Something I really admire about this movie is that they dont shy away from making Taylor kind of bitchy. Normally movies like this make the protagonist a really soft and doughy innocent victim archetype but Taylor at least shows that she can hold her own at the beginning. Kind of adds some nuance to her character that she brushes off the gay kid and calls Lindsay a bitch. Like yes you can still be a victim even if you weren’t a perfect angel yourself. Its rare that we see that in movies, especially teen movies.
Well, clearly it wasn't received well, since the majority of people basically say that they don't feel bad for her because of that one scene with her and the gay kid. Unfortunately, if you make the victim flawed in any way, people completely miss the point of the story by saying that she deserved to get abused/bullied/hurt or that she deserves no sympathy. The movie knew that what Taylor said to the gay kid was wrong, and that was the point, but people just see that scene and decide, "Welp, she's terrible. This movie is homophobic, and Taylor is evil and deserves no sympathy." I do agree with you though, but I think that's the reason why most movies like this try to make the victim as nice as possible.
@@mynameisreallycool1 If she was being racist or islamophobic would u still be as sympathetic towards her? There are ppl who are more sympathetic towards homophobes than to racists or what ever other -ist/-phobe someone is or excuses. It’s a very selective way of thinking
@@Dolphinboi I think the point was supposed to be that she learned from that, although she should've explicitly apologized to the guy about what she said. But at the end her friend said she deserves it and Taylor said "no you don't" and I believe that was supposed to signify her learning her lesson.
@@Dolphinboi eh, shes a kid tho. teens say and do regrettable stuff 6 ways to sunday. she should've apologized when she realized she was wrong but things dont get wrapped up neatly all the time in real life either.
While "I can't get the cap off!" Is a cinematic masterpiece, I'm never getting over this movie giving us 'ur nasty and a bitch' as an insult. Shakespeare's been quiet since this movie came out
For those who don't know, Megan Meier's story occurred around the time Myspace was still pretty big (2006). She was only 13 yrs old, going on 14. Her friends allegedly had a falling out and wanted to get back at her. However, it was a PARENT who decided to make the account and harass Megan. There was a whole investigation after her death. If I recall, there was a gross amount of people who were involved in harming this girl. Most of them, especially the parent, denied anything negative was said. The parent was convicted, but the judge eventually overturned it. I actually had no idea this movie was connected when I first watched it??? But the original story stuck with me all throughout jr high and high school.
Yeah it was actually the girls mom calling her a slut etc. I wrote an article about this at the time. That poor girl was so isolated and being ripped to shreds by a whole grown woman. So disgusting.
also the representation of online culture in this movie compared to now is absolutely insane. like if someone posted "im a naughty girl who needs to be spanked" on tiktok the next day at school their friends would be like "that was funny" or not acknowledge it at all
ngl in 2011 when this movie came out, my friends and i pretty much said the same thing- if someone posted that online it would in fact have been hilarious back then as well. i was 16 when the movie came out and my biggest gripe with it was that to me and my friends, it was so unrealistic compared to how people interacted online and how cyber bullying actually worked.
i disagree too! if you're conventionally pretty and have a friend group then yeah defo it could slide now but if you don't have many friends and have a minuscule reason to be picked on you'll be bullied ? i was bullied SO much for liking harry styles back in 2011 ? now who's the clown ....
The brother was at home, or maybe she gets scared, or they try to call her and she becomes hesitant, maybe they get the dad to call her and she sees his name....anything, ANYTHING other than her trying to get the cap off for at least 10 minutes!!!!
The suicide scene is even worse when you know that, not only is the movie is based on a real girl who took her own life because of how she was bullied online, but also the producers worked with the girls mother to make sure the movie had the gravitas they wanted to portray.
I kept thinking about that. Imagine having to be on set for it? Heartbreaking. Also, mom wanted her to be friends with those bullying wenches in her imagined perfect ending? Huh. I would not be that mom
@@plutonium2 well the movie was originally supposed to be on Disney channel, but also I think from the perspective of a parent you would want the harassment of your child to stop and ideally the aggressors become better people and they befriend the person they had hurt, and I can't say for sure since I don't know the mom but maybe that's what she wanted to happen in her experience, which I understand since what really happened was tragic and avoidable, but that ending is pretty unrealistic. This one was too, literally an "and everybody clapped" moment you'd read on Tumblr, but not befriending the people who tormented you is at least much more realistic. I do have to agree with you, though, if I had a child that was bullied and it had even half as much of an effect as seen in this movie, I'd be coming for the bullies academic careers, sports participations, their college applications, scholarships, I'd be taking their parents and the school to court, I'd leave nothing in my path to get justice for my kid.
I lost my brother to suicide and I can't imagine how awful it would be to have to work with people to try to reconstruct and relive that moment. Jesus Christ.
@@cyanidesmile7263 it also seems like the mother of the rl girl wanted to make a movie on what COULD have happened if she had acted. It was to make herself feel better and it's sad it came out this way.
@@plutonium2 I think the idea was more that she wouldn’t have to lose one of her only friends in addition to everything else horrible that happened. she’s trying to recover from being in a really bad place, i could get it if a parent thought it wasn’t the worst idea in the world to keep your friend- she’s only got two, after all.
I've always interpreted Samantha's behavior towards Taylor (over-interest to the point of obsession, jealousy, catfishing) as products of an unrequited crush on Taylor. It's pretty common for younger queer girls to get a little too invested in a friend for hetero standards. I think it adds a certain level of tragedy to the story, because Samantha must know on some level how she feels, but she also sees how her entire school (including Taylor) can be homophobic.
That’s what I always thought too. At the very least, it is my head canon. I don’t understand how the creators didn’t see it, or maybe they did understand the implications but shyed away from actually making it a thing. Maybe cause they thought having two major characters who are gay and where their sexuality is a plot point, would be too much, that audiences would be bothered and distracted by it. And maybe 2011 audiences (I was 19 so I remember that point in time very well) would’ve indeed conflated her sexuality with being mean, invasive, possessive and manipulative. These day viewers would have more nuance in their observations.
I'm far too old to have ever seen this movie, but during this video, I kept being reminded of how Peach treated Beck in the show "YOU," which was due to an unrequited crush... So clearly we both got the same impression! But (like Peach) Samantha is still a cunt.
Omg I remember this!! My school told us all to watch this to understand the real life danger of being mean on social media. They were cool with the real life bullying and racism going on in their classes though, so there's that.
@@Tipper94 i had this conversation w my parents the other day - neither of them (in america) ever had lessons like that. in my experience though, a lot of schools now make you do a training that covers bullying, hazing, alcohol/drug abuse, sexual violence, and discrimination. unfortunately how much the faculty cares about these issues happening among the student body varies greatly 🥲
37:00 "that's called freedom of speech" Lmao no it isn't. Harassment isn't covered by freedom of speech at all, and the whole "the government can't retaliate against you for saying certain things" doesn't apply to a minor who bullied another minor into almost killing herself.
In fact, there are specific laws against the misuse of freedom of speech: libel, harassment, defamation etc. Because even the Founders and all that came after knew that freedom of speech doesn't not mean freedom from consequence. If he was a lawyer, he would know that. How else would the criminal justice system work if everyone in there could say what they like?
I was literally suspended from high school for a month because "it's easier to suspend one student than it is to suspend 10" I didn't even tell on them for teasing me. They broke into my locker and took my clothes(I was in gym) and put them into a mud puddle, then flung them onto the flagpole. I asked the office if they could help me get my clothes down, and then bam I'm suspended. I didn't even go back after the suspension. I dropped out and did correspondence school.
When people in my school found out that I identified as bisexual. I had rocks thrown at me, mulch, pens stabbed at me, constantly harassed, heckled. I explained to my mom that I wasn’t doing so great mentally because it got to the point they would take my assignments if I went to the bathroom either tear them up, throw them away, or hide them….my mom called up the principal which this was a new guy and honestly he was terrible. He took every fun thing imaginable and just said “no we can’t do that anymore no fun here” however when I brought up my issues. This man deadass looked at me and said “did you try avoiding them?” I was like “well we’re in the same class and the student body aside from staff is roughly 300 or so….sooooo?? You tell me?…..” that’s the only advice he gave me was to avoid them or ignore them. Kind of hard when everyone is crammed into the same class and you have to hear everything being said or written about you every day until you go home.
