Creating Black and White Images from Not So Black and White Issues
Bethany Noel Mota
Bethany Mota saved me. I get that it sounds stupid but I truly believe she did. When she was 13 she was being severely cyberbullied through the social media site, Myspace. Girls who she thought were her friends made a fake account in her name, where they posted things like ¨I’m so fat” and ¨I’m so ugly¨ She lost a lot of weight and all of her confidence.
She helped me when I was being cyberbullied. On this site called Ask.fm. People were anonymously telling me that I'm ugly, a slut (which makes no sense) and that I should kill myself. I tried to stay strong, but during that time I lost almost all of my friends and I felt like nobody was there for me. Which is exactly how Bethany felt. After watching her videos, she helped me regain my confidence and gain that strength I needed to stand up for myself.
In my first image I just wanted to show the audience how she’s just a normal teenage girl. She has been through struggles like all of us. Bethany isn’t some girl thriving to be famous (which of course shes is famous now) She made her first video because it was something fun, instead of going home and lying in bed hating life, she found the voice she lost when she was being bullied and now is helping all girls be more confident. I want people to look at my image and feel comfort from her smile and feel like they have someone right behind them ready to catch you when you fall.
Bethany Mota was born in Los Banos, California, on November 7, 1995. In her “Draw my Life” video on Youtube she talks about what a fun childhood she had, “ I remember us always going on vacation and traveling,”. After moving from Los Banos, she said she remembers growing up around a lot of farm animals like cows, pigs, and lots of cats. Bethany and her sister Brittany, who is five years older, were homeschooled for 4 years. She enjoyed watching tv and eating Spaghettios during recess and she was a really shy kid so having it just be her, her sister and her mother was something she benefitted from.
One day, her sister decided she wanted to go to a public school. Tammy, Bethany’s mom, convinced Beth to go too. She says her first day of third grade was really awkward because she started late in the year, “-everybody already had their group of friends and I was kind of like just there. No one really talked to me and I just felt really alone and left out.”
After elementary school was over she was actually kind of excited for middle school. She had her 2 best friends and she was just really happy. Her friends had a lot of their classes together and Bethany didn’t have a single class with either of them! She started to drift away from her and once again Bethany was all alone. To cope with that Bethany started taking extra curricular activities like cheer, dance, and acting. This when she started to get bullied.
One of her “friends” made a fake Myspace account making it look like Bethany was just bashing herself with really nasty and mean comments. That person also turned the only 2 friends she had against her. She became really depressed, wouldn’t eat more than 1 meal a day and began to have really bad anxiety attacks everywhere she went. She had to quit all of those extracurriculars and overall she hated her life and herself.
Instead of laying in bed, one day Bethany decided to watch some Youtube videos. She really enjoyed what she was watching. Girls going shopping and showing what they purchased and makeup and hair tutorials. Beth decided that she was going to make her own channel! Of course she was scared to post her first video, she thought people from school would see it and think she was stupid but she did it. She posted her first “haul” video and instantly she felt like she found the voice she lost.
She now has more subscribers than Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, and Miley Cyrus! She has her own clothing line at Aeropostale, and she even interviewed the president!
Some victims of cyberbullying aren’t as strong or as lucky. Take Megan Meier for example. The parents of her friend down the street made a fake Myspace account of a cute boy and started and made Megan believe there was actually a guy with a crush on her. One day, that “cute boy” turned on her. They made a bulletin on Myspace where everyone started posting really just awful things about Megan. She couldn’t take it. Megan Meier hung herself just days before her 14th birthday.
I want my second image to show all the hardships she’s been through. I want the audience to see that even a girl whose life seems “perfect” actually started out being far from it.
To wrap things up, side by side I want the audience to be shocked that someone so sweet and pretty could have been bullied that badly. Throughout my research I read so many suicide stories about kids and teens who were cyberbullied. I learned that everybody has the power to be a bully. The people who choose to bully are insane and to push someone so far that they feel the need to take their own life is sick.