, every time I pull together a story to pitch, every time I walk a colleague through a complex narrative and break it down in easy-to-digest bits, get on-camera, publish something under my name, or otherwise succeed at all those professional, keep-the-lights-on, battle-the-universe kinda work things that you’ll simply never appreciate, I imagine I feel a similar kind of accomplishment that Mr. Fetterman now feels. He beat the universe at its own game, peanut gallery commentary notwithstanding. You’d do well to learn from us both.

I’d invite you to call me so we can discuss this directly. My number’s easy to find, and you, like anyone else with an interest in engaging in fair and open discussion, will always be welcome to use it. I doubt you’d ever have the courage to do so, however, as you’ve made it clear, in deeds and words, that that’s not how you operate. Whatever. Don’t waste my time responding if you’re going to pretend to play the victim when you seem to ignore the fact that your chosen activities victimize others. Including me. And you’re kinda naive if you think I’ll stand idly by and allow it to happen. No matter who you happen to be.

As I said before, #DoBetter. Maybe even look in a mirror and think about hypocrisy and kindness - and our need to engage in less of the former and cultivate more of the latter. Then we’ll talk.

Best to Perry and the kids.

I'll let you know if this continues. If you're looking for the TL:DR version, it's this: bullies love to sit in their positions of privilege and use digital tools to remotely target their victims. We can either choose to do nothing, or we can weigh in and call them on it. I choose the latter, because maybe this time they aren't coming for you, specifically. But we all know how easily that can change with the stroke of a pen. Or the swipe of a mouse.