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For those over 30, or without teenage children, the term “Burn Book” may have no meaning. 0thers will recognize it as the iconic Treasury of Nastiness from the movie Mean Girls.
Now it has become an app—one that enables anonymous bullying in specific, selected communities:
Make no mistake about it, Burn Book--a teen-friendly spin-off of Yik Yak—is trouble. Like formspring before it, anonymity is what drives this social media platform. The ability to selectively target and harass individuals with absolutely no identity tags / accountability makes it a powder-keg waiting for a match.
But anonymity cuts both ways.
Burn Book is also a forum in which tentative bystanders can begin exercising their voice, policing bullying without fear of recrimination, or at any cost to social status.
Anyone can post responses that challenge victious rumors (and even explicitly call intentions into question). Anyone can deluge the site with denials and refutations.
And insofar as anyone can speak out anonymously, Burn Book has a leveling potential. The cruelties of cyberspace can be turned back on themselves, without reprisal.
This dual capacity suggests possibilities that need to be promoted and popularized.
However, as long as Burn Book (and all the clones that will mushroom in its shadow once it is no longer the sole purview of our teens) remains hidden from the gaze of adult critics, it will nurture and sustain cruelties we have come to associate with adolescent culture.
So lets bring it to light.
If cyberspace is the gameboard of the 21st century, let’s make sure there are challengers to play on it.
And lets teach our children how to play the role of supportive bystander.
