Final Project Material
Our final project features a series of 8 images, which are arranged to convey 4 different causes of cyber-bullying, followed by their effects.
CYBER-BULLYING CAUSE #1: Boredom
Cyber-bullying is nothing more than a game to some, who idly toy with the emotions of others for sheer amusement.
Here, the doll is a metaphor for the victims of cyber-bullying — they both share the similar quality of being toyed with and not being able to fight back. The doll lies still as the ‘bully’ literally pins insults onto her, helpless to react and resist, just as real victims are.
Behind the veil of a phone or computer screen, bullies are desensitized to the hurt they inflict on their victims. Like the default face of a doll, the screen stares blankly back, revealing nothing about the crippling hurt that victims feel. All bullies see is the comical veneer of their actions that masks real hurt, egging them on to continue. It is this lack of emotional impact that results in people viewing cyber-bullying as mere sport, an alternative way of passing time when they are bored.
From a cultural perspective, the doll may also be viewed as a classic symbol of female objectification, a notion that comes with the common stereotype of women as the weaker sex. This association contributes to the idea of the doll being vulnerable and victimized.
The real effects of cyber-bullying are portrayed here. The girl here is dressed similarly to the doll in the previous photo, indicating that she has ‘replaced’ the doll. The difference lies in the fact that she is a real person whose raw emotions are on display for all to see, showing the real damage of cyber-bullying.
She is sprawled on the bed and lies limp, adopting a posture of vulnerability and defeat. Viewers follow the direction of her vacant gaze to the phone in her hand, suggesting that the messages that she received on it could have been the cause of her distress.
The insults pinned onto her act as labels that she has accepted; she allows them to define her identity. She submits to them by letting them literally pin her down into a corner, while she lies down helplessly. In this way, they objectify her by stripping her of her control over her own fate (lack of agency) as she allows them to affect the way she perceives her self-worth. They also dehumanize her by reducing her identity to the scope of just being “fat”, “fake” and “flat”, causing audiences to view her as a purely physical entity.
CYBER-BULLYING CAUSE #2: Obsession
Cyber-bullying can take different forms, and one of them is cyber-stalking. Many view online ‘stalking’ as harmless, yet it is often associated with obsession. When left uncontrolled, obsession often leads one to unconsciously harass another person.
Here, an imaginary line created by connecting the right edge of the laptop and the spine of the notebook, dividing the image into two sections. The two hands in each section are occupied; one types on a laptop, actively scanning through a wealth of personal data, while the other diligently records this data in a notebook. From these concurrent actions, viewers may infer that the cyber-stalker is taking down information about his victim via Facebook to feed his obsessive tendencies.
Although there is nothing inherently wrong with browsing through someone’s social media profile, it becomes a problem when it is done excessively to the same person, especially when the cyber-stalker goes to more extreme measures like recording private details. Oftentimes, people find it hard to draw the line between simply being curious and being obsessed. This poses a problem as people who cyber-bully in this way are often unaware of the privacy they may violate and the damage they may cause.
In relation to the previous image which showed the actions of the cyber-stalker, this image shows the victim’s point of view.
This image shows a girl sound asleep, while a laptop screen shows pairs of eyes gazing intently at her. These eyes are firstly an iconic sign as they resemble real people’s eyes. They are also an indexical sign as viewers may logically infer that she is constantly being watched.
The eyes are watching the girl from a close range, a reflection of how cyber-stalkers can get equally close to their victims by gaining access to their online accounts and activities. The number of pairs of eyes also amplifies the magnitude of the situation, intensifying the effects of obsession.
The fact that the girl is asleep shows that she is unaware of what is going on around her. She represents the plight of most victims, who will be oblivious to the fact that they is being stalked until it is too late, and their stalkers start harassing them with calls, texts or emails, or when they discover that their private accounts have been hacked. Although cyber-stalkers lurk and remain unseen most of the time, they present a very real threat.
CYBER-BULLYING CAUSE #3: Ego/Social Standing
Singapore is the country with the highest phone penetration rate, resulting in more bullies moving on to this new platform to gain a hold over their victims by sending them degrading messages. Like many, bullies feel a fundamental need to be accepted and a desire to be popular. Bullies may achieve this by demeaning another group of people and ‘othering’ them by highlighting their perceived weaknesses and defining themselves as ‘cool’ by being the opposite of this group.
In the image, the brightened screens of the phones and their rectangular framing, direct viewer attention to them first, alerting them to the vicious messages sent by the bullies. The two phones in the foreground are similar in size and brightness, as compared to the more blurred and distant outline of the phone in the girl’s hand. This causes viewers to perceive the girl’s phone as being separate from the other two, mirroring how the girl herself is also being forcibly separated socially and made an outcast through bullying. Moreover, the photo is framed from the bullies’ perspective, and is distinctly looking down at the girl from a high angle, cementing her status as the inferior victimized ‘other’ in this situation.
The second photo portrays the dramatized effect of how a victim might feel upon receiving such degrading texts. Though cyber-bullying may seem harmless from a bully’s perspective, words DO hurt. Cruel words create inner scars that physical blows cannot cause; they damage self-esteem and crush the spirits of victims.
This photo is framed from the victim’s point of view, to allow viewers to observe her agonized expression. Her features are twisted into a grimace, and her eyes are shut tight in fear of the expectation of being kicked. Pathos is used here to evoke sympathy from viewers for the girl, after seeing her obvious emotional distress and helplessness. Furthermore, the physical kicks from the bullies in this image are a metaphor for the internal blows that hurtful online messages deal on victims. After every incident of bullying, victims are left as hurt and scarred as they would be had they been physically abused.
CYBER-BULLYING CAUSE #4: Anger
At first glance, the emotion displayed in this image appears to be ambiguous, but when one views the image after it (below), the Kuleshov Effect comes into play, where viewers’ perception of an image is altered by what comes before or after it. In this case, the two images come together to form a whole story, identifying the girl’s emotion as a quiet, almost insidious kind of anger.
The girl here concentrates on a point beyond her laptop screen, depicted by both the direction of her gaze and the way her arm extends beyond the laptop. Although the image is fantastical, it can be inferred that she is reaching for something in her laptop, something she is not pleased with, as shown by how her facial features are twisted into a slight scowl.
This second image clarifies what the girl in the first image is doing, allowing viewers to understand exactly what extending her arm is intended to achieve. Viewers connect the missing part of the girl’s hand (in the first image) to the extended arm which ends in a fist (in this second image) and put two and two together, viewing both images as a whole. Hence, they decipher it to be a continuation of the action in the first image.
The girl’s fist delivers the metaphorical punch that ties in with the message of this project: Cyber-bullying, even in the form of just mean or negative messages, can hit as hard as a physical punch to the recipient. As both images depict, the effects of these metaphorical punches can now reach even further with the widespread use of the Internet, enabling victims to receive messages any time, and at any place.
Furthermore, both images are thematically linked through colour, which is manipulated to produce a darker image as opposed to if the image had been bathed in natural colours and lighting. This aptly sets a darker mood for the image, emphasizing its grave message of the deadly effects of cyber-bullying.