That's horrific; I'm sorry that happened to you. I appreciate you sharing this because it shows how some authority figures really aren't heros or allies in these situations. I'm glad your Mom was supportive and I really hope you were able to get out of that situation or you're in a better place now.
That's so horrific. I had a kid last year make tiktoks describing wanting to kill me and who also verbally made jokes about shooting up the school. I got the same advice.
I experienced something similar. I was bullied horribly by most people in my old middle school. It got to the point where I was told to kill myself to make the world better. Any teacher I told either told me to ignore them or said I shouldn't have bullied my bully (I never did??). When I tried to tell my father, he told me of stories about what he went through when he was my age. Tried to tell the principal or vice principal, but they didn't do anything, even when I loudly admitted I wanted to not exist. School sucks.
LOL, my sister was the only black character in a CBS TV movie and her hairstyle and makeup were also, um, not too flattering. You’d think the Hollywood stylists would know how to deal with diversity by now.
Also,they literally did not have the foundation shade rane until 3 years ago. Black folk on TV and even sometimes movies used to look insane unless there was a black person in hair and makeup or otherwise on set.
@@fightvale57 I don’t mind at all-I’m a journalist and I’m always sharing my info. The name of the movie is “Vital Signs” starring Gary Cole and Ed Asner. Cole plays a doctor who descends into drug addiction; Asner, his dad, is also a doctor and an alcoholic. My sister has a very small part-near the end of the movie, Cole rushes into his hospital in his street clothes and asks a Very suspicious nurse (my sister) if he can check in on a patient and give her her medication. My sister’s frown of concern is the highlight of the movie! (at least in my family’s household)
@Mr_ Tinez I get what you are saying, but hair and makeup is a unionized department in the industry (IATSE), so they can’t just bring non-union people onto a unionized set. they would first have to apply and get their permit to work and be paid. for non-union sets it’s possible though, but that’s a completely different monster
@Mr_ Tinez There's also the fact that they simply don't care enough to hire stylists for them. Since there are so few jobs for POC actors in the first place, production knows that nobody is going to quit the job over poor hair/makeup.
i've also been on both sides of this issue - specifically, the sockpuppet accounts. i had some online friends on MSN messenger for literally like two years that i think were actually just some classmates of mine. my issue with this movie is that it wasn't written for the kids going through bullying - for this, i recommend "odd girl out" starring alexa vega. "cyberbully" was written for moms. you'll notice that everything taylor's mom does is perfect helicopter parenting - she keeps an eye on taylor's internet usage, whether or not she's eating breakfast before school ("not hungry!" "not acceptable!"), is attentive, counsels her sagely, takes immediate action. and taylor was perfect too, virginal, well meaning, good grades. they wouldn't even show an actual suicide attempt. she was briefly hospitalized for being upset. they barely wanted to take me away for ACTUALLY overdosing, they were like "i mean, she already threw it up 🙄" this movie was like, "hey moms! actually, bullying is an issue even if you do a good job and your daughter doesn't deserve it :)" oh and the group therapy scene was fucking hilarious. the therapist is like, "you can block your bullies online :)" and random sad canadian girl is like "huh, i never thought of that :/" like! girl! these are our classmates lmfao that's why we struggle with blocking them. that's how i know this movie isn't for us, because they didn't even try to portray it from our perspective. it was just maternal fretting porn for moms.
100% yes! Another movie in the "maternal fretting genre" that I love is "She's Too Young." Marcia Gay Harden plays the mom in that one. Her daughter gets syphilis from being pressured into giving a blow job. I'd love if Nick covered that one too.
Yeah except it's based on a real mom. Ethically they had to give her every effort and every right answer BC in reality she lost her daughter before she acted.
“Maternal fretting porn” is just… 👌 I think you hit the nail on the head: this has always felt more like a movie which adults - especially parents and teachers - use to reassure themselves that they’re doing a good job. It doesn’t feel like it was made to comfort and support the kids going through cyberbullying, or start a dialogue actually involving them. I mean, I think they _thought_ they made this for the kids, but if the media you create can’t connect with your core audience, then it’s not going to feel like anything other than a vaguely patronising Lifetime movie. Real boomer energy; we made a simplistic movie - cyber bullying solved! But also the ethics on making movies like this are always going to be messy. I know the story behind why it got made, and I understand that there was probably some degree of participation of the actual poor mother involved, but that inevitably results in a lionisation of their on-screen avatar… as well as a story that never quite seems to have any nuance, or be anything other than flat. I doubt it’s a good idea to base a film off one specific, painful story if you aren’t willing or able to really produce the kind of honest writing it needs to feel real - but I also completely get a mother wanting to make a tribute for her child, and feel like she’s doing something to prevent what happened to her family from happening again. Great comment!
I was 11 years old when this came out. I’ve never been bullied, but I was battling clinical depression from certain events in my life. I remember this being one of the first “serious” movies about cyber bullying and I actually really enjoyed it back then. It’s definitely got some flaws and some of the language and behavior has not aged well, but I still respect this movie for what it was.
Same. I was 13 when it came out and had dealt with significant bullying in school that the school wouldn’t do anything about, so I related to it a lot. I also really appreciated it for bringing attention to the problem.
I don’t have a child yet, but I know for a FACT that I would NOT tolerate that behavior if my child did that. I got bullied in middle school, but I remember there was a time when I bullied another girl as well. It was almost normalized (which is so sad). When my mom found out, she took my phone, I was grounded, and I was immediately sent to a therapist. I still feel bad to this day for what I said online to my classmate. We are on good terms now that we’ve grown, but it haunts me. I don’t tolerate any of that as an adult.
We were forced to watch this in high school during an assembly for “mental health awareness” and to combat cyber bullying. Many kids had to walk out of the auditorium because it hit too close to home. It was horrific.
We were made to watch it in middle school. So many kids made fun of it, and I remember being so angry because I was regularly bullied. I remember trying so hard not to burst into tears during it. I'm glad I don't have to step foot on school grounds ever again. I still get nightmares, lol.
Glad I had already graduated from High School by this point. I would've probably laughed my ass off if I had to watch this with other people at that age.
@@dearoldmold I hated high school, but for entirely different reasons. My high school never had a bullying problem, and social media wasn't a huge deal in the very early 00s when I was attending.
REALLY? I didn’t even know! That somehow makes it even funnier. Her tone is so desperate, I love it. And I guess this explains it. I wonder what she was supposed to do with the pill bottle instead?
@@imaginekudryavka9485 well I'm sure she wanted to stay in character and in the general mood of the scene even though she was going off script. The fact that she said it in character makes sense. The fact that they used it in the final cut is really funny though lol
I remember watching this on premiere night! Still think about it every so often. The only thing that never made sense to me was Taylor still being friends with Cheyenne and Sam. They literally left you/ bullied you in your weakest moments. She didn’t have to be mean back but trusting them again and being friends? That’s a no from me dawg.
I feel like in school I forgave a lot of bullshit just due to the weird mathematics of cliques. It just wasn't easy to move around from group to group and if your friend group was just three people you'd be especially stuck
tbf as someone who had a friend group that legit hated each other, just the fact that people see each other every day at school and are stuck together w seating plans kept a LOT of friendships going lol
Nick, I really appreciate your comments regarding STDs. My high school really ingrained into me that STDs were a death sentence & comeuppance for sex. I’ve never had an STD, but if I ever do, I’m glad I at least heard you talk about it in a normalizing way first.
When this movie came out, I was being cyberbullied really badly online (through email for some reason) and in person. I literally would just cry to this movie all the time and had to switch schools and then got bullied worse. Being much older and LGBTQ+, it's crazy how this movie is both good and awful and everything in between. Especially her treatment of a gay person and something I relate to a lot. Absolutely love your commentary on this. I never thought this movie would be mentioned again!
