Andrew Johnston and YouTube
May 2nd 2008
He’s big–really big–on YouTube right now: 13-year-old Andrew Johnston, on Britain’s Got Talent. Here’s one of the clips:
Simon liked his singing–a lot. (So do I.) He said in the introduction that he had been bullied for his singing. Well, the comments on YouTube are right in line with that. They’re piling on with profanity, all because he sings high and he sings well, and maybe because he doesn’t carry himself with obvious confidence.
Maybe by the time you read this YouTube will have done something to stop it from coming the way it has been today. I hope so. There’s serious profanity in at least 20% of the comments now, and other forms of ridicule in many others.
Our kids have been bullied at about that age. I won’t go into the details; suffice it to say that we’ve had opportunity to get to know their schools’ administrations very, very well. In some cases they’ve handled it well, and it has improved. I won’t speak of the contrasting situation we also faced. I will say that seeing Andrew succeed this way has given us real joy.
But what about the way he’s been treated, at school and on YouTube? Why do people do this? Why do people find it attractive to cuss out a teenager? What’s the motivation? What’s the payoff?