Hello and welcome to awake at the wheel. So in previous episodes, we've explored bullying and online bullying and the harms that that can have with adolescents and young adults and adults for that matter. But currently, there's a trend that's out there that's called the flip the camera trend. It kind of melds together in person and online bullying in a whole new way. So we're going to watch a video just to frame it, and then we'll talk a bit more about it. I just saw the trend. People like flipping the camera and people. That's so rude. That was so mean. Like, I can't even believe people do that. Like that. Tell me why the. Would you want to literally put somebody else in a position where they're being made fun of? They're the butt of the joke that everybody is in on except for that. Bullying isn't like this on TV. It isn't. Someone being stuffed into a locker. Isn't someone taking something to a toilet? Most of the bullying in real life is like this with the camera. We all know bullying. Is it new? Okay, that's a tale as old as time. Kids teased for wearing glasses. Adults gossiped about at work. Cruelty is not a new phenomenon. It's just it looks a little different from what we remember. And you can see it in the way people treat each other today. From strangers recording people at their worst without a second thought to so-called pranks that look more like public humiliation. It's like the world is getting a lot more comfortable with making other people uncomfortable. obviously, this is a problematic trend, but what I want to point out from the get go is that it does encompass all of the same general principles, I guess we'll say, of traditional bullying. So it, takes into consideration social hierarchy. It encompasses the bystander effect, which is individuals watching this happening and not interfering, not interjecting or defending the person being bullied. And not to mention the fact that, there's a big element of public humiliation. But the difference here is that all of those things that happen in in person interactions are now being posted online, and they have a lasting impact and it's use as entertainment. I think it's an additional layer, but being entertaining to others, which is what makes this especially problematic. Yeah. And it dehumanizes the victim or the targets of this. And it makes the people who are dehumanizing them, desensitized to this cruelty and whether they're watching on a screen or they have the camera in front of them and they're recording it. There's something this is, you know, we've talked so many times about how irrational humans are. This. The crazy thing is, if someone has a camera and they're filming some of this happening, whether it's bullying, whether someone being humiliated, whether someone being attacked, like physically assaulted, having a camera there, it just in front of it somehow makes the person feel that it's less like real. Okay. Because we, you know, because on a screen, even if it's happening right in front of them, it's such a strange phenomenon. I mean, there's so many other strange phenomena, phenomena that show that we're not rational, but it's that, again, that these womanizing and most importantly, the fact that it's bad enough when you're humiliated in front of two people, whether you're in front of a whole class now that's sped up, now it's on the internet for ever, and it follows you wherever you go. And I've said this so many times in the old days, a kid, at least after school, if they could make it home from the school to home, they got some respite. They could relax. They, you know, recover and go back to that hell the next day. Now it's 24 seven. And even if they don't turn on the screen, they're going to have some aholes messaging them, sending them links. You know, just it's so hard to escape and you know and I and so like I, I've, you know, I'm very, the same as any good person would be. Okay. I really have hated bullies all my life. You know, I've stood up to them all the time. And not physically, necessarily, but I found other ways to, you know, to try to, to counter the bullies. I've always hated that. And so when I see this, it, you know, it's one of my, you know, trigger points that say, pressure points. Yeah. And I'll, I had a adolescent client that I was working with. I think this was such an astute observation and it ties into what you said previously as well. And I use this example often because I think it was such a great point that when people are viewing this as entertainment, they stop viewing people, even in their real life, as real people. So everything looks like content to them, like, how can I make this into content? And that, I think, has really amplified that dehumanizing element of it. Yeah. And, you know, and I see these, you know, as a whole, you know, influencers doing the stuff, accosting people on the street. You know, it's I want them to get their comeuppance. I want them to be arrested. And I'll tell you right now, there was one video, where these idiots were harassing this guy. I think it was at was at the airport or at the mall, I think. Was at the at the mall. And he took out a gun. He shot the guy. Right. Okay. I'm saying get away. Get away. And he shot