Around the time of my eighth grade year of middle school, a new form of communication had taken over AIM and MSN messenger: MySpace. It was a time where the term "social media" was not even a household name quite yet. I went from being excited to finally have my own cell phone with text messaging, (500 texts a month limit, and free calling only after 9 p.m. Those were the days.) to contemplating who should be placed in the coveted spot on my Top 8. I would spend my time filling out questionnaires and mini interviews that were posted on the bulletin boards. Hours would pass by as I searched online for the perfect MySpace background, and my friends would all ask me to "code" for them so they could have glittery scroll bars or different colored fonts. I was obsessed with Hayley Williams making red hair cool, so Paramore often sat at the top spot in my profile's playlist. All of my selfies were taken on an actual digital camera, a bright pink Kodak I begged for for my birthday, instead of a cell phone. I don't believe at that time they were even called "selfies" yet. Being the nerdy kid who I was, I also frequented the blog section of my MySpace profile, and would fill the pages with angst ridden poetry or short stories.

At age twelve or thirteen, creative writing was my happy place. Aside from the healthy emotional release writing gave me, I loved having a place where I could express myself and have a voice. Having a voice and using it was something I became proud of. One day after school, I decided to make a short story inspired by the girls at my school. Thirteen year old me thought she would make a book out of it and eventually live her dream of becoming a novelist.

My school was tiny. I had approximately twenty-one people in my graduation class, and more than half of those students had went to school with me every year from Kindergarten to senior year. Seventh grade through 12th grade was in one building, and we had around 212 students in that entire building. When I say my school was small, it was small.

If you've ever grown up in a small school, you know that just like everything else in life, it has its positives and its negatives. The word popularity takes on a different definition at a smaller school. Because of the small class size, you get to know everyone pretty well, and you end up interacting with virtually everyone on a regular basis. Groups and cliques happened, but with a class size that limited you were bound to spend time with everyone at some point. You see the same twenty or so kids every single day for more than a decade of your life, and it can sometimes lead to a strange feeling of everyone is my friend but nobody is actually my friend all at once.

There were a group of girls during middle school who I interacted with, but at times didn't feel that I fit completely in with. We would sit together at lunch if they were accepting of me that day, and we were all on the same sports teams at one point or another. I liked these girls, but they didn't always seem to like me.

When I sat down to write my story, I thought to myself that I would change the names of these girls so that nobody could know their personal information, and I could create a story that was believable and relatable. I would change up the personal stories a little here and there, because thirteen year old me firmly believed all good fiction is based somewhat in reality. I took tiny snippets of their personalities, and created sensationalized characters based on those traits. One of my friends had a father who was quirky and funny, so in my story I created a father who was strange and odd.

I wrote about ten pages of my story and I published them to my MySpace blog. In about an hour or so, the comments started spilling in. The girls assumed pretty quickly that I was writing about them despite all of my name changes and fictional additions. All of the negative things that were mentioned they applied to themselves personally, instead of realizing the negative aspects of the characters were creations of fiction, not how I actually viewed them. It became a major mess quicker than I could figure out how to deal with it. I sat at my computer desk in my room shaking as I read all of the comments directed toward me.

On one hand, I felt terrible that their feelings were hurt by the story, because they assumed I actually felt those negative things toward them when in reality they were simply fictional characters I created based on aspects of their lives. On the other hand, I felt incredibly misunderstood by my friends and just wanted them to know that I didn't mean any harm by it, and that all writers take inspiration from the individuals in their lives. Overall, I was thirteen and was not prepared for the backlash that I received at school the next day. Nobody would speak to me, and I felt the whispers in the hallways as if they were shouting the negative things they were saying about me. At thirteen, it was a big deal to be completely ostracized by your friend group and gossiped about at school for the next few weeks. My blog would be filled with comments for quite some time that let me know how horrible I was. It was one thing to deal with the silence treatment at school, but to have to come home and see multiple people commenting these things as quick as they could type on their computer screens, was devastating for a thirteen year old.

Over the past few years, we have heard numerous horror stories of children taking their own lives due to cyber-bulling. Just two years ago, a young student took his own life at a school just a few miles from where I'm living now. These stories tend to shake us to our very core, as they should. When we hear of a child ending their lives we feel something. We imagine if that child were our little brother or sister, and we sometimes feel as if we can relate to the pain they felt. As someone passionate about mental health, all I can think about is the preventative measures that should have taken place prior to those horrific endings. The epidemic of cyber-bulling in our schools has sparked a variety of different anti-bullying campaigns, documentaries and movies. We sell bracelets with anti-bullying slogans. We have anti-bullying clubs in our schools. We even have clubs and organizations at our workplaces that help promote coworker unity and kindness.

