Recently, I have seen a few posts that follow this format:

So, you're supposed to post one picture from before you overcame bullying, and one picture from the present day. Okay.

The people who post this want to share their self-confidence with their Facebook friends while, as a HISKIND writer expresses well, sticking up "a massive middle finger to those who have ever alienated or bullied them." I want to commend my friends for taking journeys that result in self-confidence and middle fingers. But I still don't like this challenge.

When I clicked on HISKIND's article, I anticipated an article criticizing the form of the challenge. But this writer was mostly questioning the motives of people who re-posted the Facebook status without recognizing the gravity of bullying issues. Such people made a meme out of the challenge. However, this was not my Facebook experience at all, and I'm pretty sure the challenge is derived from a type of meme that already existed.

The entire concept of this meme, and therefore this "Be Careful Who You Bully" Challenge post, is appearance-based. Kids get bullied for a wide variety of "reasons" that they can't control. Athletic aptitude, learning style, personality, interests, race, and the list goes on infinitely! News flash: the list never ends because all of these dividers are not really "reasons" but "excuses."

The "Be Careful Who You Bully" Challenge spreads because it is a vehicle for people to declare self-confidence in the face of adversity. But, in its very form, this challenge feeds off years and years of society blaming the victims of bullying. Society imposes limits and says, "You don't really deserve friends until you look, behave, and perform like The Ideal."

And both in the memes and in the real posts, the second picture often reflects The Ideal. People post one old picture and one new picture, demonstrating evidence that "I'm more fit/cheerful/fashionable/controlled than I used to be." Okay.

But where is the relevance of such a Facebook-simplified transformation to your personal past with bullying? There is no relevance, because nothing was ever wrong with you. BULLYING was what was wrong.

I have always been my own greatest adversary, and although I have had my fair share of light teasing in life, I have not experienced bullying. If anyone who has been bullied disagrees with me on any of these points, I concede; you're the expert! But I will not concede on the point that you matter and you never did anything to deserve bullying. You should not need to change yourself to escape bullying.

The bullies are the bad guys, and if they want to post some kind of freaking Transformation Tuesday, maybe that will be slightly interesting... but, to those of you who are the victims of bullying, I just want to say that you're a valuable person in both your old and your new pictures.