Cyberbile & Grounded

by Alana Valentine

  FIGURE 2: How do you think she got herpes, mate? She goes with the chattest guys. You’re way above her.

  FIGURE 3: Yeah, who wants to poke some herpes-affected hole, boy.

  FIGURE 4: I would. Just to get a photo you know.

  FIGURE 5: Ask her to send you a photo of herself. Ask her for topless first and see if she will.

  FIGURE 6: She will, man, she’s a total slag that one. Make sure you pretend to be nice though. Suck it up so you can suck it up, if you know what I mean.

  Makes a slurping noise.

  FIGURE 7: Best time to do it is right now. She wants to get back in with everyone so for sure she will send it.

  FIGURE 8: Go for the full naked view.

  FIGURE 9: But get it on your phone so we can all see it.

  FIGURE 10: What if she gets the cops involved?

  FIGURE 11: They never do. Posh school like hers will handle it internally. They never get the cops involved. Even if they find you, which they won’t, most you will get is a slap on the wrist.

  FIGURE 12: And you get the big O nude on the net.

  FIGURE 1: You gotta get her drunk, man.

  FIGURE 2: At a party, go up and ask her if she’s got herpes.

  FIGURE 3: That’ll make her reach for the bottle.

  FIGURE 4: Then when she’s smashed you gotta film it.

  FIGURE 5: Topless.

  FIGURE 6: Humping.

  FIGURE 7: All the bases and a home run.

  FIGURE 8: But finger her first, man, or you’ll get her herpes on your own hot dog.

  FIGURE 9: And if she turns you down we’ll say she’s a lez.

  FIGURE 12: We’ll say she’s a desperate lez even if she does it.

  FIGURE 1: She deserves it man because she is a lez.

  FIGURE 2: She got the herpes from a lez gang bang.

  FIGURE 3: Didn’t you know lez’s all work the Cross?

  FIGURE 4: That’s ’cause they’re all drug scum, man.

  FIGURE 5: That’s how she got the herp. From her little lez scum mates in the Cross.

  FIGURE 6: But you gotta get the bang on film.

  ORIANA collapses into a heap on the floor.

  ORIANA: I had a dream that was not all a dream

  and in it I was slicked with substances

  like oil

  like garbage

  and the casual nastiness of it

  stripped away my innocence

  and tore away my trust

  and no amount of tears could wash away the contempt

  and I itched and I scratched and I wiped

  at the muck

  at the stink of careless bile

  and I lifted my head to the heavens and cried.

  Why is this happening to me?

  What have I ever done to deserve this?

  All I did was try to talk about what’s happening

  and I thought I could take it.

  Come back my ignorance, return my joy.

  For I have stripped back the mask of adolescence

  and my sanity is shrivelling on the vine.

  My grip on reality is loosened beyond all saving.

  SCENE NINE

  FIGURE 10: I don’t really want to identify myself because I don’t want to do a one-on-one interview. Like I’m fine with being gay and most of my friends are fine with it, what am I saying, all of my friends are fine with it. But being gay is always going to be the thing that gets some bullies going. I dunno, maybe I’m being negative but sometimes I think you’re just never going to stop it. Things are much better. And people tell you that all the time. How much better it is. I know it is. The thing is it’s not just the external bullies that get you, though they’re pretty bad. If you get unlucky enough to be targeted you can get a really hard time for a while. The trouble with coming out is that it’s always hard on you not because it’s seen as bad or wrong but just because it can take a long time to work out if your feelings are real and whether you can trust them. So coming out to yourself is hard enough without being outed or accused of it by nasties online. It’s never not going to be hard in a way because it’s always going to be outside the norm. And all the schools can do is not condemn it or problematise it or such. My parents know and they are okay with it. ’Cause there’s not even the thing anymore that you’re going to be unhappy or not have children or such. It’s just always going to be different to them I guess. I wouldn’t go so far as to say no parent wants to have a gay child because even that’s really changed. But I dunno what I’m trying to say. Yes, you get cyberbullied for being gay, yes you get actual bullied, yes you bully yourself. Yes it’s more complex than outright abuse, it’s like when you choose to come out, about how there’s always a pause and people say ‘oh, well that’s okay’ as if you need their approval or something… when I say that people say, ‘well, what would you want them to say?’ ‘Cool, you can help me with my formal dress or something’, ’cause everyone knows gays are good at fashion but what do they know lesbians are good at? Maybe fixing cars. I dunno. That’s stupid. But there’s not a thing you can say—like Australians like to joke to show that they’re cool but there’s not a dyke stereotype joke. Maybe they could say, ‘Great, can you give my boyfriend some tips on how to be a good kisser because everyone knows dykes are good kissers’. Ha!

