The saddest day ever
We’d planned to publish a lot of titilating posts to the Flog today, but those plans were derailed when we discovered our Voice Mail was full of messages from media outlets researching stories about the Canadian Teachers Federation’s recent calls for the criminalization of cyberbullying, which has really taken off thanks to social networking sites like Facebook.
Naturally, we assumed they wanted to get some defensive and inflammatory comments from the shameless Internet bully who has taken aim at What’s Up Yukon, animal rights activists, the dog on Yukon’s Coat of Arms, and Yukon MP Larry Bagnell, to name but a few.
So, imagine our surprise when we began to return the calls and discover they wanted our perspective on what it’s like to be the victim of cyberbullying.
“Say what?” we said.
And that’s when we learned that Smells Like Yukon is being taunted by a Facebook group dedicated to the destruction of all things good and pure.
Well, as soon as we saw this, we convened an emergency meeting of the Smells Like Yukon team. We also tried to include General Al-Kuzbari via Skype from his Syrian jail cell (who better to suggest some possible retaliations to this outrage?) but he was in another part of the prison, having his own torture methods used against him.
After some heated discussion, and a lot of crying, we came to the consensus that this Facebook slap really hurts. Not a Syrian prison sort of hurt, but certainly enough to warrant a consolatory trip to the local Dairy Queen. Matters were only made worse when we remembered it’s out of business.
We think, for all of us, the hardest part of this whole ordeal has been trying to come to terms with the fact that:
a) Mark’s parents are even aware that Facebook exists;
b) They would go to the trouble of setting up this malicious group;
c) They would sully the good name of Skookum Jim; and,
d) They would publish such an uncomplimentary and outdated photo of their son
In these difficult times, all we can do is turn the other cheek, put our faith in God, and pray that the abuse will stop.
In the meantime, we do encourage you all to join the group. “Skookum Jim” looks kind of lonely in there. And given the status of our own retarded Facebook group, we know how he feels.