#consent is important
Sick sick sick of possibility of being fucking recorded every waking second by tiktok obsessed quasi celebs. Video titled something like “Caught him thinking he’s the main character” but it was just a kid wearing headphones, looking out the bus window. Of course it was posted without his knowledge. Stop recording strangers and everything you see, nobody gives a shit and not everyone is happy to be on tiktok or youtube because of a moron with no braincells and an account. What could be a forgettable awkward moment is now permanently there for the victim of lackabrainis infested idiot to get anxious about forever.
Okay, this seems like a relevant thing to share today: I’ve been in this position. Back in college while on that student lifestyle, I somehow ended up with a pretty bad iron deficiency. How bad? I was not only sleeping too much, I was falling asleep everywhere – in class, in the library, in cafes five minutes after drinking coffee. It was terrible. Anyway, during a class I enjoyed, I was sat at a table with a few classmates, and I started falling asleep while taking notes; nodding off, dropping my pen, startling awake and falling asleep again, until my head was on the table. No one seemed to mind, we were all going through it I guess, and my lecturer was nice enough not to make a big deal out of it.
Cut to the next day and I was in the Students Union, when a friend came up to me and told me how funny that video was of me falling asleep in class was. What? I asked her about it, what did she mean, who made the video, and she realised I literally had no clue about it. Kindly, she told me who to talk to and I thanked her. I was already upset, but I knew it wasn’t the messenger’s fault. So, I took to Facebook and messaged the girl who made the video – a girl on my table in the class from before. I asked her about it, and she admitted it right away – she took the video on her phone during class and posted it to her snapchat. That’s how the other girl saw it, not to mention countless others.
Sorting this out was an absolute toil. I felt betrayed and violated that someone would do that while I was obviously not in a position to have any say about it. I lost friendships with the people who took the girl’s side, as if it was no big deal or “funny”. I had to tell the lecturer about it, because let’s face it, that’s a shit thing to allow to happen during class itself, the department moved to be more alert and proactive about restricting phone use in class, and all that girl had to do was give a half-hearted apology. The next semester, she was still openly using her phone in another class we had.
For a long time, I couldn’t trust anyone who held their phone up around me, as if to take photos or video. It would make me so anxious and put me on edge. I never did speak to the people who cosigned her behaviour, who acted like it wasn’t their problem that their bff video-recorded a person in class over their health condition without their consent.
I did eventually grow out of my anxiety around phones, and I resisted the urge to break that girl’s phone, but, I will absolutely bring back that energy if I see someone record a stranger in public without their consent. Take it from someone who’s been that target – if you think it’s okay, you deserve to get your shit wrecked.
I just want to add, in case anyone reads this and isn’t sure – yes, it is absolutely fine to reblog this, and in fact I encourage you to. If testimony from a former target of this behaviour is the one thing that makes it click for anyone thinking of doing it, if it makes them reconsider before potentially ruining a stranger’s life, then my experience will be worth it for me.
Don’t record strangers and put that shit on the Internet or social media without their consent.
PSA: Please be mindful that not all RPers are comfortable being called pet names like honey, darling, sweetie, babe, etc! People can have all kinds of reasons for discomfort with those terms, including:
-being a minor
-having trauma
-those terms feeling too intimate
-those terms feeling degrading or infantilizing
-literally any reason
So when in doubt, please ask first before you use pet names for people.
