I saw this on Twitter the other day and thought it was really interesting – both in principal and in how people responded to it. I was also impressed and encouraged.
I came across a page on facebook that was created (by someone under a ficticious name) thats purpose is to bully, ridicule and say mean and hurtful things about their class mates. While visiting the page, I found several teenage girls that have scheduled sessions with me for their senior pictures. I am emailing them tomorrow to cancel their shoots. I do not want them to represent my business and I am beside myself at how MEAN and CRUEL they were on that page.
This photographer had a few shoots scheduled with some teenage girls. (I’m assuming they were senior pictures, though I suppose the girls could have been in college. Being mean doesn’t have an age limit). Apparently, the photographer ran across a page that her clients had set up for the sole purpose of ridiculing, and bullying (because let’s call it what it is), other people. She was so disturbed by the sheer meanness that she made an executive decision to cancel the sessions with them. Her rationale being, how could she possibly photograph them and make them as beautiful as possible when they were such ugly people on the inside.
I say – BRAVO.
If more people would take a stand whenever other people do stupid things, like be mean to each other on a public forum, or open their mouths before thinking, or do something completely asinine, then perhaps the world would be a nicer place to live.
Just sayin’.
As a small business owner myself, I understand the risk this woman is taking and the risks involved in refusing to provide a service based on our self-imposed moral guidelines. But at some point, and I believe that point is here and now, we need to stand up and say ENOUGH with the bitchy, it’s all about me and puffing up my self-worth attitudes. It’s time to get over ourselves and bring back COURTESY and RESPECT for our fellow human beings.
I’m so tired of people thinking they can act however they want to act and not have to worry about consequences. WRONG. We need to start making sure there are consequences for stupid choices. Whether that’s jail time for stealing, driving school for reckless driving, school suspension for disrupting class, or deliberately posting something cruel on the Internet behind the cover of “anonymity” – there are, or SHOULD BE, consequences for our stupidity. (And just in case you were not aware of it, the ONLY way to stay completely anonymous on the Internet is to never post anything. I can assure you, people are becoming more savvy when it comes to finding faces behind the fake names – so if you don’t want something that you posted online to come back and bite you in the butt later in life – don’t post it).
I realize that people makes mistakes – we’re all human, we have all weak moments. But the more we overlook these moments, the more we try and excuse them away (well, she comes from a broken home, or well, she’s under a lot of stress right now), the more we condition ourselves to just endure it and eventually accept it. And the more we accept or overlook, the worse it gets because being human, we push the envelope, we take it to the next level, we see how much we can get away with before we’re forced to pay the piper.
When do we say enough is enough? We all talk about how we wish things were different, how we wish people would be more considerate and then when an opportunity presents itself and we have a chance to take a stand, we either chicken out for fear of public ridicule or we excuse it away, thereby giving the person who is acting like an ass a free pass.
So yeah. I say kudos to this photographer for taking a stand, as well as a risk, and sticking to her morals. We ALL need to start sticking up for our morals.
Political correctness be damned.
