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When we see young actors play psycho-kinetic wielding, dark-and-evil force fighting, badasses on screen, we tend to forget that, at the end of the day, they’re still just kids. So when the internet came for Millie Bobby Brown and, quite frankly, dragged her just because, we got really, really upset.
Users were trolling her online using the hashtag “#TakeDownMillieBobbyBrown" – no kidding, it was as transparent as that – and then sharing the most ridiculous stories that made her look homophobic, Islamophobic and quite frankly, monstrous.
Read the full story here: “I’m not going to tolerate it and neither should any of you”: Millie Bobby Brown responds to bullies after she was trolled
#TakeDownMillieBobbyBrown when i was walking down the street she attacked me with a pair of scissors, trying to cut my burqa open! she shouted "go back to the desert where you can practice shakira law!" im crying im so terrified is this what america has come to
— Matt (@jvzosakakura) November 18, 2017
My goodness, is THIS what America’s come to?
As silly as these stories were though, bullying is completely unacceptable. Did you know that, in South Africa, bullying a minor is actually illegal?
Read more about it here: Bullying videos: what the SA law says
Millie’s spoken openly about her struggle with bullying though, and if anything, it’s just made her stronger.
In May, in an interview for Glamour Magazine, Millie was asked about what she’d like to accomplish with her new title as Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF (youngest ever Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF at 14 in 2018, I should add). Of course, she had a long list, but there was a strong focus on bullying.
“Young people’s lives are increasingly under pressure. First of all, I want to make sure that children are protected from violence and exploitation. I also want to combat the negativity on social media – I have experienced it – it’s like a disease. It’s negative hate that is genuinely so horrifying to me.”
“I was bullied at school back in England,” she shared. “So, it’s extremely important for me to speak out against bullying. I actually switched schools because of it, it created a lot of anxiety and issues that I still deal with today. I have dealt with situations both in real life and online that are soul breaking and it genuinely hurts reading some of the things people have said. Being in this industry we have become so aware of negativity and it’s made me appreciate the love so much more. People receive so much love on social media and then only focus on the hate.”
On social media, specifically, she said, “Social media is one of the best places in the world and one of the worst – it counteracts itself. It sends such amazing messages; it raises awareness of situations that need to be heard. Nobody should say it isn’t a platform for positivity and change.”
“I want to make it a happy place,” she explained.
Also read: Our teen girls aren't 20-something influencers and shouldn't pretend to be
We look forward to seeing her in Stranger Things 3 with her psycho-kinetic powers, fighting dark-and-evil forces, with the addition of her newfound social-media-disease defeating attitude.
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