bullying in the f1 community, especially on f1 twitter, an extended thread explaining the impact and why it’s a problem.

this isn’t a call out thread. it’s not here to make drama or to make anyone look like a villain. if you feel personally attacked by anything i mention in the thread, i would consider taking a look at your actions.

bullying isn’t just physical. “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is, quite frankly, bullshit. bullying in psychology is classed as trauma because of the long term impact it can have on an individuals mental health.

it isn’t just something that happens, or is carried out by kids, either. adults can be the victims and adults can be the perpetrators.
most of the perpetrators on here are adults, above the age of 20. most of the victims are people between 14 and 20.

many of the victims are women, and many of the perpetrators are men. this is very reflective of the male dominated nature of formula 1 and shows that deep rooted in the community lies the belief that women cannot know as much, or like the sport as much as men.

it’s not just a male vs female narrative however. there’s older fans judging newer fans, and people who have different ways of showing support to drivers being targeted for that - “stans” being targeted for caring about both the racing and the personality of the drivers.

regardless of the reasoning behind attacking these people, and whatever you think about what they’re doing, unless it is at risk of genuinely hurting somebody (as with some of the posts about tiffany) there is no need to insult people +

+ especially over something as simple as a joking edit of the drivers, or joking threads comparing drivers to inanimate objects. they’re harmless fun that yes, might not be everyone’s humour, but nothing is. but what they aren’t doing is hurting anyone.

other things i’m aware of happening in this community is people sending tweets made by someone about a victim to them in order to get a negative response about them to make it look like they are the problem, not the bully, joking about people’s mental health, and calling entire +

+ groups of fans of a certain driver toxic and saying they are the problem when the majority of them are simply a different demographic to you yourself, and therefore have a different way of showing support.

before we go ahead, i encourage you to watch this video. it explains the psychology behind “stans” and “fan girls” incredibly well. it’s not just an obsession to come out of nowhere, there is science behind it.

but why is this a problem? and why can’t the victims simply block and ignore the users targeting them? here’s why.

once again another link, this article explains much better than i can why cyber bullying is such a massive issue in much better words than i can in a simple twitter thread: https://www.syneidis.com/problem-cyberbullying-consequences/

however, to summarise, the main issue with cyber bullying is, as i’ve said, the experience in itself counts as trauma. being repeatedly made fun of online is not something that will not affect someone, and it can cause severe distress and over time, worsen mental health.

mental health is very much like physical health, it’s not something that is just “in your head”. depression, for example, is caused by a chemical imbalance. you are often genetically predisposed to it, but repeat trauma, like bullying, can also trigger this imbalance.

so why can’t the victim just block them and move on? two reasons:

firstly, is fear.
typically the people who target users on this app work in groups. if you were to block one of them, they are likely to post about it or tell a group chat, which will lead to the harassment being continued by others. +

+ to stop the situation from getting worse, people don’t necessarily block the person who is causing it out of fear that it will only lead to more distress in the long run.

second, it doesn’t actually *work*:
there are ways to bypass a block on twitter. whether that’s using alt accounts or friends accounts to stalk users and see their tweets, or going off the app and using the internet to find there accounts instead.

but surely if their blocked, then you can’t see it, it won’t affect you? right? no. bullying isn’t as simple as “out of sight out of mind.” it messes with your head, meaning you’re incredibly conscious and nervous about what people are saying about you - so you’ll check.

this means people are very aware of the way in which they’re being spoken about and the impact of the bullying continues, despite being blocked.

so what can we do? how can the victims simply move on from it? leaving twitter is an option, but how is that fair? why should people be forced to leave a community where they have found friends just because of some people who can’t leave them alone?

this is social media, it’s 24/7. there’s no time that you’re safe to be online.
you can try and carefully select what you tweet, but again you shouldn’t have to do that. it’s not fair. if yourself and others enjoy your content, you shouldn’t have to be afraid to post it.

the victims are helpless themselves, but there is something you can do.
listen to them, support them, and don’t support the perpetrators just because they’re nice to you or you think it’s just a harmless joke. it stops being harmless when someone is upset.

if you don’t like someone’s content, mute them. even block them. that way you don’t have to cringe at what they post, and they don’t have to suffer because you don’t like it. as a community we must work to be better, because people are suffering.

that’s not to say if someone doesn’t deserve to be called out, don’t do it. toxicity can come from anyone in the community.

stay safe and look after each other