The girl who did it never got in real trouble (two days of suspension) because her mom worked in the church that our school was affiliated with even though I had proof of messages she sent threatening my life, nearly assaulting me, and telling me friends that they would get bullied too if they hung out with me or even talked to me. I'm 22 now and that stuff still affects me. These things have real consequences and I'm still clawing my way out of my past. Children can be cruel, especially when they get access to the internet at 11-12 and realize they have more power than they once thought.
One of my favorite early 00's teen movie tropes was that a mother having a single glass of wine after dinner = alcoholic mother who is completely out of control, thank god it's 2022 now and no one has any reason at all to double-fist identical bottles of 7 Crimes while sobbing hysterically on the floor.
That reminds me of the mother from parent trap (Lohan one, of course). She would apparently "only have one glass of wine with dinner" every night, but after she got off the plane to see the twin's father/her ex-husband, she was a mess!
Even in recent movie like "Marriage Story" where Scarlett Johansson's character was branded as an alcoholic mom during the custody battle when all she had like one glass after dinner and just slipped oh-so-slightly of a stair.
Yeah my parents did had a glass of wine with dinner sometimes, and they just modeled healthy drinking habits to me. Oh and how to plan around having to drive and have a designated driver when going out who isn’t drinking at all. Honestly super healthy.
My school always told us "if you are being cyber bullied tell a teacher or principal and we will help". Then when a friend of mine was being cyber bullied all of a sudden they couldn't do anything because it happened off school property 😒. They suggested going to the police but the police dgaf because it was just texts and they hadn't done anything physical.
I was 22 in 2011, so I was outside of the target demographic for this movie and have never seen it. “I can’t get the cap off!” made me laugh so hard. 🤣
A girl at my high school actually got expelled for cyberbullying. Her and the girl she was bullying got into a fight at school, and the bully tried pinning it on the victim. The girl being bullied printed out all the facebook messages where she was being harassed/threatened to prove it wasn’t. She still got suspended for fighting, but the other girl got expelled and changed schools. My school had its issues but at least they took cyberbullying seriously especially in the early 2010s
I was 17 in 2011, so like, this movie was specifically targeted AT me, and I remember watching it and being absolutely pissed lol. nowadays i can appreciate more what it was going for but as an actually clinically depressed 17 year old who flirted with suicidal ideation, i really resented how overt a lot of the bullying was in an almost cartoonish way, like, i felt that it didnt represent a realistic modern experience, and that a lot of cyberbullying wasnt from people you knew in real life but strangers on the internet including adults, so this sort of paint by numbers story where she gets a social media and within a week shes suicidal was aimed not at someone like me, chronically depressed and lacking taylers picturesque life with a big house and lots of nice things, but at "normal" people experiencing an acute issue that could be fixed. especially since the issue is resolved, she stands up to her bully and is happy at the end- to me at the time, struggling with a difficult home life, failing grades and sort of constant online and irl harassment, it felt like the message it was telling me was that cyberbullying is a real issue because of how it affects 'normal' people, not people like me. i took it way more personally than i should have, but i mean, i was a chronically depressed teenager, i took everything personally. "i cant get the cap off!" was the funniest shit ever tho i was like LMAO girl we are not the same
It pissed me off because it made me feel like it tried to force me to sympathise with my bullies. Like “ok she told you it’s just facts and jokes but she tried to kill herself and her dad abandoned her so maybe try being nicer to her sweetheart 😚” Cool she’s flawed and has issues but where’s the accountability for taking it put on others?? All her victim was was a teaching moment to fix her own life and that means we should forgive and forget? Sorry about the heat it still gets to me ya feel
Lol so did I! It was 6th grade, and my health teacher said she was showing it to us to tell us that we shouldn’t use social media or the internet. Our school gave everyone laptops 💀
I knew a girl who was bullied by multiple different high-schools, including my own, because her adult online ex-boyfriend was sending a topless photo of her to whatever new school she joined so she would be bullied. She ended up committing su*cide. We all had to have a sort of "group chat" in all of our first period classes the following day because she was all over the news and facebook and we already knew what happened. The shared sentiment between most of my classmates was "we should stop talking about her because it's just giving her attention and that's exactly what she wanted" 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
Jesus, that is a chilling lack of empathy and understanding. (Also illogical…like…it’s not attention if you’re not around to experience it.) It is disturbing how cruel teenagers can be.
I eventually got annoyed with how present they were as a kid/teen because they had so many roles that I would always forget their character’s names in the movie and accidentally recall their character’s name in some other movie instead 🤣
Danielle and Kay were pretty cool to me. The former ended up as a anti-villain in The CW's 'The Flash'. Kay, on the other hand, jumped ship from doing films despite her being good in 'Phil of the Future' & 'Life is Ruff'.
I wanna mention that it was really nice that you added not only a trigger warning in text on screen, but a noise notification as well for audio listeners to be notified. I believe you have an editor now? Whoever did it, you or them, I really admire that. You add thought behind everything you do and still manage to add humor where it's possible and I've always liked that about this channel :)
Also, yeah, I wound up switching high schools half way through because of cyber bullying. Best decision young me ever made ❤ great video as always, Nick!
@@COSun25 it was AMAZING! I got to be myself but also start over. I was at a school where the class size was 70, and I switched to a school with a class size of about 250. I checked out a few public schools about 30 minutes from where I lived, and I chose the one that felt most inclusive. It was really hard because I have a younger brother going into high school at that time and I felt guilty leaving him. But his experience at that school was a lot better than mine.
after 6th grade I was home schooled for 7th because of cyber bullying and then for 8th I switched to a different school. that school was even worse but if it weren’t for going there, I wouldn’t have known about the technology high school I ended up going to, and loving, that led me to a lot of people I love to this day. So going there was definitely the best decision young me ever made ♥️
I love how in every episode there’s a moment when it’s suddenly undeniable that you’re intelligent, well-educated, insightful, and articulate. Then the claws come back out and you’re 100% sass 😆
Omg I loved this film. As someone who also attempted suicide, I found this so relatable and used to cry at 'that scene' every time and now looking back I'm like girl, how the fuck did you relate to this cringe, ott, homophobic at times movie with literally Lily from Hannah Montana ? I'm so hyped for this vid lol, rip my old fave depression movie to shit 🥰 (even tho for some reason it's still a film I watch occasionally 😬)
It was the only part of the movie that didn't read as cheesy and overdone to me, and I actually appreciated the "I can't get the cap off" as someone who's experienced firsthand how an attempt can be totally ridiculous despite being a serious situation. Now though as an adult I can clock that the acting and delivery really do not carry it 😰
@@_gremlinboy oh for sure the first couple times I watched that scene as a teen I was in floods of tears and so glad she couldn't get that damn cap off and now as an adult that line just did not deliver how I used to think it did
I think that Odd Girl Out was the better version of this movie. It dealt with the cyber bullying very well and it treated her attempt to unalive herself with seriousness.
NICK so one time JASON ROBERT BROWN came to my hometown and had a whole workshop with our theatre. Anywho, I was chosen BY HIM to sing Brand New You from 13.... I sang it in front of him and the whole group and my voice broke BADLY on the belt end of the bridge. I sobbed. This was 10 years ago and clearly I'm not over it
*"Highschool was demanding, stressful and for some reason it was always ice-cold"* 6:09 That line really got me. I remember that by the 2nd period classes I was so cold I felt like I was going into a coma and my body would sleep in response.
I swear, the air conditioning only came on during the winter. Though the worst was the time the heat got stuck on in one of my classes and it was so bad that we had to go to the library
I’m about the same age and My biggest bully from elementary school is now an eat pray love mommy blogger. 🥲 and my biggest cyber (and real life) bully in high school is also super successful. Joy.