him. You know, he legally had the gun. He shot him. He felt it, you know, threatened and, you know, and the guy was found not guilty because he was being accosted and the person who was assaulting him or, you know, costing him his mother came on, and she's basically defending her son. Now, I can understand she's saying, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this happened to my son. But afterwards she was defending him. And I'm pretty sure that was, if I'm not mistaken, that when people are asked, why are you gonna do this thing again, I don't think he said, nope. Okay. You know, and we have others where these people are, you know, taking it next step, which is, and I forget the guy's name. And again, I don't know why he's not in jail, but he was going into people's houses, right? He went into, you know, strangers houses and sometimes a group of them. Okay. And they think it's funny. And the end, you know, enough people are watching, enough people are getting entertained by it that this is why, you know, the the demand is sorry, the supply is because of the demand. And I, you know, and again, rather than being arrested, you know, spending serious time in jail, they are maybe getting they might get arrested. Nothing happens to them. And so all these other fools, all these other, you know, the blossoming psychopaths. Now, they may not literally be psychopaths, but certainly acting sociopathic. They think it's worth it. The punishment is certainly worse. The, you know, the, the, the rewards that they're going to get if you get, you know, and even the arrest adds notoriety in many cases rather than the shame and the public shame should be where you know that we don't accept that type of behavior. Okay. You know, and it's ridiculous. And by the way, a little side note here. I know there's nothing new. I've always found this ridiculous. And, you know, maybe somebody will say I'm too sensitive. And you know, me, my background, I am the least sensitive person. I, you know. Yeah. And the most offensive stuff, you know, call me up. I don't want to say, like, I'm. I'm good with that. I got a very thick skin, but, I never understood this idea that when you would watch people getting married , ok? And they're about to have a slice the cake and the person shove the cake, I don't get. And now there's all these videos where a little kid, like three year old kids having a birthday and they're about to, you know, they blow the candles and someone put, you know, the parent or someone puts the head. I've seen, like, fights break out like it's it's so bizarre. And it's like this desire to publicly humiliate. Yeah. I mean, and again. And people are afraid of it always just curious. Whatever. Well, you can frame anything in any self-serving manner. The reality is, no, you've ruined it. And there was also these other videos where the parents would take an egg and the smack it on the kid's forehead. Okay. And they recorded it. Hahaha. Is that funny? Like, oh, it's not funny. The kid. The kid doesn't know what's going on. You're you're just basically modeling for the kid, you know? You know, just reprehensible behavior. That's what you're doing. And by the way, a little side note here. When I used to, when we used to watch TV, on commercials, there was one time where the trend was so many of these commercials, they had this really nasty, element to it. It was just like food. And it was for no good reason. It was just lazy. People would just be like assholes. And it was a commercial for, like, you know, the subway, like, it's sort of like a submarine sandwich or, you know, for a car insurance or something. It's just really nasty. And I tell my daughters, I say, look what's going on here. I say, they're selling this through, you know, some mean spirited humor. I said, don't be fooled by that. I said, this is, antisocial. This is not cool. This is really ugly behavior. I said that to my daughters and 99.9 to the end, you know, to the 99 of parents, percent of parents aren't saying that. Right. So and that was on regular TV, on the internet, it's a million times worse, right? Kids are seeing it all the time, and that's what their algorithm is going to keep feeding them is nasty, nasty nastiness. And so that becomes the social norm. And again, they become desensitized to it. And I think from a developmental perspective, it's important to point out as well that, with adolescents in particular, and that's, I think, who are engaging in this, this trend, the flip, the camera trend, at least temporarily, I think it ups their social standing. And as we know, that's one of the most important developmental tasks for teenagers is to, enhance your social standing and their identity and so on. And that, I believe, overrides their ability to, in the moment, exercise empathy and, you know, let their morals override that need for social standing. And, I mean, in their defense, their prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed yet. But that's not an excuse, right? It has to come from conversations like what you're describing and helping teenagers to take that step back and understand, like maybe in the moment this might feel funny or whatever. But in the long term, this is harmful