Take a  look around you. At the students around you. Assuming high school age is somewhere between 13 and 18, take a look at your fellow students.

  These are the people that are going to be running our future in no less than 5 to 10 years. How does that make you feel? If you don’t feel confident over your fellow man, what are you going to do?

  You may be wondering what my point is… things that happen in high school that are not particularly good can  follow you. Just in this last couple of weeks countless numbers of students have been arrested and are facing felony charges for posing to be the creepy clowns on the internet. If convicted the students may be forever labeled as a terrorist, some in their own home land.

  It all started out for what seemed like fun and games but you are in the real world. Posting threats online, especially to schools, will get you in major trouble. Of course, we will always have that occasional cyber bully that threatens another teen online that goes unnoticed. I applaud those victims for being brave enough to let it go. On the other hand, “ …over 30,000 children stay home every day due to the fear of being bullied… 80 percent of youth that commits suicide have depressive symptoms. Peer victimization and bullying causes higher rates among teens,” (nobullying.com). The thought that our everyday bullies are who we are going to have to trust in the near future is a bit worrisome.

How far are we willing to go to just to make a joke? Putting another person in danger, yes online threats count, is too far. The recent movie, Nerve (2016), illustrates that if you sit by and let bullying occur online and let it escalate, you instantly become an accessory to this crime.

  The internet is an open market where people believe to be “anonymous” but in actuality it is not impossible to track down a person. The future that we are looking at today is filled with pending felons and those who contribute to suicides. Regardless if it was meant to be funny or not, don’t post it unless it is going to better yourself or others in some way. Remember, we are the future. Employers do not wish to hire convicted felons…

   Threats don’t just disappear, they will follow you in some way. It is better to stay away from it all together and remember what you do now will affect yours and everyone else’s future. Stay tuned for another edition of Untold Injustices.