The bathroom scene would have been better if, instead of a teenager being bested by a child-proof cap that a 9 year old could get open, the door was actually locked so we Samantha is banging on the door screaming for her friend to answer her and we cut to see Taylor was on the other side, throwing stuff off the shelf and onto the floor as she's going through the medicine cabinet trying to find something like her recently prescribed anti depressants, medication her dad left behind when he left or anti anxiety medicine her mom takes for her high stress job, maybe even just gives up and tries to take the whole bottle of ibuprofen or NyQuil to really further convey how desperate she is to just have it all end. The paramedics arrive and Samantha is yelling at them to save her friend, they're yelling over Sam for Taylor to unlock it a couple of times before they get no response, so they have to break the class in the door to reach in to unlock it or they straight up just kick it open and we see them rushing in and we see Sam just sobbing at the edge of the screen as they rush past her like she's watching them work. Cut to her mom having to leave a very important meeting because she's getting a call from the hospital and the person on the other end says they have her daughter and she needs to come down immediately, that way we build up suspense on if the paramedics and doctors were able to get to Taylor in time or if it was too late. Not leaving the door unlocked and a teenager saying "I can't get the caption off!" because, even though it's not supposed to be and the subject matter isn't funny, the execution of the scene and the dialogue is really funny.
@@gothboithick fair, some preteens and teens would find that a little intense but I think if they can handle a movie depicting conversations about sex, slut shaming, homophobia, harassment, a character posting a suicide note video and attempting to go through with ending their life then they can handle a little suspense and a movie made by people who don't think it has to be dumbed down for them to understand, though I wasn't really thinking of the audience that the movie originally intended, just what I thought would have been a better way to build suspense and make the audience worry for the character more, and convey the severity and weight that the scene should have had. In my opinion, once a young adult character is bestest by a simple childproof medicine cap that most people can open by the time they're 8 or 9, it kinda takes away the worry for that character being a danger to themselves.
Amazingly I've never been bullied online growing up. A lot of the pseudo-racist things were said/done directly to me. Like about my "fish lips", my "zombie eyes", the touching/plucking of my hair, the rumor that I was destined to drop out of school and become a pole dancer with fake boobs...good times...
We really need to bring back some sort of punishment like beatings for racists who are found guilty in some sort of court… that would make me happy to see justice for their actions
The comment about the eyeliner reminds me of one of my biggest mistakes in 7th grades: I had just started my emo-phase and was abusing the poor eyeliner. An older bully made fun of me for how it looked. I just ignored him and walked away, instead of asking him to show me how he does it on the weekends It’s been years and I’ll never get over that missed opportunity
my friend got shown this movie in class by a teacher and sat us all down after school like "you guys HAVE to see this shit" and it was one of the funnest afternoons I ever had.
they made us watch this in high school health class and we all hated it. the joke we had was that it looked like she gave up on the cap and just started trying to push the pills directly through her abdomen into her stomach
whenever this movie came out, it was around the same year i got professionally diagnosed with depression. i also have been cyberbullied which led to real life bullying from other students in my high school. i’ve been hospitalized multiple times both for attempting and being in danger of attempting. i still find this movie absolutely hilarious and think of “i can’t get the cap off!” every time i take the cap off my medication bottles
I just got regular bullied (cos the internet wasn't really a thing in my school days). Weirdly, it was mostly because I was "too nice" which is very strange and further proof that kids really will just be randomly mean over anything.
When this movie came out, I guess there was a segment on Dr.Phill or something like that about cyberbullying. I guess my mom watched it because one day she asked me "If you were being cyberbullied would you tell me?" And of course, being the type of teen that I was, I replied "No, I would just block the person or ignore it"
that "You really are gay though" scene lives rent free in my head ever since I saw the film in high school. It has been branded into my brain and thinking of it causes the pain to flare up.
I watched this in middle school I think twice, and it was/is so bad. I remember thinking it was weird that there was no warning about a suicide scene until it actually happened. IMAGINE killing all tension in a film with a SINGLE line
i think that line was meant to convey that she was so frazzled and upset and panicked and frantic that she just wasn’t thinking clearly enough to slow down and do the multistep process one at a time, and I could honestly believe that, with how hysterical she seemed at the time.
It’s such a weird shame-fueled conservative after school special. This movie gave me so much anxiety that somehow everyone would find out what I was doing online and that I would get hacked.
I remember being a tween and finding this movie somehow, watching it over and over again. I think it was because it validated the idea of multiple stressors, each one you used to be able to deal with or could deal with one at a time, building up until they felt insurmountable. So even though nothing huge has changed, it all hits you and you break a bit. Scott's acting bugged me even back then with how bad it was. Also, don't diss the eyeliner on the waterline practice, I still use a little bit just on the outer edges, it brings the sharpness!
I relate to the humor of "I cant get the cap off" as someone whose attempt included a rube goldberg type of contraption, which my brother found and then stole my fucking closet door (was crucial for it to work) 😭 this was like 5 years ago and to this day I dont have a closet door and I still laugh about it.
It is darkly humourous I guess.. but your brother sounds like a good lad making sure you didn't go through with it. Hope you're better mentally now I know it's a struggle ❤️❤️❤️
Great, now I have to write a song called "Rube Goldberg Suicide"! But forreal, hope you are able to laugh about it for the rest of your appropriately long life
Thank you! As a certified Old Person, I was unaware of "I can't get the cap off!" until this very moment. I'm lucky to be alive after the laughter-induced seizure, but it was worth it
My favorite computer science teacher (so sweet and wholesome bless his soul) play this on like national cyberbully awareness Day and him being an older man he watched that movie and thought "wow this is really going to connect with the kids".....we laughed the entire time especially at the "I can't get the cap off" people were just making fun of her and my teacher looked so freaking disappointed 💀
There was a trinity of terrible teen movies at the same time as cyber bullying, one was about a pregnancy pact and one I actually watched on TV was about a guy who becomes a chronic masturbator
I am mexican and i just wanted to say that your pronunciation and use of "¿Qué onda?" and "Está muy chido" is really good!! I wish more people would learn spanish that way, the way people actually do speak it haha. Amazing job Nick!! Tu español está muy chido!
Yeah I had a very rough MySpace era high school experience being openly gay at an “alternative” school in a HIGHLY republican state. I went from somewhat normal day to day to a good chunk of the school yelling slurs, thre4tening me, etc very sudden social rejection scenario. I also was dealing with depression and an anxiety disorder at the time. I ended up dropping out and beginning a substance abuse/ self medication trajectory that ended up with me having multiple addictions/ overdoses/ stays in psychiatric units. The good news is I’m clean now and my heart rate barely went up a tiny bit retelling my trauma. progress!
“My heart rate barely went up a bit retelling my trauma” Guess I never realized how common of an experience that is (for folks with trauma, anyways). Anything related to it, my heart rate skyrockets. I’m glad you’re making progress. You’re doing great! 💜
@@thedestroyasystem I’m sorry to hear that we share that. All I will say is with time, stability, healthy outlets, good people around you, and psychiatric help- things can and will change for the better if you keep fighting! Good luck ❤️
Highschool bullying is scary, those kids are old enough to know better. They are already so hurt that they hurt others. It's hard redirecting that behaviour after puberty. Schools really need an ethics class all through highschool
Sharing your story unapologetically while still remaining positive and instilling hope for the public… my favorite part about you. You are my favorite channel!! Love you Nick ❤
We watched it in one of my classes freshmen year of high school and it was great because everyone was either making fun of the acting and stuff, or they were like me and had already been "cyberbullied" so it was just sitting in a room with a bunch of classmates laughing at the plight of the character while having flashbacks. Also it's still so mindblowing that they had her get better so fast? It's been almost a decade since the start of my cyberproblems and I'm still struggling with it. Edit: I can agree that the movie is funny in how bad it is sometimes is, like the "I can't get the cap off".
I was 21 and in college to be a high school teacher when this movie came out. This movie was just making waves as a way to potentially teach about cyber bullying and it was being pushed as something we should all watch. It was around the same time all those kinda cheesy play assemblies were happening where they would talk about how cyber bullying could cause someone to take their lives. Yeah cyber bullying was just so much this whole big new thing to all the teachers but all the millennials in the were like "But we know children are bullying each other via social media. Not sure why this is news to you."
The point you made about her “but it’s true, you are gay” is so good. Because the difference is that those people in the movie as well those dbags irl is that they aren’t making a statement they are saying it as if the word is a slur and they are trying to shame you. Nobody should ever be talked to like that. Edit: omg your voice in her head was so funny. Love that you are so real about normalizing STD/STI because that makes it more comfortable for people who need to reach out and get educated and help.