So, why is it that in 2016, after the cycle of the introduction of social media, followed by the introduction of cyber-bullying, followed by the massive movements to end it, do we still find it socially acceptable to cyberbully celebrities? All of this Taylor Swift versus, well, everyone drama in the media lately has me asking that question.

I don't really follow much celebrity gossip, but the human mindset is what is most fascinating to me. Long story short, Taylor Swift is rumored to have wrote the lyrics for ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris's latest song, "This Is What You Came For" under the name Nils Sjoberg. This information leaked into the media this week and a lot of people are in their feelings about it, especially Harris himself. After going to Twitter to vent about the situation, he compared the leak to how Swift treated Katy Perry in their bad blood inspiring past, stating: "I know you're off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy ETC but I'm not that guy, sorry. I won't allow it."

This, of course, sparked numerous celebrity responses, including one from Perry herself. Katy Perry re-tweeted a tweet she had pinned onto her page that stated: "Time, the ultimate truth teller."

Kim Kardashian West, whose husband Kanye West we all know has had his fair share of drama with Swift in the past, had her own words to say about Swift in response to her reaction to Kanye's song "Famous".

All of the drama has lead to numerous response articles that have been shared on my social media for the past few days. The articles have generally been factual and informative, and not opinion based pieces. (The titles such as, "Kim Kardashian is About To Go the F**k In on Taylor Swift" could be a little less instigating, but freedom of speech, ya'll.) What is intriguing to me, is the hashtags I'm seeing pop up. #TaylorSwiftisOverParty is trending, and I've seen a few that say things such as #TakeDownTaylorSwift2016. I've had friends over the past few days share the articles with captions such as, "Rip her to shreds."

It could be argued that I don't know Swift, she might genuinely be horrific in real life. I don't need to know anything about Taylor Swift as a person to know that this is not okay. This is not showing a positive example to the kids who, as a society, we are trying so hard to get to realize cyber-bullying is harmful and unacceptable. When we post things like that online, as adults, we are telling future generations that bullying people isn't okay, unless it is someone we don't know personally.

Taylor Swift isn't a newcomer to drama on the Internet. If you looked up slut-shaming in the dictionary you could probably find a photo of her next to the definition as the poster child. Search her name in any search engine and you will find pages on top of pages critiquing her love life, her body, her face, etc.

Honestly, the worst of all of this, is that if you were to look up any celebrity you could find some sort of hateful statements about their personal life or appearance. Khloe Kardashian is the ugly one. Taylor Swift is a slut. There are entire "listicles" written about the ugliest celebrities of all time, the dumbest celebrities of all time, etc.

Why is this okay to us?

I think that fame can quickly lead to objectification and dehumanization. I'm guilty of it myself. We turn these people into characters for our own enjoyment and forget they are actually real people. We watch their reality shows or television interviews for entertainment and forget they are people living real life stories. They have families, insecurities, feelings, bad days, etc. just like the rest of us. Yes, they chose the career that they are in, and they most likely understand that public scrutiny is part of it. However, there is a fine line between public opinion and bullying. No human being deserves to be harassed or bullied on the Internet regardless of their career choice. Being a celebrity does not make someone your fair game to bully.

We are all entitled to our opinions. If you feel that Taylor Swift is a maniacal, man-destroying she-devil, you are absolutely entitled to feel that way, and I'll fight for you to be able to share your opinions. I don't want this article to come off as tone policing and tell you that you can't say what you'd like on the Internet. I mean, giving my opinion on the Internet is literally what I am doing right now.

I have celebrities whose actions I don't necessarily agree with, but I refuse to attack someone personally for their actions. Expressing our opinions is important, but we can do so in a way that isn't emotionally attacking someone else. We can't fight against cyber-bullying in our schools and then continue bullying people we don't even know. We can't claim to want to love one another and be body-positive and then mock a celebrities nose or body type. We can't pretend as a society that we are passionate against cyber-bullying and the negative effects that come from it, if we refuse to acknowledge the hypocrisy within ourselves. We are harming our own cause.