Yesterday I was reading a post on Facebook by a blogger I have been following for some time. She started off with how she has grown to accept the every day hate messages she receives as par for the course of being a plus size blogger. That is until she received this weeks message which said "you should probably kill yourself."

I can't for the life of me imagine how a person's life could be so bad that they have nothing better to do all day then to post messages like this to people they don't know -- even to say this to someone they do know -- pathetic.

It is a cowardice way to live a life. Luckily the person they sent it too is a strong person who is happy with herself and her life. She's married, has two pets, a successful career. She oozes sweetness and I feel bad that she had to experience this sadness even for a moment.

I feel bad for anyone who has had to suffer through this and any other kind of cyber bullying in all its degrees. It is unacceptable.

Moe,

I think that any kind of bullying is bad. Unfortunately cyber bullying makes it easier because people hide behind a computer and say mean and hurtful things.

The story that you have mentioned reminds me of a similar story that I heard about recently. It involved Jennifer Livingston a local Wisconsin news anchor who received a very nasty email from a viewer regarding her weight. She went on air and responded to the viewer and I absolutely loved her response. The video is only 4 minutes long.

New Anchor responds to viewer's email

Maria,

It is unfortunate that anonymity seems to turn people hateful "trolls" -- supposedly there are actual groups out there that do this for the fun of the reaction. But there are many who do not hide their face and feel they are "doing it for your own good". Kind of like the polite-ish letter Jennifer received this summer -- we talked about her a lot on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for posting the link for visitors.

I've often wondered what compels a person to deliberately want to hurt a stranger. It seems so odd to me. I can at least get my mind around why someone might want to put down an abusive ex-husband, for example. But a stranger? The stranger never did anything at all to them. What gain is there in life to cause harm to someone who hasn't even been met?

I think the only thing I can come up with is that the person in question feels unhappy for some reason. They see others around them who are happy and they feel even worse in comparison. So they seek to damage the other peoples' happiness. And then maybe they feel a sense of "Hah now they're unhappy just like me, we are in this together". So it makes them feel a little better, to think they're not alone. And since that dose of "feeling better" was fairly easy and effective, it trains them to do it again.

And in a way that sort of makes sense. If that unhappy person started abusing an actual sister or mother, there'd be consequences. But abusing a stranger, there are few consequences. So they get the "benefit" with little "danger".

So I would think one way to prevent it is to remove their reward. Their aim is to make the person unhappy. If it's demonstrated that the targeted person is still just as happy, and that this activity has no effect, maybe they will move on and try something else, like actually addressing whatever root problem is making them unhappy.