I’ve actually been in a situation where a “friend” faked an account lying to me, saying that this guy likes me and pretended to be him. I actually liked the person (that I thought it was) and didn’t know what was going on until someone else in our friend group went silent when I told her about this person I was talking to. She got really quiet for a bit and then asked some questions then when she realised I wasn’t in on the “joke” that the person lying (catfishing me) to me and seemed proud of it. I asked others in our group and everyone actually got extremely mad at her. I couldn’t talk or even look at her and told her to give me space. She genuinely didn’t see what she did wrong until everyone “turned” on her and everyone got even madder when she didn’t even bother to apologise to me. I told her that I will forgive this instance but I will never believe anything she tells me ever again and I don’t trust her any more. Some of our mutual friends actually stopped being friends with her because she did other attention seeking stunts and had enough. They saw me crying and that was it for them.
I was clinically depressed from primary school in to high school at the golden age of cyber bullying, it was so new so no one knew what to do about it and kids were just going wild. I loved this movie growing up cus it made me feel hopeful that shit might change for me. I watched this again probably like 6 months ago and I was bawling my eyes out, even tho it’s been about 8 years since I last tried to unalive myself the emotions are still so raw inside and I feel like they actually do a very good job at showing how sometimes it isn’t this big plan where you know you’re going to do it for a week but it’s actually a very sudden feeling you have to just end it all. Not the best example of what it’s all like but it was one of the first and I think it did a lot of good in it’s time.
I came out as gay to two of my closest friends. Then, the next day when I was telling a few more of my friends, they said "yeah, Lindsay told us. She was warning us that you're a lesbian" I hated every day of high school. Have you done a clip breakdown of The Truth About Jane? That's a Lifetime movie about a young teenager figuring out she's queer. It's got Ellen Muth and Stockard Channing. It came out in 2000. It really gave me hope as a teenager.
As someone who went to a religious school where we couldn't even say the word hell, all of our bullying was done online. It was crazy, people became so toxic over time, much worse than this movie, because they could say anything without consequences online. No adults had a single clue since our pastor still thought the Internet was made by Satan. Who would've thunk it, if you force your kids to act a very specific way and repress every emotion and feeling they have, they'll go crazy and do some wild shit.
we were shown this in health class as part of the curriculum in high school. our teacher told us about when someone in a previous class laughed at the OD scene and the girl sitting in front of him turned around and started beating him up. honestly, that stuck with me a lot more than this entire movie ever did. i have no idea who this girl is, but i hope she's doing okay
Omg I remember watching this movie in 2011, when I was a middle schooler and cyberbullying assemblies were like a monthly occurrence. This movie kind of reflects how the adults saw it at the time - it wasn't always some big public attack on one random person. Like you said Nick, sometimes it would be between a group of friends, and sometimes it wasn't this overly dramatic but it still felt like shit to be a part of. Even if it was like... one of your friends doing this to another and you were caught in the middle. Not long after this movie it seemed like schools were suddenly VERY concerned about cyberbullying and kept trying to say stuff about it, but it was never really helpful in stopping it lol. Even the word cyberbullying is (and was) cringe, and it was never something that went away after high school. It's just morphed to keep up with the times. This movie still made me feel lots of EMOTIONS at the time, even if it did feel like a more Disneyfied Degrassi plot knock off. Now it's one big meme lmao.
Always so weirded out by that scene between the gay boy and the main character. Like. "You are gay tho" yeah but you have heard of the concept of a slur right.
The first time I ever heard of this movie was in high school drama class. One of the groups reenacted "I CAN'T GET THE CAP OFFFFF." It was very dramatic. Especially as one of the girls on stage were giggling the whole time. Having watched it... gotta be real, Taylor is a really mean person. It's hard to feel bad. The bullying was such, like... they were terrible at bullying. If that was the bullying I got in school I would probably have left with a lot less trauma and just laughed at them. That is just me tho. Not tryna take away from anyone else's experiences.
That movie made me cry so many times as a kid. Even now that I'm older and think the suicide attempt scene is kind of oof, the songs still makes me tear up.
When Cyberbully came out, I vividly remember thinking “Lifetime’s Odd Girl Out (with that really bad wig Alexa Vega wore in the 2nd half) did this entire plot like 6 years ago already though?” Since I was bullied/cyberbullied in junior high, by default I related more to Odd Girl Out. By high school, people just stuck to their own groups and did their own thing.
Oh my gosh. We had this movie in our program at the inpatient behavioral health center I worked at, alternating weeks. I had to watch this movie every Saturday for 3 years. the flashback line got me good
The way I told my (Now ex) friend I thought this movie was funny and she told me I just "didn't get it" because I'd "never been bullied before"... when I was being bullied everyday and she'd never been bullied once and was always pretty popular/well liked.
I immediately started scream laughed when you pointed out they made Taylor in the end shot open the bottle for her friend 😂😂😂 that is so dark yet so unintentionally hilarious
Nick I love you so much. I admire how you find it so easy to be real and vulnerable with parts of your past while seconds later going right back into your dark humor. Laughter is literally how I get through the day and majority of my days you help me with that.
when i watched this for the first time in middle school, i was with a bunch of friends at a sleepover. i remember they were all crying at the scene where taylor is trying to take the pills and i was trying not to giggle 💀 i felt like something was wrong with me lol
I remember finding this movie. I had been getting bullied and was struggling with wanting to unaliving myself. It was so ‘cool’ to find a movie that actually talked about this kind of things
i feel like while early movies like this were doing their best to portray teen struggles, but it would have been nice if any of these writers/directors spoke to some actual highschoolers. the form bullying takes is often so much more insidious and difficult to get help with than getting slurs and slander posted on your page under peoples real names.
Something I really admire about this movie is that they dont shy away from making Taylor kind of bitchy. Normally movies like this make the protagonist a really soft and doughy innocent victim archetype but Taylor at least shows that she can hold her own at the beginning. Kind of adds some nuance to her character that she brushes off the gay kid and calls Lindsay a bitch. Like yes you can still be a victim even if you weren’t a perfect angel yourself. Its rare that we see that in movies, especially teen movies.
Well, clearly it wasn't received well, since the majority of people basically say that they don't feel bad for her because of that one scene with her and the gay kid. Unfortunately, if you make the victim flawed in any way, people completely miss the point of the story by saying that she deserved to get abused/bullied/hurt or that she deserves no sympathy. The movie knew that what Taylor said to the gay kid was wrong, and that was the point, but people just see that scene and decide, "Welp, she's terrible. This movie is homophobic, and Taylor is evil and deserves no sympathy."
I do agree with you though, but I think that's the reason why most movies like this try to make the victim as nice as possible.
@@mynameisreallycool1 I took the risk and made my two main characthers (with an abusive mother) very flawed in my story
@@mynameisreallycool1 If she was being racist or islamophobic would u still be as sympathetic towards her? There are ppl who are more sympathetic towards homophobes than to racists or what ever other -ist/-phobe someone is or excuses. It’s a very selective way of thinking
@@Dolphinboi I think the point was supposed to be that she learned from that, although she should've explicitly apologized to the guy about what she said. But at the end her friend said she deserves it and Taylor said "no you don't" and I believe that was supposed to signify her learning her lesson.
@@Dolphinboi eh, shes a kid tho. teens say and do regrettable stuff 6 ways to sunday. she should've apologized when she realized she was wrong but things dont get wrapped up neatly all the time in real life either.
While "I can't get the cap off!" Is a cinematic masterpiece, I'm never getting over this movie giving us 'ur nasty and a bitch' as an insult. Shakespeare's been quiet since this movie came out
Ur a liar Lindsay
i have to take medicine from a bottle like that and... its an easy open cap... u push with ur open palm and twist .. 💀💀
Why didn’t she just combine them and call her a nasty bitch instead of nasty and a bitch?
