On recent events and bullying

Disclaimer: This post is not meant to attack anyone. I am only expressing my opinions and do not wish to offend anyone. For that reason, I will not be name-dropping anyone nor will I be making the use of screen shots. 

In the light of recent events I feel the need to write a post describing how I feel towards what went down. If only to give me the closure I need so that I stop wasting my time and energy raging towards what happened. 

For those of you who may be wondering what it is that some of us are talking about, Khanh over at The Book Nookery did a wonderful post on this which you can read here. 

A general summary of what happened was that a person X (which I will refer to them in my post for the sake of privacy and what not), asked a whole bunch of people to give them their eArcs. Most of you might know that that is illegal and if not, Jon over at Scott Reads It wrote a wonderful post on that which you can read here.

Person X has been asking people to send them eARCs for a long time now and people have asked her to stop not once, not twice, not thrice but MULTIPLE times. Yet she fails to learn her lesson and continues to ask people for eARCs knowing that what she is doing is illegal. She even went as far as to ask an author (who I will also not be naming) for copies of their books. Now, that is not illegal but it is completely unethical and I was SHOCKED to say that least when I heard about that. There are some lines that should most definitely not be crossed. 

Back to the point, what occurred is what certain people described as a 'blow-up', which I can tell you, it most definitely was not. I may not have been actively involved in what actually went down but I was actively following the conversation and was constantly talking to my friend who was involved. My friend, deciding that she had had enough of this person constantly pestering people for eARCs, free copies of books and even asking a mutual friend for a kindle, she decided to politely message the person telling them that it needed to stop. Person X decided to announce this to the whole world and made a status (on goodreads) that seemed to beg for pity instead of well apologizing for what happened. Person X weaved a tale of guilt while never apologizing and made out the bloggers who had asked her to stop be be the villains and themselves to be the poor victim of their rage. This was not the case and I can guarantee you that this person showed no remorse. If you're interested, Debby over at Snuggly Oranges has the screen shots of what went down available on request. 

What really angers me the most is that what went down was labelled as bullying and a case of mob mentality going so far to describe it as a witch hunt. NOT COOL.

Bullying is defined (by wikipedia) as the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively impose domination over others.

I find it EXTREMELY offensive that this would be labelled a case of bullying. I myself may not have been involved but when half-truths of what went down started popping up, I decided it was time for me to speak up. When I did, it was implied that I might have been bullying person X by my actions. For one I wasn't even involved in the original thing, I was commenting as a by-stander who was passively involved and two I AM OFFENDED. As someone who has been bullied, I'd never wish it on anyone. Bullying has ruined my life. I suffer from low self-esteem, social anxiety and constantly think that everyone hates me and I am not sure I am ever going to completely go back to 'normal'.  I am too scared to speak up in most cases but I will no longer shut the hell up. I am enraged that someone might imply that any of us would go out of our way to ruin someone's life. 

What happened was not bullying and if you think that you might need to rethink what bullying is. What happened was that people were fed up of a person manipulating them for eARCs and continuing to pursue an illegal activity after being told countless amount of times that what they were asking for was wrong. If Person X had listened to us, they might have been safe from law suits that could happen in the future.

But Person X has paid no heed to anything that went down going so far as to ask two more people (that we know of) for eARCs AFTER the incident took place. 

Should no one have stood up to this person telling them that they needed to stop? Should we all just have remained silent while watching this person continue to ask people for eARCs and committing piracy?

Is speaking up going to be labelled as bullying and witch hunting? Is this what we've come to?

I am fed up of this. It constantly enrages me that people think that there is no point in speaking up and that it is better to let it be. I am pissed that we would be labelled bullies for expressing our opinion and seen as attacking an 'innocent party' when nothing of the sort happened. I am really just fed up at the moment and I am not in the mood to do anything else. This has sapped the energy out of me and you know what? I've got better things to do. I've said my part and it's up to everyone else to decide how they felt. It's better if I let it go than rage.