We watched many videos in my school that were used to scare us!

I also was shown the video about Sarah a girl who had unwanted images released. Everyone in her community then asked her creepy questions about when she was going to post more pictures or the colour of her underwear. This video was shown multiple times in school to deter students from taking or sending revealing images to others. If you want to take a look at the video, it is imbeded below.

The next video is of a girl who posted a photo of herself on a bulletin board. When the photo is taken by one student another one pops up in its place. Before long the entire school has this photo. When the girl decides that putting the photo on the bulletin board was a BAD idea, she takes down the image but another one pops up in its place. Then we see the terror in the girl’s eyes because she can never take the image off the bulletin board. This video definitely deterred me from taking and sending revealing photos of myself.

We also watched a video in middle school that unfortunately, I cannot find. The premise of the video was to show that in the 1980s if you took a revealing photo it would take 1 min for the image to develop whereas if you were to take it in 2014 the image could get around the world in the same 60 seconds. This video was meant to show us how quickly one decision can change your life however, again, I do not think that in one minute of posting a photo it would necessarily get to other countries.

The goal of the 3 videos was to scare us, and it worked for me! I think that many students were not affected because of the probability of this happening. In the video with Sarah, there were multiple old men asking her very uncomfortable questions, which is something that is unlikely to happen given that the adults (including a coach at her school) would be admitting to looking at child pornography.

Overall I wish that we watched videos that were meant to inform us rather than scare us. Why would posting a revealing photo be a bad idea? Who can see the photos you post? What are some solutions if you are feeling pressured into sending photos to others? If you do send photos what are ways to keep yourself safe? I think the last question is very important because although everyone in my class watched the same videos there were still students that sent revealing images of themselves to their peers. If we teach older students how to keep themselves safe this may be a better tactic than just telling them that they are not safe.

Thanks for reading!