It was an ordinary school day before a student, who prefers to stay anonymous due to fear of continued exposure, became a victim to cyberbullying by way of social media. The Instagram account, @waballrankings, which occasionally subjected UPrep students to risk of critique for their private endeavors, interrupted the normalcy of the student’s life.
“When I first opened it, I was taken aback, kind of shaken, because I was just like, ‘I don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve this,’” the student said, regarding an Instagram story posted about them.
Harm caused by cyberbullying has raised concerns among administrators and led to four suspensions. Each suspended student confirmed the punishment with The Puma Press. Three of them were suspended for owning the @waballrankings account while the fourth was suspended for the @uperconfessions account. A suspended student, who wishes to remain anonymous, stated that @waballrankings is now deactivated, but is not deleted, after having the account since their freshman year.
“I think it went too far, and I think it makes sense that it was deactivated,” the student said. “I am a little bummed, but, you know, it is what it is. It’s a good learning experience for me.”
The student victim who spoke to The Puma Press became disheartened after repeated features on the @waballrankings account, believing that “they don’t know what’s a joke anymore.”
“It was just an invasion of my privacy. Stuff that I’ve done in my personal life that somehow has gone out there and gotten back to the people who run the account. They decided to make fun of me, troll me about it. Or even I didn’t even do anything, and they still just decided to post me just for fun,” the student said.
The student weighed a societal stereotype surrounding cyberbullying: that the bullying is enabled by the victim just as much as the aggressor. The student refutes this perspective.
“I know you could just block the account. But if there’s something being posted about you, and you have no clue that it’s being posted and you have no say to take it down or whatever, then that’s just bad news out there,” the student said. “People are then making fun of you, and you have no idea what they’re making fun of you for.”
The @waballrankings account has impacted how the student moves through their day because they feel the owners “might be lurking around the corner” with “spies.”
“I now feel like I can’t live my life to the fullest and do the things that I want to do in fear of being shamed for it, posted about, made fun of,” the student said. “It’s such a weird culture.”
Upper School Division Director Susie Wu assures that her job is to “create a safe and healthy learning environment for all students.” With this, she doesn’t want to be known as an administrator who tolerates cyberbullying, as she has high expectations for all students.
“Serious bullying will result in suspension, and the length and time of suspension can vary depending on the degree of severity or the repeated offenses that happen,” Wu said. “Egregious patterns, repeated patterns, where we’ve given you consequences, a chance to fix it, make it right, the implication is you’re not going to do it again. And if that person keeps doing it again, it gets closer and closer toward expulsion.”
Wu believes the problem with social media is that she and other administrators can’t “control what is going on” outside of school.
“There’s a little bit of this gray area line of people’s private activities versus what it is at school,” Wu said. “Obviously with social media, somebody could be posting something after hours… and they’re strictly off, outside of the school day. But the impacts of that post can happen during the school day.”
Another victim to the @waballrankings account, who prefers to remain anonymous as well, believes standing up to cyberbullying will have more social consequences in alignment with the sentiment “snitches get stitches”.
“If people find out that you’re the one that reported an account, or whoever was doing this to you, that means that you let the reaction get to you,” the second student said. “Cyberbullying­—it’s online—just don’t let them see a rise out of you or any emotion because they’ll give up if that’s the point. So if you don’t report it, if you don’t say anything, they’re gonna leave you alone eventually. Just don’t give them that power.”
The second student felt they had to “desensitize” themself and “get thicker skin to learn to deal” with the cyberbullying.
“Sometimes you have to go through tough situations to learn, and I’m really glad that I did,” the second student said. “I don’t agree with the account, just on principle and morality, but I can’t go back in time and change what happened. I’m just gonna embrace it and keep moving forward.”
The second student chose not to “place a lot of importance on those opinions” posted about them.
“As long as you have a support system and you’re confident in who you are, you shouldn’t be letting those kinds of things get to you,” the second student said.