to to you and your ability to develop empathy. And of course, to the victim of that bullying. Exactly. And so many of these times, like I alluded to earlier, the parents of these reprobates are encouraging them because they're getting some gain as well. Where there's notoriety, whether it's the money, okay, or they're just afraid of their kids, they can't raise them properly. Okay. So children then are expecting that because and those adults, they represent authority. They represent the system, they represent the safeguards. And if those very people are the ones who are going along with it or condoning it, you know, what lesson are kids learning? And by the way, you mentioned also, I always I think the person in the video, I don't do much about pranks. Okay. Funny like harmless pranks can be hilarious, but some of these pranks that you see between these couples and everything like that. I called this out almost 20 years ago. The university course I remember, cause that's when they started really becoming popular 15 to 20 years ago. And I said, these are not fun. These are two people who I think hate each other right. But, you know, and this is before you can monetize these things. So they weren't even getting money for it. They were just recording each other, humiliating themselves. And so again, you see a bunch of people thinking, oh, this is how hot isn't this cute? This is how I can treat my partner with such disregard or not. Not just callous disregard, but, contempt and sometimes physical harm. Again, it was being normalized. So I called us so many years ago and it's only got worse. Yeah. And this brings to mind then, as far as, like the motivation for it right now, I think clearly surrounds like monetization and views and so on and so forth. But I think in the past, generally speaking, like when a bully was picking its victim, it would typically be somebody who maybe wasn't weak per se, but didn't have as strong a social standing or, maybe didn't have as high likelihood of people standing up for them or people supporting them. I wonder if that is still the case now. I certainly don't have the answer. I'm thinking out loud here, but I wonder if the target of these things has changed, or if there is still some semblance of that. Oh, that's it's still there. Because you'll see, like, they'll go again. They'll go after homeless people, okay? They'll go after people who maybe, you know, cognitively, less capable, you know, so, but it's it's either, you know, it's either that they're going after them or they have the numbers behind them. Okay. So it might be for girls going up to a guy you know, who might be a normal guy may not be, you know, like the loser in the group might be a normal person. Sorry. Not normal status. Okay. But there's four of them. So they can, you know, they can assert their dominance in that way. And it was really important when you talked about that elevation of your status, which is something that, you know, again, is something inherent in, social animals, which we are, you know, we want to have, you know, want to elevate our hierarchy. It's literally a zero sum game. And what people do I just to explain that to people who don't know a zero sum game, is that your benefit can has to necessarily come at another cost. The more you go up the other thing or person goes down. So they're they're again, they're humiliating shaming somebody to elevate their status. And you know the higher they go know or the lower the other person goes, the higher they go. So they're trying, you know, to to really hurt and shame and humiliate the person. And again, it is sociopathic by definition. And when I said antisocial earlier, people think. And socially shy I mean antisocial has an antisocial personality disorder, which, as you know, you know, is basically criminal behavior, criminal mind, causing harm to others without any remorse. And that's what we're seeing. And that's, again, that's also the definition basically of social sociopathy is, is that and again, it's, it's being it's being normalized, it's being minimized, and it's being emulated by so many people, you know, and yeah, anyway, it's I can go around, but I'll let you take the next step. Sorry. And I have, like many different trains of thought that I'm following here, but like, all in all, I guess my, my thought is, well, like, what can be done? It's only going to get worse, I think. And it is only getting worse the more that people are like literally directly rewarded again. So not just rewarded in the sense of that increase in their social status and social standing, but like monetarily being rewarded for this type of behavior and there's nobody discouraging it. I think that's the big and I won't say nobody, but there's, you know, few people discouraging it, and in fact, encouraging it further through these algorithms, through parents making money off of their children's, accounts and so on. Like, I, I'm, I'm really dismayed by it, to be quite honest, because like, bullying obviously has always been a problem, but it's just like so inflated with, with this new methodology of doing it. Yeah. And it allows for so many different or diverse ways of, you know, bullying and harming and once again, to