Just ask any child.@@oddfitch5742
“I can’t get the cap off!” Is unintentional dark humor at its finest.
ask to the tooooof noodz, HE GIVES CAPS LIKE HEAD AT HIS STANDUP SHOWS ALL OVER TWITTER
I think about that whenever I struggle opening a pill bottle, cracks me up
The way I busted out laughing! You literally have to be into dark humor to watch Nick and not get offended lol
I can't even read the words without bursting out laughing
"STUPID CHILDPROOF CAPS!"
For those who don't know, Megan Meier's story occurred around the time Myspace was still pretty big (2006). She was only 13 yrs old, going on 14. Her friends allegedly had a falling out and wanted to get back at her. However, it was a PARENT who decided to make the account and harass Megan. There was a whole investigation after her death. If I recall, there was a gross amount of people who were involved in harming this girl. Most of them, especially the parent, denied anything negative was said. The parent was convicted, but the judge eventually overturned it.
I actually had no idea this movie was connected when I first watched it??? But the original story stuck with me all throughout jr high and high school.
Yeah it was actually the girls mom calling her a slut etc. I wrote an article about this at the time. That poor girl was so isolated and being ripped to shreds by a whole grown woman. So disgusting.
I said this on the Adum plaza YMS review, they painted Megan in such a terrible light.
@@beautyandtheoffbeats what review is that?
Wow that's sick and people wonder why...
I watched a ted talk on her the other day in my focus. It was heartbreaking to hear her mom talk about it.
Nick's ability to simultaneously be glib and 100% factually accurate but also kind yet really mean never fails.
Literally my favorite.
*skills*
How was this comment made 13 hours ago when this video was uploaded an hour ago 😭
He’s not kind lol
@@ubxtch the only person asking the real questions bc wtf
also the representation of online culture in this movie compared to now is absolutely insane. like if someone posted "im a naughty girl who needs to be spanked" on tiktok the next day at school their friends would be like "that was funny" or not acknowledge it at all
ngl in 2011 when this movie came out, my friends and i pretty much said the same thing- if someone posted that online it would in fact have been hilarious back then as well.
i was 16 when the movie came out and my biggest gripe with it was that to me and my friends, it was so unrealistic compared to how people interacted online and how cyber bullying actually worked.
Nowadays we get the good kind of famous if we say we're naughty and need to be spanked lmao
right?? like just wait ten years honey, “ur nasty and a bitch” is actually a compliment lmao
I disagree. At least at my school, someone would get clowned so hard if anyone outside their circle saw that without context
i disagree too! if you're conventionally pretty and have a friend group then yeah defo it could slide now but if you don't have many friends and have a minuscule reason to be picked on you'll be bullied ? i was bullied SO much for liking harry styles back in 2011 ? now who's the clown ....
The worst part is that she stayed friends with the girl who was responsible.
Right!
I like your profile picture!
@@tsukiyumetan5362 It stinks!
@@snowbeast4463 👏🎬
viva Jay Sherman!viva Quebec!
I laughed way too hard at “does she have a wine glass? Is she an alcoholic mom? No, it’s just a dog….” Hahahaha
Iconique cinema moment
She said it like she expected someone to take it off for her like "here you go sweetie :)"
ME TOO! Especially how he squinted at his laptop 🤣
and the funniest part is that's not a dog that's a child
She was just about to drink the dog
The way he held up and squinted at his laptop was the best part 😂
They really could've just made it like "She didn't take enough pills to cause any serious harm." but instead they went for "I CAN'T GET THE CAP OFF!"
Or just the fact that overdoses aren’t usually deadly without something else like alcohol.
The brother was at home, or maybe she gets scared, or they try to call her and she becomes hesitant, maybe they get the dad to call her and she sees his name....anything, ANYTHING other than her trying to get the cap off for at least 10 minutes!!!!
@@RQStudios-1416 yes they are😭
@@RQStudios-1416:( I had a friend that ended up with organ damage from tylenol. The scene is still really funny tho.
The suicide scene is even worse when you know that, not only is the movie is based on a real girl who took her own life because of how she was bullied online, but also the producers worked with the girls mother to make sure the movie had the gravitas they wanted to portray.
I kept thinking about that. Imagine having to be on set for it? Heartbreaking. Also, mom wanted her to be friends with those bullying wenches in her imagined perfect ending? Huh. I would not be that mom
@@plutonium2 well the movie was originally supposed to be on Disney channel, but also I think from the perspective of a parent you would want the harassment of your child to stop and ideally the aggressors become better people and they befriend the person they had hurt, and I can't say for sure since I don't know the mom but maybe that's what she wanted to happen in her experience, which I understand since what really happened was tragic and avoidable, but that ending is pretty unrealistic. This one was too, literally an "and everybody clapped" moment you'd read on Tumblr, but not befriending the people who tormented you is at least much more realistic.
I do have to agree with you, though, if I had a child that was bullied and it had even half as much of an effect as seen in this movie, I'd be coming for the bullies academic careers, sports participations, their college applications, scholarships, I'd be taking their parents and the school to court, I'd leave nothing in my path to get justice for my kid.
I lost my brother to suicide and I can't imagine how awful it would be to have to work with people to try to reconstruct and relive that moment. Jesus Christ.
@@cyanidesmile7263 it also seems like the mother of the rl girl wanted to make a movie on what COULD have happened if she had acted. It was to make herself feel better and it's sad it came out this way.
@@plutonium2 I think the idea was more that she wouldn’t have to lose one of her only friends in addition to everything else horrible that happened. she’s trying to recover from being in a really bad place, i could get it if a parent thought it wasn’t the worst idea in the world to keep your friend- she’s only got two, after all.
I almost screamed "I CAN'T GET THE CAP OFF!" in delight at this notification. I can't wait to see Nick tear into this ✨
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
*BREATHE ME BLARING IN THE BACKGROUND*
That's most of the reason I clicked. Love that scene and love watching people react to it. 😂
I saw the YMS episode about this movie a few years back and I laughed until I cried at "I can't get the cap off!"
SAME!!!!!!
I've always interpreted Samantha's behavior towards Taylor (over-interest to the point of obsession, jealousy, catfishing) as products of an unrequited crush on Taylor. It's pretty common for younger queer girls to get a little too invested in a friend for hetero standards. I think it adds a certain level of tragedy to the story, because Samantha must know on some level how she feels, but she also sees how her entire school (including Taylor) can be homophobic.
That’s what I always thought too. At the very least, it is my head canon. I don’t understand how the creators didn’t see it, or maybe they did understand the implications but shyed away from actually making it a thing. Maybe cause they thought having two major characters who are gay and where their sexuality is a plot point, would be too much, that audiences would be bothered and distracted by it. And maybe 2011 audiences (I was 19 so I remember that point in time very well) would’ve indeed conflated her sexuality with being mean, invasive, possessive and manipulative. These day viewers would have more nuance in their observations.
Same
Maybe they just decided the single white female gay lady thing wasn't conducive to us actual gay ladies
Never thought about it like that but this theory makes so much sense. 😭
I'm far too old to have ever seen this movie, but during this video, I kept being reminded of how Peach treated Beck in the show "YOU," which was due to an unrequited crush... So clearly we both got the same impression! But (like Peach) Samantha is still a cunt.
Omg I remember this!! My school told us all to watch this to understand the real life danger of being mean on social media. They were cool with the real life bullying and racism going on in their classes though, so there's that.
Schools really have one anti bullying message a year and call it good 🙃
THIS
That’s crazy, we didn’t have bullying, racism, or social media lessons when I was a kid in school. Maybe that’s just Canada though.
Okay yes I'm also pretty sure we had to watch this in school! I wasn't sure because that was nearly a decade ago now..
@@Tipper94 i had this conversation w my parents the other day - neither of them (in america) ever had lessons like that. in my experience though, a lot of schools now make you do a training that covers bullying, hazing, alcohol/drug abuse, sexual violence, and discrimination. unfortunately how much the faculty cares about these issues happening among the student body varies greatly 🥲
37:00 "that's called freedom of speech" Lmao no it isn't. Harassment isn't covered by freedom of speech at all, and the whole "the government can't retaliate against you for saying certain things" doesn't apply to a minor who bullied another minor into almost killing herself.
