The Anti-Cyberbullying Musical

Feb 8, 2023

As a group of people (most of them children and minors) we watched a live-action musical designed to teach people that Cyberbullying Is Bad. Despite its obvious message, it takes place in what appears to be the real world.

As the movie progresses, we begin to realize that this world is actually an allegory of the internet. This is where it explores various themes such as trolling, depression, the dangers of social media, and other reasons why some people are switching to Mastodon. In one scene, a girl gives a red envelope to another girl. She looks around to notice that everyone has large boxes instead of envelopes. She then crumples the red envelope she just recieved, which appalls the other girl. I'm pretty sure that's a metaphor for Instagram, because it's about the dangers of comparing yourself to others.

The plot of the movie involves a girl getting bullied, and eventually overcomes her depression with the help of various characters that appeared throughout the musical. Among those characters is a man known for his excellent crimefighting skills, his charasmatic energy, and his funny accent.

After the musical, I recall seeing an interesting bug. It looked like a bunch of gnocchi cheese in a conga line. A fully-grown child interviened and decided to sit on it. His excuse? "Well, when I saw the bug I assumed you were afraid of it, so I decided to kill it with my ass so you don't have to be scared of it anymore." Well, no wonder why the bug fandom on Tumblr fears you, arsehole.

When I woke up, I tried to remember what happened in the dream to my best of my ability while still in bed. I ended up filling up a major gap: a choir of childen who would go around harassing people. They are a metaphor of trolls, Twitter users with terrible opinions, those who spent too much time on 4Chan, KiwiFarms, and other people who harass others online. I would not be surprised if there was a similar metaphor in the musical, such as clowns who think "pronouns in bio 🤡" is the ultimate comeback to any argument.

Now I think about it, Twitter has been dying out ever since Elon Musk bought it and made it worse than it already was in the first place. Ten years ago, Tumblr was considered a "hellsite" due to conflicts that has torn various communities apart. Five years ago, many people believed that the site was dead, and the previous users moved on to Twitter. Nowadays, Twitter has become the new "hellsite" while Tumblr's wounds finally healed. Heck, it was still usable when major social media outlets such as Facebook shut down in 2021!

This musical is a reflection of our current issues in our online society. But like the ending where everyone helps the girl break free from a spiral of depression, we need to work together to help others realize that there is light at the end of the tunnel. By introducing people (especially young ones) to various alternatives such as Mastodon and Neocities, we give people extra options to express themselves without being harassed by others. By analyzing the inner workings of the social media we use, we begin to understand the various issues and find ways to undo the behaviours imbedded in us. I fear a future where many people of my generation would become nostalgic for TikTok and Twitter. But when I check my Mastodon feed or read what other people have to say in the Yesterweb forums, I feel hopeful for a future instead, where we weave a more inclusive and creative Internet. This is not the grandfather's final song, which was sung before the 2000s came along. And this is not the father's final song, which he sang months before Facebook rose to power. And this is not the first sang by Snowden himself a decade ago, to expose our loss of privacy. This is a song we sing together, to create a part of an Internet that captures the essence of an online community in the purest possible essence. We know that it will not be perfect, but in the end it will be more cozy than the Elon Musk era of Twitter.

Wait a minute... I thought I was writing a dream, not the Yesterweb Manifesto! Whoops! :O