the harm itself. It's it's in perpetuity. It's there forever, potentially on the internet. And it has that. We know for a fact numerous people have committed suicide because of this in Canada, while in every country numerous people have done that. And, you know, and look, I, I do believe that and some people have been held responsible, okay? I think that any harm that comes to someone, you know, and it doesn't have to be suicide, anything, the people should be held accountable. Okay. There should be serious repercussions. And I'm sorry, but parents should be held accountable as well. Now, if the parent can show that I had no clue whatever else like that, then if the parent is forced to do everything in their power to make restitution, somehow and to make sure that their child doesn't become, you know, again, a sociopath ruling the streets, then maybe, you know, the punishment can be mitigated. But, you know, I believe that parents have to be held accountable in schools, by the way, because schools allow this to happen as well. No, not all schools, not all teachers. But, you know, I think you and I have talked about this before, so many people, both of us, you know, have worked with, you know, either the the victims themselves or their parents. Okay. Who, you know, who've tried to curb this, who've gone to the schools and the teachers or the principals, trustees, whoever, they just, you know, throw up their hands and say, what can we do? And you can do a lot. It's your responsibility if we are entrusted our children in this care of the school for 7 or 8 hours a day, and they have to bear some responsibility as well. And this is not about retribution. I'm not just saying, you know, you know, punish those people. What I'm saying is, I'm hoping that with the threat of this punishment, that this will, you know, encourage people to do the right thing, step up. Because you're supposed to be the authorities. And like I said, the same with police. And there's there's been talk about this, okay? Because this is a new phenomenon, like with this type of, you know, social media, you know, craziness, you know, that that the laws haven't caught up. They have to that's one thing. They have to have specific laws. You know, that will really, you know, be make people held to account. And I would rather I would much rather, you know, as much as I have this, you know, this, this need for vengeance. Okay. I would rather that these perpetrators, if they are shown that, you know, maybe they show some bad judgment, maybe they got caught up in it. Maybe they're actually a good person who did one stupid thing. I would rather have them have a chance to make amends, you know, to be a good, decent person. But sitting down and talking to the person or watching a video on bullying or something, that's not a I'm talking some real intense, you know, work in doing right by others. Make them, you know, volunteer at a shelter, make them do this, this and that. You know, some people say enforce, you know, volunteering or, you know, enforce, you know, it's it it backfires if done properly. If they say it's not about punishment, it's about helping you, you know, become a decent human being, blah, blah, blah. Yes. Most, like I said, there, are there any certain teens or young adults who not that they're going to go whatever, then fine. Then make that punishment, make them, you know, suffer the consequences in jail. But for everybody else who has potential to be you know, saved, give them that opportunity. Yeah. So the thing is, this is what comes to mind as you're saying that. And anyone who knows me knows that I have no shortage of criticism for our school system and and the problems and so on. But I will say that I think, at least in comparison to when we were kids, there is a higher degree of like acceptance of differences and like an attempt at least to be a more welcoming, warm environment, accept differences, embrace differences, and so on and so forth. So I think that in that respect, schools have tried, but clearly, you know, it's it's not sticking or what comes to mind is perhaps then the power of this reward that students and kids, adolescents, whatever, are getting, from the algorithm, from likes, from shares, from their video is being viewed. That desire has superseded any learning that they've had with regard to, you know, enhancing learning about empathy and emotions and being more welcoming and being more open. That's I don't know, that's really concerning to me. Well, and you're right, I mean, because that's more proximal I mean, that's I guess right in front of them that they have this, you know, this immediate reward, and it feels good because, again, as social animals, we want that status. We want that validation. We want to be we want to belong. We want to be seen by others. So, you know, getting it right away certainly does, you know, supersede the empathy and going on it. I could, you know, humiliate somebody and go get a million likes or I could actually be a decent human being. Well, you know that, right? Many people take the wrong path. And again, especially when it's normalized so much and in person, once again, they are desensitizes behind a camera. It's not so bad. And