In fact, there are specific laws against the misuse of freedom of speech: libel, harassment, defamation etc. Because even the Founders and all that came after knew that freedom of speech doesn't not mean freedom from consequence. If he was a lawyer, he would know that. How else would the criminal justice system work if everyone in there could say what they like?
Right? The government can’t arrest you but I can sue. What a horrible lawyer.
I was literally suspended from high school for a month because "it's easier to suspend one student than it is to suspend 10"
I didn't even tell on them for teasing me. They broke into my locker and took my clothes(I was in gym) and put them into a mud puddle, then flung them onto the flagpole. I asked the office if they could help me get my clothes down, and then bam I'm suspended.
I didn't even go back after the suspension. I dropped out and did correspondence school.
I’m so sorry that happened to you, that sucks!
The administration then clapped their hands, all proud of themselves, and went "We did our jobs!" 😒 great job
i wouldve literally killed someone ur so brave
Woah! Adults are part of the problem too
Schools have two responses to bullying: 1) punish the victim and 2) do nothing.
When people in my school found out that I identified as bisexual. I had rocks thrown at me, mulch, pens stabbed at me, constantly harassed, heckled. I explained to my mom that I wasn’t doing so great mentally because it got to the point they would take my assignments if I went to the bathroom either tear them up, throw them away, or hide them….my mom called up the principal which this was a new guy and honestly he was terrible. He took every fun thing imaginable and just said “no we can’t do that anymore no fun here” however when I brought up my issues. This man deadass looked at me and said “did you try avoiding them?” I was like “well we’re in the same class and the student body aside from staff is roughly 300 or so….sooooo?? You tell me?…..” that’s the only advice he gave me was to avoid them or ignore them. Kind of hard when everyone is crammed into the same class and you have to hear everything being said or written about you every day until you go home.
That's horrific; I'm sorry that happened to you. I appreciate you sharing this because it shows how some authority figures really aren't heros or allies in these situations. I'm glad your Mom was supportive and I really hope you were able to get out of that situation or you're in a better place now.
I went through the same shit except I'm not bi
That's so horrific. I had a kid last year make tiktoks describing wanting to kill me and who also verbally made jokes about shooting up the school. I got the same advice.
I experienced something similar. I was bullied horribly by most people in my old middle school. It got to the point where I was told to kill myself to make the world better. Any teacher I told either told me to ignore them or said I shouldn't have bullied my bully (I never did??). When I tried to tell my father, he told me of stories about what he went through when he was my age. Tried to tell the principal or vice principal, but they didn't do anything, even when I loudly admitted I wanted to not exist.
School sucks.
LOL, my sister was the only black character in a CBS TV movie and her hairstyle and makeup were also, um, not too flattering. You’d think the Hollywood stylists would know how to deal with diversity by now.
OMG I want the name of the movie but know you cant dox yourself.
Also,they literally did not have the foundation shade rane until 3 years ago. Black folk on TV and even sometimes movies used to look insane unless there was a black person in hair and makeup or otherwise on set.
@@fightvale57 I don’t mind at all-I’m a journalist and I’m always sharing my info. The name of the movie is “Vital Signs” starring Gary Cole and Ed Asner. Cole plays a doctor who descends into drug addiction; Asner, his dad, is also a doctor and an alcoholic. My sister has a very small part-near the end of the movie, Cole rushes into his hospital in his street clothes and asks a Very suspicious nurse (my sister) if he can check in on a patient and give her her medication. My sister’s frown of concern is the highlight of the movie! (at least in my family’s household)
@Mr_ Tinez I get what you are saying, but hair and makeup is a unionized department in the industry (IATSE), so they can’t just bring non-union people onto a unionized set. they would first have to apply and get their permit to work and be paid. for non-union sets it’s possible though, but that’s a completely different monster
@Mr_ Tinez There's also the fact that they simply don't care enough to hire stylists for them. Since there are so few jobs for POC actors in the first place, production knows that nobody is going to quit the job over poor hair/makeup.
i've also been on both sides of this issue - specifically, the sockpuppet accounts. i had some online friends on MSN messenger for literally like two years that i think were actually just some classmates of mine.
my issue with this movie is that it wasn't written for the kids going through bullying - for this, i recommend "odd girl out" starring alexa vega. "cyberbully" was written for moms.
you'll notice that everything taylor's mom does is perfect helicopter parenting - she keeps an eye on taylor's internet usage, whether or not she's eating breakfast before school ("not hungry!" "not acceptable!"), is attentive, counsels her sagely, takes immediate action. and taylor was perfect too, virginal, well meaning, good grades.
they wouldn't even show an actual suicide attempt. she was briefly hospitalized for being upset. they barely wanted to take me away for ACTUALLY overdosing, they were like "i mean, she already threw it up 🙄"
this movie was like, "hey moms! actually, bullying is an issue even if you do a good job and your daughter doesn't deserve it :)"
oh and the group therapy scene was fucking hilarious. the therapist is like, "you can block your bullies online :)" and random sad canadian girl is like "huh, i never thought of that :/" like! girl! these are our classmates lmfao that's why we struggle with blocking them. that's how i know this movie isn't for us, because they didn't even try to portray it from our perspective. it was just maternal fretting porn for moms.
I’ve _gotta_ comment just to say that you made an excellent point. It just doesn’t feel like a like is enough.
100% yes! Another movie in the "maternal fretting genre" that I love is "She's Too Young." Marcia Gay Harden plays the mom in that one. Her daughter gets syphilis from being pressured into giving a blow job. I'd love if Nick covered that one too.
Yeah except it's based on a real mom. Ethically they had to give her every effort and every right answer BC in reality she lost her daughter before she acted.
the most accurate thing I've ever read about this movie
“Maternal fretting porn” is just… 👌
I think you hit the nail on the head: this has always felt more like a movie which adults - especially parents and teachers - use to reassure themselves that they’re doing a good job. It doesn’t feel like it was made to comfort and support the kids going through cyberbullying, or start a dialogue actually involving them. I mean, I think they _thought_ they made this for the kids, but if the media you create can’t connect with your core audience, then it’s not going to feel like anything other than a vaguely patronising Lifetime movie.
Real boomer energy; we made a simplistic movie - cyber bullying solved!
But also the ethics on making movies like this are always going to be messy. I know the story behind why it got made, and I understand that there was probably some degree of participation of the actual poor mother involved, but that inevitably results in a lionisation of their on-screen avatar… as well as a story that never quite seems to have any nuance, or be anything other than flat. I doubt it’s a good idea to base a film off one specific, painful story if you aren’t willing or able to really produce the kind of honest writing it needs to feel real - but I also completely get a mother wanting to make a tribute for her child, and feel like she’s doing something to prevent what happened to her family from happening again.
Great comment!
I was 11 years old when this came out. I’ve never been bullied, but I was battling clinical depression from certain events in my life. I remember this being one of the first “serious” movies about cyber bullying and I actually really enjoyed it back then. It’s definitely got some flaws and some of the language and behavior has not aged well, but I still respect this movie for what it was.
Same, watched this in seventh grade and thought it was the most dramatic and impactful movie I'd ever seen.
Same. I was 13 when it came out and had dealt with significant bullying in school that the school wouldn’t do anything about, so I related to it a lot. I also really appreciated it for bringing attention to the problem.
I mean… me too but this movie was so deeply unserious from day 1.
Same, except I was 12. Also I had a huge crush on Emily Osment, so that was another reason I liked the movie lmao
My school made us watch this is middle school
It's so weird that, even in real life, the parents of bullies almost never get involved.
And when they do especially in movies it's always like "my angel wouldn't do that"
It is weird, but it doesn’t surprise me. More often than not, the bully learned that behavior somewhere….
I don’t have a child yet, but I know for a FACT that I would NOT tolerate that behavior if my child did that. I got bullied in middle school, but I remember there was a time when I bullied another girl as well. It was almost normalized (which is so sad). When my mom found out, she took my phone, I was grounded, and I was immediately sent to a therapist. I still feel bad to this day for what I said online to my classmate. We are on good terms now that we’ve grown, but it haunts me. I don’t tolerate any of that as an adult.
