Describe an event in your life and how it changed you or someone close to you. This event can be dramatic and/or comedic, major or minor. Please do not write about why or what lead you to pursue a degree in film and television production. Ultimately we are looking for evidence of your potential as a storyteller. The personal story should not exceed 4 double-spaced pages.
Better Off Dead
Everything you do is pointless. It would probably just be better if you killed yourself now, and saved everyone the trouble.
They say that there is a sixth sense when it comes to life-changing events, that moments before they happen, you are suddenly aware of everything around you. Yet, that morning, waking up, I felt nothing different. I was still the same girl, who followed the same routine. I woke up, got dressed, ate a little breakfast, and checked the computer. Facebook, email, Flickr. Since getting into photography, I began to post my pictures that I was truly proud of online. I was modest, and generally only got fifty or so views per photo, but I was extremely proud of my photography.
That morning however, I noticed that overnight, I had gotten two thousand views on my profile, and that each photo on my site now had over four hundred views, and 200 new messages. Instantly, I thought that maybe a photo had been featured on the website, and happiness swelled within me. Barely containing my glee, I clicked on my newest photo, wanting to see the seven new comments posted on my photo.
I could not have been caught more unaware or wrong.
The first comment was from someone I had considered a close friend. I had kept my photos off of Facebook, because I was so shy about my photos, and it was easier to show them to strangers than to my friends. Her comment read "Wow. I thought we were friends. This is a photo I took months ago. Thanks for stealing it". I hesitated, afraid to read what the other comments were going to say. They were from strangers, agreeing with my friend, Kristen, and telling my photography was terrible, unoriginal, and stolen.
Tears welled in my eyes. I, masochistically, clicked "Next Photo", and saw similar comments on that photo. As I kept clicking next, the comments from Kristen kept getting more and more harsh. She began typing things like "I pulled this shot off because I am not fat, unlike you. If you want to steal my photos, you should work on that", and her faithful commenters agreed. Tears were streaming down my face by the time I had gone through all of my photos, and seen that she had commented on every single one. But the words didn't stop there. She had posted a "photo" onto her own profile, white text on a black background saying, "I need you, everyone please...". And in the description she wrote about how I had stolen every last idea from her, down to my descriptions of the photographs. It went on to tell anyone who sees this photo to report me, comment on all of my photos, send me messages, do whatever they can to help her in these challenging times.
The comments on that photo were the worst I had seen yet. "OMG. This girl needs to just quit Flickr", and then someone replied "No. She needs to quit life". Everyone was giving condolences to Kristen, telling her that they were there for her. No one was there for me. With tears streaming down my face, to the point where I could barely even see the text on the screen, I clicked on my messages. I had received two hundred messages from strangers. Two hundred messages telling me a varying message, from the less extreme, I was told that what I had done was wrong, and that I should think about what I post, and on the excessive end of the spectrum, I was sent messages telling me ways to kill myself. I clicked "Delete All", and tried to calm myself down, but I had other notifications waiting on other sites.
Because I knew Kristen personally, as we had shared classes for three years, and were in the same group of friends, I, of course, was Friends with her on Facebook. She had decided to attack me through that medium as well. I had messages from her, her best friend, and several of our mutual friends. My so-called friends all changed their status to "I will always stick up for Kristen; it's what true friends do".
I shut my eyes tightly, hoping, wishing, yearning that when I opened them, this entire morning would have been a terrible, terrible nightmare. I opened them again. Everyone still hated me. I wanted to hide away, and wait for everything to just go away, but that masochist streak in me wouldn't let me. It forced me to click on the messages and read how terrible of a person I am. It forced me to read on as I was told all about the damage I had caused. It forced me to learn that many of my friends no longer wanted to be my friend. The tears kept coming.
Dumbly, I wrote back to one of Kristen's messages, with a simple "I am sorry you think I did this, but I promise I did not steal anything ". Over the next two days, both the tears and the messages of hate kept coming. I may have been a masochist, but the first thing I did was block Kristen. I made it so she couldn't reach me on Facebook, email, Flickr, or any other online medium. But that did not stop her. She created new accounts on multiple websites, making it impossible for me to move on, not allowing me to run from her, and forcing more tears upon me.
More and more people were telling me how I should go about killing myself, or if I was not strong enough, how they would do it for me. I do not think I had ever cried so much in my life. And the masochist in me refused to let me tell anyone. I kept it from my parents, my best friend, from anyone. I was afraid that they, too, would turn on me, leave me alone.
I kept blocking Kristen's new accounts, but she kept creating new ones. I couldn't keep up with her, and she wasn't going to stop anytime soon. After a while, the tears did stop, to be replaced with rage. I had spent all of my time on my photos, poured out energy, emotions, everything into my photography, and she was trying to tear it from me. And she refused to leave me alone. Determined not to let this cripple me any longer, I deleted every comment from my photos, deleted every message from Facebook, and composed one last message to her umpteenth account she had made:
Dear Kristen,
I blocked you because I am tired of crying, as I have been doing the last four days continuously. I blocked you because I don't want to fight with you, believe it or not, we were friends. We used to laugh and joke. And you honestly think I would be capable of stealing your hard work? I wish you could have approached me in a private manner, we see each other often enough. I just want to say that, while I haven't taken any action yet, these messages I've been receiving (and saving) can be classified as cyber bullying. So, in case you haven't gotten the message by me blocking you over and over again, can we please stop this?
She never responded.