and look, people, this starts earlier and earlier, you know, like we're seeing it because the technology makes it available. So kids always bullied each other before, but now they can they have ways of, you know, of bullying them. And, you know, we know that, you know, boys bullying was more physical historically. Girls is more through, through gossip, through reputation, destruction and so on. Okay. And this makes it much easier. So there's a lot of males doing the same thing, a lot of this reputation, you know, they're taking this feminized approach, no, to destroying people, the reputation destruction. And then there's the males who do both where they physically, you know, lead somebody and, you know, they spread it to make the person, you know, just lose any status at all among their peers. So, it is so toxic, starting earlier. And therefore, once again, parents have to play a much more active role. And, you know, in trying to mitigate the, this, this growing problem. Yeah. Yeah. So as far as parents and what they can do, like there's, you know, we've spoken before about, research suggesting that social media access, before the age of 16, can be problematic again, because kids are going through puberty. They're being exposed to a lot of different things, their brains aren't fully developed, and so on and so forth. It's interesting to see that some governments across the world are now actually implementing these laws and making it so that, people under 16 can't access social media legally. I think people still are and still are going to. And there always challenges that come along with these, blanket rules. But I have some hope surrounding the fact that maybe the powers that be are seeing the true harms that are occurring as a result of young people accessing social media before they have the emotional ability, and intelligence. And. I would say impulse control to be able to handle all that is social media. So, you know, a little bit of a bright spot here. But nonetheless, I think that, like so many things, the onus does largely fall on parents in terms of monitoring what their kids are doing, modeling proper behavior, not encouraging and laughing at things like this because, you know, kids do what they see. That's a principle as old as time. And I think that the power of social media is really amplifying that. So setting that really strong example, as always, is really important. Yeah. And you know, another principle as old as time is that and I don't expect people to do this, that adults don't do it most sorry most adults don't do it. So I certainly wouldn't expect a teen or a child to do it, which is when bad stuff is happening. Now, very few people would ever step up. They're not going to they because they don't want the attention directed toward them. So I don't expect someone to do right and say, hey, hey, stop it right there. When you know that's just not human nature. Human nature is to, you know, you need to stay quiet. But I would say at the very least, you know, parents should tell their kids, you know, don't give it, don't give them unrealistic goals, okay? It's like trying to stand up. Okay. Maybe they can, but but at least don't participate, right? Remove yourself if you can. Is your feet that you're removing yourself so bad? Just don't just don't exacerbate an already bad problem. Right. And you know and again it's I don't want to sound like one of these, idealistic parents who say, well, that afterwards maybe you can sit down with the person or you know what? That really wasn't cool. I don't really like that. Okay. If you can do that, great. You know, if you know one on one or something like that where you know. Right, you can say that. But I don't expect most people to have the wherewithal to do that, especially as kids or teens. So I'm not trying to say that. I'm just saying that the parents, even if parents say ideally, that's what you would do. But I don't expect you to do that because as a social animal, you want to be part of the group. Okay. But I and I've told a lot of, I've told my daughters, first of all, never engage, right? I say, you know, I say that don't ever engage. You know, and like I said, you know, you can you can kind of like, you know, give a weak smile if someone says something cruel about another person. Okay. I say, just don't jump and and join them, okay. Yeah. And Paris be saying that at the very least. Okay. You know, again, don't don't, exclude yourself. Don't cause yourself to be alienated by the group. That's not going to do anybody any good, but try your best to sort of slightly distance yourself. Because at the very least, you're making yourself less susceptible to internalizing the same evil that is being, you know, or this malevolence that is being promulgated. At the very least, you're kind of creating a bit of a buffer. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm curious what our listeners think in terms of why this trend has gained traction. Let us know in the comments what you think. Why why has this trend taken off? And, do you agree with what we've come up with? Do you have other ideas? Let us know. On on that note, until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel and to yourself.