A Caricature

 I absolutely despise the majority of representation bullying gets in the media. Every time I hear there's a new movie or TV show with bullying as a theme or major story component, I don't even want to have a look at it. It's extremely frustrating because somehow, I also manage to come across this content extremely often purely by accident. "Hey, check out this cool YouTube video on something funny that happened on the Internet– oh no, not THIS again, fuck me." "Here's a new TV show made from the perspective of young adults, trying to figure out their lives– when will this STOP???"

Now don't get me wrong, I encourage representation – in fact, the more we talk about it, the better. Although the benefits of simply talking in the name of awareness does barely anything, it's still a good place to start with. 

But when that representation is insanely stereotypical and sometimes downright insensitive, I can feel the BPD emotions brewing inside of me, waiting to be let out. 

trope.

"So here's the best friend of the main character. They're very shy and meek, insecure as hell, and they don't have any other friends than the protagonist. They're being BuLLiEd at school, awww, poor thing... another one of those ~ special kids ~ who NOBODY understands except for their best friend. They're like a prison ball on the protagonist's leg, dragging around and complaining about how miserable they feel and how they will PAY THEM BACK one day. I fucking hate this character so much, they come in the way of the development of the main character, and they're just so fucking annoying like oh my god STOP WHINING–"

You know what I mean?

How many of us real victims fit this narrative? How many of us actually behave in this way, making our traumatic experiences everyone else's problem? And how many of us have ACTUALLY sought revenge to the one who hurt us in the past? 

I'm done being a trope. I'm done being a caricature of the result of life-long abuse and mental trauma. And I'm done with the state of current media is in in terms of bullying representation. It needs to change, preferably sooner than later. 

Rewriting the story,

ichigonya