When Is Bullying Acceptable?

The answer is NEVER!

At no time is bullying acceptable and yet a young, female, blogger was subjected to an onslaught of adult bullying last week. Why? Because she dared to share her secret that the gorgeous looking hot drinks she featured in her posts were fake. She creates beautiful photographs of book covers and, knowing the appearance of a hot drink alongside creates an ambiance of warmth and comfort, she includes these in her pictures. She is not, however, a lover of hot beverages herself, and so creates fake drinks for this costs less. There is absolutely NO shame in this – for sure, the advertisements we see on a daily basis use all manner of techniques to enhance the product they are trying to sell.

The initial bullying post, on a Facebook blogging group, which also included a link to the young bloggers website, cited ‘fakery’ and ‘mockery of the written word’ (huh?) as the reason for creating the post. Such twaddle! As an author, I would be over the moon to know someone thought my book covers were so attractive they wished to photograph them for their blog and I would have no issue with a fake drink sitting next to it. A ‘shaving cream coffee’ is not going to change the words inside my book or detract from the story in any way. No, this was merely an excuse for an adult blogger to incite a good old bitching session among like-minded cronies!

‘Coffeegate’ as it seems to have become known, certainly caused a few discussions and it became necessary for other bloggers to stand up and say the treatment being meted out was harsh and unnecessary. I was one of them. The next thing I knew, I had been removed from a Facebook Book Group which I had previously been an active member of. The reason for my banishment? The admins (or a number of them) had been part of the bullying. They thought that by kicking me out – and anyone else who spoke in defence of the young blogger – they would be able to shut us up. They thought they would cow us down and be able to hide behind the lies of their involvement. Well, I’m sorry to say that, when you try to cow down two gobby Scottish lassies, things rarely go to plan. This is Leanne Marshall’s post on the subject: Defending Myself where she has had to show that the only lies being told were by those who had committed the crime.

In the meantime, I made a few posts on Facebook, making my stand clear – which is, I do not stand for or with bullies! If this means my career as an author dies a death and I sink into complete obscurity, then so be it because I do not want a career that involves having to kowtow to a small minority of bloggers who live under the false illusion that they are some kind of great and mighty within the book blogging community.

Let me make one thing crystal clear here – I ADORE the blogging community. I have good friends and great friends whom I have met on my blog tours and I appreciate the, often unpaid, work these wonderful people put into giving us writers a voice. The MAJORITY of these bloggers are truly amazing and it is a disgrace to see their world being shaken by a tiny minority who really should know better.

Many might think all of this is making a mountain out of a molehill but it needs to be remembered that all the despot dictators throughout history reached their positions because people were too scared to stand up to them and deny them the right to their bad behaviour. While the perpetrators of ‘Coffeegate’ are unlikely to ever rise to such elevated positions, the premise remains the same – they need to know their actions will not be tolerated within the community they operate in.

The more people who are prepared to voice their disgust and disapproval the better, for this removes the power from the few who still think they are above recrimination. Don’t forget, the masses have the power to overthrow the dictators for we are many and they are few.

Bullies will never win as long as there are people who care enough to fight them. And remember, just because it wasn’t you in the firing line this time, that doesn’t mean you will escape the next time.