Anonymity turns your insecurity into false bravery

She friended him on Instagram because she thought the request came from a kid at school.  I have told them, from the time I granted supervised access to social media, not to friend anyone they didn't know in real life.  The only exception being, of course, Harry Potter.  Obviously, a wizard is an important ally in this muggle world.

So she allowed a kid she thought she recognized to follow her on Instagram.  Harmless because she posts pictures like 

And 

So what harm could come from showing her perspective to the world, right?

Wrong, of course.

Enter this person

This person went on a two day campaign of tagging my child in memes like "ugliest person on the Internet".  This person who, it turns out, has never met my child.  This person who, it turns out, actually lives in Texas.  This person who, it turns out, is just too far out of my range of annihilation.  

He hurt my child.  Obviously for no reason and obviously out of insecurity and inferiority.  But none of that mattered to the big brown eyes that poured out pleas for help.

So I researched.  I enlisted help from anyone I thought could give it.  I waited impatiently.  And all I could discover was his location and complete lack of responsibility.  The Internet offered him anonymity and he used it to interfere with my child.  To wander into her days and cause her to doubt things everyone who actually knows her tells her in real life.

Because that's what we do, right?  We, the "good" guys, allow the opinions of salt shakers (his Instagram profile) to shape our views.  While the bad guys hide on their neighbor's wifi and spew ignorance and judgements.  We set aside what we know to be true for things that maybe could be true because why else would a stranger say it to me.  

We give power to the simple minded and the weak.  We give our power to the unworthy and the cowardly.  Until we realize that those living in the shadows are there because we put them there.  They are living in the shadows of the rest of us who can stand tall enough in the light to cast a hiding place for the inconsequential and the insignificant.

My child doesn't stand in the light for this punk to hide behind her.  She stands there because that's where she belongs.

I can't talk to this person's parents, but I can tell my child exactly the same thing I would've told them.

He is nothing on the map of my kid's life and will be forgotten by next month.  As he should be.  But if I ever see him in real life, the shadows won't help him.