  FIGURE 11: There’s this site—bebo—where you could give people love and you’d look at it and there would be ‘oh my gosh, I’ve got almost no love, I’m so unpopular da da da da dahh.’ Then other people would make fake accounts and give themself love. I dunno if it was insecurity but I remember people saying ‘I have two accounts so I can give myself love so it looks like I have more love’. It sounds pathetic but people see if you have tons of love and think you’re popular and even if they don’t believe it, you want them to believe that rather than not.

  SCENE TEN

  CELINE: Who are you?

  TERRI: I’m Terri, who are you?

  CELINE: I’m Celine. Where’s Oriana?

  TERRI: She’s sick.

  CELINE: What’s wrong with her?

  TERRI: I dunno. She’s just at home. Miss Pardelote asked me to work on some of the transcribing and stuff for the project.

  CELINE: Right.

  TERRI: Did you know she’s been getting some really dodgy stuff?

  CELINE: It’s just part of the project, isn’t it?

  TERRI: Well, maybe it is but it’s still pretty foul.

  CELINE: She’s been asking bullies to write in.

  TERRI: Yeah to talk about why they bully. But not to actually bully her.

  CELINE: What do you mean?

  TERRI: There’s stuff here about her having herpes and stuff.

  CELINE: How did you access her email?

  TERRI: Miss Pardelote gave me her password.

  CELINE: That’s an invasion of privacy.

  TERRI: Not on a school project it’s not. Anyway, I reported it to Miss Pardelote and they’re investigating it.

  CELINE: What?

  TERRI: Yeah, she said they might be able to trace where the emails came from.

  CELINE: But that will blow the whole project and all the work Oriana has been doing.

  TERRI: Why?

  CELINE: Because the bullies will all stop writing in. Now we won’t get anything from them because they’ll all be scared they’re going to get traced.

  TERRI: So they should get traced.

  CELINE: We said they wouldn’t.

  TERRI: Too bad.

  CELINE: You shouldn’t have reported that stuff without Oriana’s permission.

  TERRI: Someone had to.

  CELINE: What?

  TERRI: Well, you were obviously not being a friend to her.

  CELINE: You don’t know anything, slag.

  TERRI: Don’t call me slag. Who do you think you are?

  CELINE: Oriana is my best friend.

  TERRI: Then you should have told her to report this before it got out of hand.

  CELINE: I did tell her to rep
ort it but she wanted to keep going with it as part of the project.

  TERRI: Some friend.

  CELINE: I told her to report it.

  TERRI: Maybe that’s why she didn’t listen to you. Because you’re not really her friend.

  CELINE: I don’t have to listen to this from you. This is our project and I am going to tell Miss Pardelote we don’t want you on it.

  TERRI: And you’re gonna be in trouble when I tell Miss Pardelote that you knew about this bullying and did nothing about it.

  CELINE: We’ll see when Oriana gets back.

  TERRI: Maybe she’s not coming back.

  CELINE: She is so.

  TERRI: Then where is she?

  CELINE: Anyone can get sick.

  TERRI: Especially when they’ve got herpes.

  CELINE: Why are you being so nasty?

  TERRI: You were the one who called me slag.

  CELINE: I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.

  TERRI: You just don’t want me to tell Miss Pardelote you said it.

  Pause.

