In late August of this year, my best friend, Marissa, called me up on my way home from school, crying. I asked her what was wrong. I had never seen her this upset before about anything. She said, between sobs, “Just go look at my Facebook wall.” I signed onto Facebook and went to Marissa’s profile. What I read as her most recent status was things that were so nasty, disturbing, and immoral, I can’t even repeat them in this paper. I closed my eyes and prayed that no one had seen this yet, because I knew what was said would instantly ruin her reputation. I scrolled down. So much for this going unseen; there were already 32 comments. The hacker had also changed her password, so she couldn’t delete the post. It was stuck there where everyone could see it. I wanted to cry for her, but I couldn’t; I was so angry, I could have literally killed someone, particularly the person who did this. I already had an idea that the hacker was a girl named Bethany. Marissa and Bethany had been friends since kindergarten, up until 6th grade. They had had so many fights, it was unreal. About 3 minutes after I finished reading the comments, Marissa said, “Hey, you there?” I couldn’t say anything, I was so shocked. She said “I know you don’t want to, but you have to read me the comments. I need to know what people are saying so I’ll know what to expect tomorrow.” I reluctantly read her the comments. My Mom, sitting in the driver’s seat, looked over at me and mouthed “What’s wrong?” I just shook my head. Marissa was furious at whoever did this and at the people that commented on the status who were her ‘friends’. More than half of these people she had known her whole life, but they instantly believed what was said, without even asking her about it first. She was crushed.
Throughout the night, the comments on the status continued to grow, as did the number of ‘friends’ saying horrid things about her. Marissa and I stayed on the phone until around 10:30, talking about anything and everything but the incident. Even when we weren’t talking about it, I could tell her mind was still on it, and still hurting from it. I didn’t want to get off of the phone with her because I knew how the next day was going to be for her. And I wanted anything but that. When we finally did get off of the phone, before we hung up, she said “Don’t even try to tell me that everyone will forget about what happened because this isn’t something you forget about.” I wasn’t going to tell her that because I knew it was a lie.
After school the next day, Marissa called me. That morning when she got on the bus, no one paid any attention to her, except Bethany. Bethany walked up to Marissa and started telling her that she knew she had been doing ‘things’ with guys - which was totally a lie - and that she deserved what was posted on Facebook. When Marissa walked into the cafeteria later that day, literally just about everyone looked up at her and just stared. She said she thought that was only something that happened in movies and that she had never felt so humiliated.
Two days after Marissa was hacked, she was finally able to change her password, and she deleted the status. When she got into her account, she went to read her messages. The hacker had gotten our friend Bryant’s number and called him, pretending to be her. It was Bethany's number that had called Bryant. Marissa decided that she wasn’t going to approach Bethany about it; she was going to drop it and hope they could have peace. For about five weeks, she didn’t have anything to do with Bethany. Then, Marissa found out, from Bethany herself, that how Bethany got Marissa’s Facebook password wasn’t something simple, like, leaving her Facebook signed in on someone’s phone; it was a chain of untrustworthy ‘friends’. Marissa’s friend Makenzie had figured out her password, passed it along to Hailey, who had given it to Bethany.
Obviously, everyone (including myself) has called someone a name at least once, but I think if we just try to love everyone equally, life would be so much more enjoyable and we would all feel better about ourselves. So next time you’re about to do something that could even possibly offend someone in the least bit, ask yourself how you would feel if you were them.