The internet world is scary and yet spectacular place; there are so many places you can go on the web to look up DIY: tutorials, stories, look up different countries, etc. Social Media has developed its own career. We have celebrities coming from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or even Twitter--though YouTube is the main social media platform that is filled with many incredibly talented creators. Many are becoming published authors, actors, singers, makeup "gurus."
These social media stars have the biggest platform of all; they have a way to get their content across to every media outlet. It's definitely one of the scariest things about the internet; once you post something it's forever going to be there and there's nothing you can do about it. Even if you delete it, it's still going to come back to haunt you. So I hope that picture you just posted was worth it. Many social media stars don't realize how big of an impact they have on the rest of the world; not realizing that their actions are going to leave an impression onto the world.
When you have a platform with millions of followers, you have a responsibility to make sure that what you broadcast out there isn't harmful. What I'm trying to get at here is this: about a week ago two big YouTubers, TheGabbieShow and RiceGum came up with quite a story. Who are they?
Gabbie from thegabbieshow who's full name is Gabrielle Jeanette Hanna, made her start on Vine and then made her way to YouTube. She has racked up quite a following--3 Million and counting followers on YouTube and equally as many on her other social media platforms. She's known for her jokes and her funny story-times. Ricegum, has 5 Million and counting followers on YouTube and 1.3 Million Twitter. He's very famous for his Diss Track which is a song dissing people. Honestly, I never heard about him until this.
So the story here is they both attended the same party, Gabbie thought she could go up to Rice and start a "beef battle" with him. A year ago, Rice released a video dissing Gabbie, calling her a joke thief and bashing her looks. Gabbie recorded almost everything on her Snapchat story, starting when she jokingly asked if they could battle it out. At first, he smiled and said "no" jokingly. Then on Gabbie's next Snap, she called him out for using a ghostwriter. After that, the next clip showed Gabbie sitting outside and crying and recalling what happened after she called him out. According to Gabbie, Rice grabbed her arm, pushed her down trying to get her phone. When he did get a hold of her phone, he smashed it and left. She was obviously shocked and still trying to process what had happened. She showed the scratches she had when he grabbed her and pushed her down.
In response to this Rice came out with a very degrading video, one which has been deleted from his account, he was sitting down shirtless and started scratching himself, then he would laugh and say "Oh he hit me. He hit me," he continued laughing and scratching himself. Now, this is where I was left feeling so disgusted. There's many ways he could've handled this situation but he took it too far, posting a video as shameful as this one.
Violence in any form, especially against a woman, is not and will never be funny and shouln't be taken as a joking matter. Just posting that video alone proves the type of cold heart person he is. That's a slap in the face to victims of abuse. How is it a joking matter to self inflect yourself with scratches to prove that you didn't attack Gabbie. Did you really think that video was not going to cause a rift? What makes this whole thing that much worse is that his followers and his friends support him and applauded him. Earlier the week he released another diss track about Gabbie, I haven't heard it yet but I can only imagine his video was as tasteful as his "hitting" one.
It doesn't matter if you are trying to defend yourself from being accused about something you didn't do, you still have many people that look up to you. Be an example of doing good. Ricegum has only labeled himself as a someone who has no consideration or respect for women. These types of incidents are the reason many women don't dare to come forward. It's not fair to them or anyone being abused or harassed.
It's easy to be behind a computer or a camera but when it comes to a face to face confrontation things are obviously not what they seem. Ricegum needs to apologize for his actions and realize that this has become much bigger than the little party-foul he's trying to play it off as.
