There is sometimes a fine line between being the victim of a bully or a bully yourself and social media makes it harder to keep the distinction.
For those of us who found school to be a less than jolly experience, Channel 4's series Educating Yorkshire on British television has sometimes made for painful viewing. The cameras followed the children and teachers at Thornhill Community Academy near Dewsbury for seven weeks last year, and last week the
second of four episodes was screened. "Groups, cliques, tribes," said the blurb; "call them what you like, they have always been at the centre of school life."
Thursday's episode focused on two groups: the cool girls and the geeks. The cool girls admitted they "tease" the geeks and call them names. The geeks said they didn't know what they had done to deserve such abuse. So far, so typical of school life, and, apparently, of exploitative reality television.
The programme focused on two incidents in which a "geek", Jac-Henry, lashed out physically after being "teased" by a girl called Georgia. The programme is fascinating in the way it challenges viewers' ideas of victim and villain - as it should, since, at age 15 or 16, nobody is a villain. Jac-Henry used violence, and accepted his punishment from the head teacher Mr Mitchell. On the first occasion, Georgia was not punished.
At least, not by the school. On Twitter on Thursday night, viewers decided to do the job. "That Georgia" started trending, with hundreds of adults using her full name to abuse her looks, her character and more. A Twitter account that appeared to be Georgia's returned insults, blocked a few accounts and eventually, showing more wisdom than her tormentors, asked what they thought they were doing calling her a bully.
When I was 16, I too knew a bully, and there were days when I would have happily traded my education and future to see her humiliated. But I am not 16, and the sight of adults handing out such abuse to a child is horrific.
