October 26th, 2010 by 
I love X Factor (go on hate me)! I love the good, the bad and the ugly, the appalling styling and even the smug judges, but recently what I’ve begun to hate (and please excuse the forthcoming rant) is the bullying that’s become synonymous with the show.
If it’s not the contestants bullying each other off camera, or the judges ganging up on each other on screen, it’s viewers launching online hate campaigns against the competitors.
The latest and most ironic of which, features a You Tube video that has had almost one million hits accusing one contestant of being a bully!
Now I’m no angel when it comes to having a good laugh at a contender’s expense, but I’ve started to notice that the majority of what’s being ranted and raved about online is nearly always a dig at a female contestant’s body, face and/or reputation.
And at times this ‘chat’ is so vitriolic, nasty and spiteful that I doubt any of the people chatting would have the guts to say it aloud in real life.
But by far my biggest gripe with all of this is it has now become so normal to bitch via tweets and Facebook that people I used to consider sane, think it’s perfectly acceptable to say and do whatever they like when posting a comment.
Whether that’s intimidating someone on a forum, launching a “hate” group or spreading defamatory and destructive gossip for a laugh.
What’s more, even though most sites will disable accounts that breach rules on bullying, most of these people don’t give this a second thought.
Either because they don’t consider their online behaviour off centre or simply because they truly believe they have the right to express whatever they want, even if it’s hateful.
So what’s a person to do? Well for me, I think it’s about looking at what I say and agree with online and also thinking hard before I hit that ‘tweet’ button, even when watching a harmless TV show.
After all, as my mother would say, ‘If you’ve got nothing nice to say, just don’t say anything.’
Your thoughts please…
Bitching is so passée. Even Perez Hilton has pledged to stop! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0HRu1HN3bY&feature=player_embedded
But I think that’s a bug part of what XFactor is meant to be and encourages … publicly humiliating and intimidating people who, rightly or wrongly, think they have a talent which just needs to be heard/seen to make them famous. Their only aspiration is to be famous, not to get better and improve and have fun along the way (as in Strictly Come Dancing). And this exploitation of these poor souls, is for the public entertainment/amusement. And we know bullying doesn’t come from strength but from weakness.
I agree and I think it’s all about making ourselves feel better at someone else’s expense i.e. at least we’re not as untalented/shameful/ridiuclous as X! As for Perez – about time!
I don’t think it’s just the X-Factor, I think it’s got more to do with the internet in general.
Most news sites and blogs allow readers to comment and most of them attract negative, bullying or hostile comments that attack either the writer or the subject of any article.
There’s one middle-market daily newspaper – I’m sure you know the one I mean – that often gets hundreds of comments for each feature. Not only are readers slagging off celebs or ‘real people’ for being too fat/thin/stupid/immoral they are also attacking each other.
You’re right that the average person would never make these comments to someone’s face, but it’s so much more impersonal online.
I think it’s a horrible development, and even though some newspapers have stopped readers from commenting anonymously, I don’t think this will be enough to stop it.
Sadly, this kind of bullying seems to have become part of our culture.
I agree. I also think there is also a certain kind of person who rants on forums and gets their kicks intimidating others online. The one’s I have interviewed tend to spend hours, if not, every night, spewing forth on Twitter, FB and newspaper forums.
It’s just so easy to do and so satisfying.
Blizzard did the same with their very popular games and forums: they decided to switch to “real ID” instead of screennames so the people there would be less inclined to bad behaviours, including bullying.
However, the whole “identity vs privacy” is quite a sensitive subject on the online space – I’ve wrote a blog about it on Face, Mindbubble’s parent company, if you are interested: http://www.facegroup.co.uk/identity-crisis-on-the-web
I think it’s easy to do and satisfying because online commenting means you are totally removed from the actual person, and so you feel you can be more brutal and brave with your comments without any accountability. And as the title says – it seems online bitching/bullying is the new gossip.
I totally agree with what you’re saying about bullying on the tv and internet-as usual people trying to make themselves feel and look better at the expense of other people-ugghhh it’s so sad. And you’re right how women are often at the receiving end of such vitriol:( I think some of the worst perpetrators are these virtually all male panel quiz type shows. You just know they were probably bullied themselves at school and now getting their own back. But the shame is there is more and more of it. It’s interesting what Marion says about forums and having no ID. It really is the way for cowards to put the boot in. The dirty words of today are “nice” and ‘kind”.