  CELINE: Why do you want to take Oriana’s project away from her?

  TERRI: I don’t.

  CELINE: Then why are you here?

  TERRI: Well, maybe because I’ve been bullied, der.

  CELINE: Oh.

  TERRI: Oh, she finally gets it.

  CELINE: Alright you don’t have to be so rude.

  TERRI: Well, neither do you.

  Pause.

  CELINE: What happened to you?

  TERRI: Why should I tell you?

  CELINE: Look. I really am sorry. Okay.

  TERRI: Okay, well… I used to have a really nice group of friends and I was really happy until Year 6. Then there was this group of people who for some reason didn’t like me. They stole my friends, they told them to go against me, they spread rumours about me, so I had no friends and for about a whole year they did stuff to me.

  CELINE: Like what?

  TERRI: The stole things from me, like they stole things from my pencil case, and so I made sure I didn’t bring my favourite things to school because I was worried they would take them. They’d write in my books, they’d hide my bag at lunch and recess and at the time I didn’t really know it was bullying because no-one really told me about what bullying was, I just accepted that ‘oh well, this is what my life is, it just has to be like this’. And I didn’t tell my parents anything… because… I don’t know, I didn’t really think things could change, I just had to accept that my life was sad. My parents were really worried, they noticed. They said, ‘why are you always sad, you never smile anymore, you never seem to enjoy things’. Outside of school I had some friends, but they never really knew anything about my school life. I went to Chinese school every Saturday, and that was like the only time I was really happy because they liked me. I used to be quite smart, like I used to win awards and stuff and then afterwards I did really badly and my parents were really sad for me. They used to buy me books. Because I really liked reading, I used it as an escape and I started writing.

  CELINE: And did they use online too?

  TERRI: I gave one of my friends my email account password and she sent people rude emails. And the really bad person, the person who stole my friend, she went into my friend’s email account and started sending things to me, so I thought it was my good friend saying those bad words. So I thought no-one liked me. Which was true, no-one liked me. And then I joined bebo because people were like, ‘Oh, why don’t you have a bebo account?’ So I joined and then not long after they made a bebo hate group. It was like a group that was dedicated to hating me and they took random pictures of me at school that I didn’t know about and then put wired captions and then add it to the group. And then these girls, they started doing graffiti and when I found out I was ‘no that’s wrong’ so I told one of my close friends or who I thought was my close friend. I was like ‘maybe we should tell the teacher about this because they are trying to find out who graffitied the school hall, I know it’s them because I overheard them talking about it and they were full bragging about how cool they are doing graffiti’, and then, um, my friend was like ‘oh good, do that’. But before I could she told the bad people and they came up and ganged up on me and said ‘oh, you wanna tell the teacher, we’ll make the whole school hate you if you do that’. I was really scared because no-one supported me and I didn’t know what was right or wrong anymore. People told me I was wrong and I didn’t have the confidence, I wasn’t strong enough to believe that I was right.

  CELINE: So how did you get away from them?

  TERRI: I had to leave. I had to leave that school. [Pause.] And that’s why I told you ’bout this stuff on here. Because maybe you say she was dealing with it as part of the project but maybe she’s just saying that. Because I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t even know what it was.

  SCENE ELEVEN

  FIGURE 12: I get bullied because I’m a Christian. Stuff like ‘if you were a Christian you wouldn’t do that’. Sort of holding me to a higher standard or something that they’re not even prepared to hold themselves to. But they justify it by saying ‘well, I don’t say I’m a Christian so I don’t have to be perfect’. Which is really stupid because I’m not saying I’m perfect. I don’t even know why I believe, but I do. I was hoping it might help me and it sort of does. But I’m still going to… you know… um… I guess you might say I’m going to give in. Um. There’s this person who is bullying me at the moment and, look, you can say what you like about faith. Some people have power and they can make your life miserable. And I just don’t have what it takes to stand up to them right now. Like everyone’s always making out how you have to be a hero and how your faith can help you to stand up. But you also don’t. You can just do as you’re told. You can and you can just believe that there’s no shame in that. If I don’t resist they’ll just move on, you know. I’m just so scared and [crying] I just want them to stop hassling me. I’ll just do what I’m told and be a bit more secret about my faith. What’s so wrong with that? Why does everyone want me to be such a hero? I’m not, alright. I’m just not. Stop expecting me to be the big hero. That’s why I believe in what I do, you know. Because I know I’m not strong enough on my own. Not now I’m not. But one day I will be. One day I’ll find that strength. Just… just… not right now.

