The summer before my sophomore year of high school, I was laying in bed when I received over 150 text messages in less than three minutes. None of the people texting me were people in my contact list, and many of these text messages were vulgar, inappropriate, random words or images I did not want to see.
The last text message I received was a non-vulgar picture of a puppy that said “Who’s awesome? You’re awesome!” So I texted this number back and asked what was going on, why so many people texted me at once and if it was a prank. The man responded saying “Oh, you didn’t post your number? I got it off this website”
I walked into my living room, where both my parents were sitting and told them that my information was just posted on a pornography website.
The pornography website that my information was posted on was a blog-type of website that users could post to other users, kind of like an instant message form of communication, but used to communicate vulgar pictures and information. The dog-meme-man informed me that a picture of me eating a snow cone, my most recent picture posted on Facebook from a trip to the beach, was posted first. Following this image was my profile picture at the time, my address, my age, my full name, what high school I went to and then finally, my phone number. Less than 4 hours after, he texted me again, letting me know that somebody posted a “nude image” of me, which was impossible since I had never taken a nude photograph of myself. This image turned out to be a nude photograph of another girl that my oppressor pasted my face onto and posted, claiming it was me.
In the next few days, I received waves of text messages and phone calls of extremely creepy and vulgar things. Some were threats, some were random words, and some things were people telling me what they were “going to do to me.” I made the mistake of listening to a voicemail in the first wave of phone calls. In the voicemail, a girl spoke in a creepy voice informing me that she was under my bed, used my name, and told me how she was going to kill me.
I felt completely unsafe at this point, so I turned to the police. However, the website was out of Japan so there was nothing the police could do unless I knew who my tormentor was. My Facebook was set to private and my phone number and address was not attached to my Facebook page, so that meant that the person posted my information was somebody I knew, likely from school. So I turned to my school administrators, walking into the high school with tears streaming down my face asking my vice principle for advice. I did not feel safe returning to school at this point, but again, nothing could be done unless I knew who it was.
Overtime, the contact from strangers ended and my information was pushed off of the website. I went through my friends list on Facebook and deleted people I did not personally know, but I never changed my phone number or moved out of my house. I still used social media the same after it happened, just with caution. I turned to local news and explained what happened to me, which ended up being shown at high schools across the nation to educate families that this can truly happen to anyone.
It’s been seven summers since this happened, and I am still affected by what happened to me. I keep the blinds to my bedroom drawn, and get anxiety that somebody is going to come into my room or look through the window when they are open. When going to public places, such as restaurants, I choose the chair where my back is exposed to less people, so I know what is going about around me. I am very aware of everyone around me in stores and malls and am careful to take note of what is happening around me.
Today, I do not know who could have done this to me. I never thought something like this would happen to me. I always thought it was something for girls who were bullied non-stop or the girls who everyone hates. I never thought that in my small town something as dramatic as this would happen, and that it would happen to me.
I tell my story so others can learn from my lesson, keep your Facebook set private and don’t share your personal information with everyone. Go through your friends lists and flush out people you don’t actually know, such as friends of friends. This can happen to anyone, and it does happen to anyone. It happened to me.
