Bullying: Classroom to Cyberspace
Old-School
It’s sometime in the ’80s. A mischievous eleven-year-old is dropped off by his parents for his first year in a residential school. Jonathan’s leaving a lot behind: his siblings, his pet dog, the place he’s called home for so long. He’s going to miss everything, but it’s all for the best, his parents say. He makes his way up to his dorm and dejectedly sits on his bed. Tears leak out of the boy’s eyes and he hears a laugh. He looks up and sees a group of boys sneering at the sight of him crying. They start calling him names. More kids join in until seemingly everyone is having a laugh at his expense. He shrugs the incident off. They’re just teasing him after all, aren’t they? Except they aren’t.
The mocking continues till it just can’t be called “teasing” anymore. The boy is reminded of the episode every day. He doesn’t dare complain, for fear of being labelled a snitch. He doesn’t want to trouble his parents, who, after all, enrolled him in a boarding school for the sole purpose of keeping him out of trouble. He learns to take the bullying. He loses his lunch, his name and his faith in humanity.The names stick with him for years. Bit by bit, his self-esteem is chipped away, until Jonathan graduates, a husk of the person he once used to be.
Lurkers in the Shadows
Fast-forward to today. An avid but neutral movie buff has just watched the latest de Caprio movie and of course, he has to weigh in on social media. Jonathan has seen Leo at his best and knows this one doesn’t rank up there and says as much in his post. A few hours later, he unlocks his phone and is greeted by a deluge of angry messages from absolute strangers united by one thing: their devotion to de Caprio. The messages range from immature to outright disturbing. The enthusiastic critic seethes with anger. He knows these people would never have the guts to verbally attack him in real life. He deletes the messages without giving them a second thought.
He decides to ease his mind by logging into the acclaimed team strategy game Scrolls of The Damned. He enters a match, teaming up with four random players. The game is intense and at one point, one of his disablers misses a chance to land a stun. Jonathan curses under his breath and continues playing. As the game goes on, it becomes clear that his teammates are probably only at the Silver V rank, and the Diamond I player starts to lose his temper.
Finally, he can’t take it anymore and lets loose a slew of cuss words into his mic. His teammates try to reason with him but he isn’t having any of it. He’s comfortably out of their reach, probably thousands of kilometres away, and has zero consequences to face; he isn’t about to relinquish his advantage that easily.
Finally, the match is finished. The man logs out and opens his favourite social site. Jonathan has already forgotten about the hate mail he received and starts searching for celeb posts to troll.
Free-for-all
In 2077, they voted my city the worst place to live in America. Main issues? Sky high rate of violence and more people living below the poverty line than anywhere else. Can’t deny it, it’s all true… but everybody still wants to live here. This city’s always got a promise for you. Might be a lie, an illusion, but it’s there… just around the corner… and it keeps you going.
It had almost become an addiction. Jonathan needed the escape from reality. He considers going out for a change but gives in to temptation. He can hardly move without support anyway, so he puts on the virtual reality headset and lies back down. As he starts to weave through the neon suburbs of Night City, he sighs with satisfaction.
A new body, free from the decay of age. A new identity, free from the decay of working for a daily wage. This was where he felt truly alive. But he was still different; that was something one couldn’t change. That’s what made the experience special. That’s what made it real.
Enroute to the delivery point, the protagonist is accosted by a band of mercenaries. As they approach him, their tattoos begin to light up with a pale, ethereal glow.
“Hand over the chip, Rockerboy,” the leader of the pack growls menacingly.
He hits the ground hard when they push him. As he crawls towards the footwalk, his aural receptors begin to glitch and a strange humanoid overlay enters his vision. As the being takes off his sunglasses with his mechanical arm, the spectre leers at him with a fierce look of disappointment.
“Wake up, samurai. We’ve got a city to burn.”
As the digital ghost glitches back into the darkness, the digits of Jonathan’s left hand split to reveal a hidden serrated blade, a bleeding-edge augmentation that would serve him well. A fine gift from a wealthy sponsor, or one from several patrons chipping in, this was no less a gladiator pit than those of Ancient Rome. He hopes that the spectacle that will ensue would boost his subscriber count.
As the aural comm implant deciphers the strange text etched into the blade, it finds its first victim.
“Vengeance” pings the overlay before fading away.
This article was written in collaboration with Kumaraguruparan R, Antony Terence and Abhishek Ramachandran.