  FIGURE 1: Okay when the first person said ‘there is no climate change’ they were laughed at but now we have to give them a hearing. Well, here I go with this. There is no cyberbullying epidemic. It’s a helicopter parent, baby-boomer wowserism. It’s schools having to exist in a highly litigious, overheated duty-of-care-gone-crazy environment. It is. People always cite the kids who have killed themselves from cyberbullying. I mean, please. I’m not saying it’s not bad, I’m just saying it’s the serious exception. Cyberbullying is just one more way for parents and teachers to gate the freedom that teenagers now have on the internet. Seriously. And it’s no different to tabloid television going to some beach party in Thailand and using scare tactics about how unregulated it is. It’s wowserism. Pure and simple. And considering how many drugs and drink and wild parties these parents did when they were young it’s just one hundred percent overprotection. Suddenly parents are shocked by how cruel their children can be online. Wake up. Children are the most cruel because they see the world in black and white and if you give them their dinner, screaming obscenities at the television yourself, what do you expect them to do? Think back to some of the things you did and said as a teenager. Let your children learn that life is unfair, for goodness sake, or they’re soon going to find it out the hard way when they go out into the big wide world. Everyone doesn’t get an equal chance at life, yes it’s a bummer but that’s how it is. The world loves clever young men above just about anything else, clever young women can do well for themselves but they’re still going to be judged for their looks and they can still never become spiritual leaders or captains of industry or even leaders in our democracy unless they are very, very
, very tough. Nothing has really changed and it’s the same in our part of the world.

  SCENE TWELVE

  ORIANA is sitting on the floor. She is surrounded by piles of paper and in front of her is a shredder. She sits and shreds page after page of paper in a kind of zombie state.

  CELINE: Oriana?

  ORIANA: Hey.

  CELINE: Hey. Whatcha doin’?

  ORIANA: Nothin’ much.

  CELINE: What’s that you’re shredding?

  ORIANA: Just… words.

  CELINE: Why’d you do that?

  ORIANA: What?

  CELINE: You’ve printed out all the bullying stuff that was sent to you.

  ORIANA: If I can chew them up and then spit them out then they’re nothing, right? Then they’re just nothing.

  CELINE: Sure.

  ORIANA shreds another one.

  They said you were sick.

  ORIANA: I’m just tired. I’ve been really tired.

  CELINE: Just like from the flu or something?

  ORIANA: No, not flu. Just… I dunno… just tired of everything, you know. And a bit teary.

  CELINE: Are you okay?

  ORIANA: Yeah, I just need to sleep at the moment. Just sleep, you know.

  CELINE: You’ve got to snap out of it, Oriana.

  ORIANA: I’m fine. Just a bit tired.

  CELINE: You’re depressed.

  ORIANA: Not really. Maybe a little bit.

  CELINE: There’s a girl who’s working on the project. She reported the bullying to Miss Pardelote.

  ORIANA: Yeah, I know. They rang Dad.

  CELINE: So what are they doing about it?

  ORIANA: I think that they’re going to try and trace it.

  CELINE: They might not be able to.

  ORIANA: Whatever.

  CELINE: So… are you coming back to school?

  ORIANA: Yeah. Soon.

  CELINE: And are you coming back on the project?

  ORIANA: I don’t think so.

  CELINE: Why not?

  ORIANA: I dunno. Maybe I can’t handle it.

  CELINE: But you can.

  ORIANA: Yeah, I think I can but maybe I can’t.