I was scrolling through TikTok recently when I had to stop. It was a video of a girl sharing her interest about bugs. I went into the comments to see how others were responding when I saw an outpouring of hate for the girl. The interesting part was that everyone who was commenting hate all had their accounts either anonymous or private.

This got me thinking about why people feel so comfortable being rude online. Since COVID-19, online bullying has become more prevalent and harmful within our generation. From trends wanting to bring back bullying to school barstool accounts posting stories that harass opposing athletes.

The hate for others is most apparent on Instagram. If you scroll through reels for long enough and open up the comments, you will find toxicity runs rampant in them. Instagram has become a place where people can belittle and demean others because the app doesn’t have systems in place to combat hate.

To be fair, the appearance of anonymity on social media has removed any sense of accountability. But in this day and age with technology, nothing can stay hidden for long. Now more people are deciding to take action against these hateful accounts since platforms refuse to do anything. One example of this is people tracking down others’ jobs and reporting them to the company.

Think twice before deciding to spread negativity online; it might come back to haunt you.