Melissa Hoyer speaks out about cyber bullying on Instagram

SOMETHING happened online this week that shocked news.com.au’s Melissa Hoyer and it’s something that all too many of us have faced at one time or another.

Alex Perry (left) and Charlotte Dawson (middle) with Megan Gale (right) in happy times on social media. Picture: Alex Perry instagram

SOMETHING happened this week that actually made me physically sick.

While overseas on a working assignment I awoke to a barrage of disgusting comments on my Instagram account making the usually perky platform not a very happy place to be at all.

Myself and a small group of media types, who actually nothing whatsoever to do with an opinion expressed on a TV panel, were targeted in this barrage of abuse.

Unfortunately, as soon as one Instagram comment (wrongly) identified me as the panel member who had made the comments ... Wham! The social media trolls rallied and revolted. And they were revolting.

Boys, girls, whoever you are, if you are going to target someone to spew your wrath, at least do your research.

I won’t bore you with the details, why give the foul-mouths any oxygen? But suffice to say I received really classy posts, hashtags and ridiculous emoticons that involved guns to the head, the good old c-word and ‘get cancer’ comments on mass.

Like the vast majority of the people I follow on social media, and vice versa, I play it pretty clean.

I converse with my followers and I post stories and thoughts I hope my followers will appreciate, sometimes they are liked, sometimes not, but that’s what it is about.

We debate, we discuss, we disagree, we ‘like’ (or ignore) selfies and also get bored with them.

We post travel happy snaps (that probably bore some people) but I use my social media platforms as a way of engagement and to disseminate information whether on a work or sometimes, an appropriate personal level.

Alex Perry (left) and Charlotte Dawson (middle) with Megan Gale (right) in happy times on social media. Picture: Alex Perry instagram

It can be good conversation too, whether you agree with people’s thoughts or not.

It is also a giant part of my working role, so I really DO love it.

My friend and a colleague, the late TV presenter Charlotte Dawson, herself a sufferer of a mental illness, took her life just over two months ago.

And while no-one knows whether her suicide was directly linked or can be attributed to the cyber bullying she constantly received, it was, no doubt a factor when she decided to end her life.

Another friend and colleague, the designer Alex Perry, himself a strong, take-no-prisoners kind of guy just quit Twitter this week due to the abuse he copped after hosting a reunion special for the successful Foxtel series, The Real Housewives of Melbourne.

And this guy doesn’t take crap from anyone.

If you’ve got some spleen to vent, perhaps a much more elegant and appropriate approach would be to send a nice, handwritten note expressing your disagreement to the words expressed? Ha!

Since the rise of social media and the way it gives anyone a platform to access anyone, we will continue to see loads of vile stuff on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Those who know me know I am of small stature, but trolls, your words have not and will not resonate or stay in my much broader mind.

My resilience filter is well and truly in full throttle.

So if you are at the centre of some stupid, vile and simple disgusting online abuse remember three things. Ignore. Delete. Block. And even contemplate reporting the abuse to the police.

Do not give sad social media sacks the oxygen they crave by even acknowledging their (usually badly worded and spelt) vitriol.