The exasperated “Jesus ALRIGHT I’ll live” hit me deep in my soul
We were forced to watch this in high school during an assembly for “mental health awareness” and to combat cyber bullying. Many kids had to walk out of the auditorium because it hit too close to home. It was horrific.
We were made to watch it in middle school. So many kids made fun of it, and I remember being so angry because I was regularly bullied. I remember trying so hard not to burst into tears during it. I'm glad I don't have to step foot on school grounds ever again. I still get nightmares, lol.
Glad I had already graduated from High School by this point. I would've probably laughed my ass off if I had to watch this with other people at that age.
@@dearoldmold I hated high school, but for entirely different reasons. My high school never had a bullying problem, and social media wasn't a huge deal in the very early 00s when I was attending.
I’m glad that the school forced me to watch this before I became suicidal, otherwise I probably would’ve cried when she tried overdosing
I'll never get over the fact that Emily actually couldn't get the cap off and that line wasn't scripted.
REALLY? I didn’t even know! That somehow makes it even funnier. Her tone is so desperate, I love it. And I guess this explains it. I wonder what she was supposed to do with the pill bottle instead?
Source? I need to share that info lol
WHAT? That's hilarious.
@@imaginekudryavka9485 well I'm sure she wanted to stay in character and in the general mood of the scene even though she was going off script. The fact that she said it in character makes sense. The fact that they used it in the final cut is really funny though lol
All these replies not realizing that this is a fucking meme. How do you people function in daily life?
I SCREAMED at her response to Caleb like WHAT?!? That’s the response you give to someone trying to empathize with you 💀
I remember watching this on premiere night! Still think about it every so often. The only thing that never made sense to me was Taylor still being friends with Cheyenne and Sam. They literally left you/ bullied you in your weakest moments. She didn’t have to be mean back but trusting them again and being friends? That’s a no from me dawg.
And the thing is how Cheyenne said it was getting too much for her, and I'm sitting here, thinking "You're not the one being harassed".
@@twiggledowntown3564 and you KNOW it’s a lie!! Where is true friendship? These people already don’t talk to you lol
I feel like in school I forgave a lot of bullshit just due to the weird mathematics of cliques. It just wasn't easy to move around from group to group and if your friend group was just three people you'd be especially stuck
@@plutonium2 Or you forgave it because you didn't have the courage to stand up for yourself.
tbf as someone who had a friend group that legit hated each other, just the fact that people see each other every day at school and are stuck together w seating plans kept a LOT of friendships going lol
Nick, I really appreciate your comments regarding STDs. My high school really ingrained into me that STDs were a death sentence & comeuppance for sex. I’ve never had an STD, but if I ever do, I’m glad I at least heard you talk about it in a normalizing way first.
I'm so glad I went to school in the 90's where the bullies had to deliver their death threats in person.
Essentially I have the same feelings. I was a middle school/high school student in the late 90s and early 2000s.
When this movie came out, I was being cyberbullied really badly online (through email for some reason) and in person. I literally would just cry to this movie all the time and had to switch schools and then got bullied worse. Being much older and LGBTQ+, it's crazy how this movie is both good and awful and everything in between. Especially her treatment of a gay person and something I relate to a lot. Absolutely love your commentary on this. I never thought this movie would be mentioned again!
The girl who did it never got in real trouble (two days of suspension) because her mom worked in the church that our school was affiliated with even though I had proof of messages she sent threatening my life, nearly assaulting me, and telling me friends that they would get bullied too if they hung out with me or even talked to me. I'm 22 now and that stuff still affects me. These things have real consequences and I'm still clawing my way out of my past. Children can be cruel, especially when they get access to the internet at 11-12 and realize they have more power than they once thought.
@@abbymason4542 I'm so sorry that happened to you. I hope you're on the road to healing ❤️
@@abbymason4542 So she told your friends not to hang with / talk to you and they listened to her? What did she say in the emails?
@@DavidKen878 yeah, we were 11-12 years old. Of course they listened to her. We were kids, I don’t hold it against them!
@@Pfpfpfpfpf2020 I’m doing much better, thank you!
One of my favorite early 00's teen movie tropes was that a mother having a single glass of wine after dinner = alcoholic mother who is completely out of control, thank god it's 2022 now and no one has any reason at all to double-fist identical bottles of 7 Crimes while sobbing hysterically on the floor.
That reminds me of the mother from parent trap (Lohan one, of course). She would apparently "only have one glass of wine with dinner" every night, but after she got off the plane to see the twin's father/her ex-husband, she was a mess!
Even in recent movie like "Marriage Story" where Scarlett Johansson's character was branded as an alcoholic mom during the custody battle when all she had like one glass after dinner and just slipped oh-so-slightly of a stair.
Yeah my parents did had a glass of wine with dinner sometimes, and they just modeled healthy drinking habits to me. Oh and how to plan around having to drive and have a designated driver when going out who isn’t drinking at all. Honestly super healthy.
My school always told us "if you are being cyber bullied tell a teacher or principal and we will help". Then when a friend of mine was being cyber bullied all of a sudden they couldn't do anything because it happened off school property 😒. They suggested going to the police but the police dgaf because it was just texts and they hadn't done anything physical.
I was 22 in 2011, so I was outside of the target demographic for this movie and have never seen it. “I can’t get the cap off!” made me laugh so hard. 🤣
A girl at my high school actually got expelled for cyberbullying. Her and the girl she was bullying got into a fight at school, and the bully tried pinning it on the victim. The girl being bullied printed out all the facebook messages where she was being harassed/threatened to prove it wasn’t. She still got suspended for fighting, but the other girl got expelled and changed schools. My school had its issues but at least they took cyberbullying seriously especially in the early 2010s
Degrassi really was ahead of its time by portraying characters you least expected to get pregnant or have pregnancy scares
I was 17 in 2011, so like, this movie was specifically targeted AT me, and I remember watching it and being absolutely pissed lol. nowadays i can appreciate more what it was going for but as an actually clinically depressed 17 year old who flirted with suicidal ideation, i really resented how overt a lot of the bullying was in an almost cartoonish way, like, i felt that it didnt represent a realistic modern experience, and that a lot of cyberbullying wasnt from people you knew in real life but strangers on the internet including adults, so this sort of paint by numbers story where she gets a social media and within a week shes suicidal was aimed not at someone like me, chronically depressed and lacking taylers picturesque life with a big house and lots of nice things, but at "normal" people experiencing an acute issue that could be fixed. especially since the issue is resolved, she stands up to her bully and is happy at the end- to me at the time, struggling with a difficult home life, failing grades and sort of constant online and irl harassment, it felt like the message it was telling me was that cyberbullying is a real issue because of how it affects 'normal' people, not people like me. i took it way more personally than i should have, but i mean, i was a chronically depressed teenager, i took everything personally.
"i cant get the cap off!" was the funniest shit ever tho i was like LMAO girl we are not the same
I felt the same. I also hated how poorly she reacted to being bullied online. Girl, just say "omg i love dogs and crisco
@@nempne honestly lmao, the blocking thing at the end always pissed me off too, she acts like she doesnt know it exists 😭😭😭
It pissed me off because it made me feel like it tried to force me to sympathise with my bullies. Like “ok she told you it’s just facts and jokes but she tried to kill herself and her dad abandoned her so maybe try being nicer to her sweetheart 😚”
Cool she’s flawed and has issues but where’s the accountability for taking it put on others?? All her victim was was a teaching moment to fix her own life and that means we should forgive and forget?
Sorry about the heat it still gets to me ya feel
Yeah like she is in her teens she should know how to get a bottle cap off lol
Fancy seeing you here, fellow cat enthusiast
They made us watch this in middle school health class and I remember us thinking it was bad even as 12 year olds
Lolll health class curriculum was the Wild West!
Lol so did I! It was 6th grade, and my health teacher said she was showing it to us to tell us that we shouldn’t use social media or the internet. Our school gave everyone laptops 💀
@@NickDiRamioTV Do you like "That Guy with the Glasses" (TGWTG)
I knew a girl who was bullied by multiple different high-schools, including my own, because her adult online ex-boyfriend was sending a topless photo of her to whatever new school she joined so she would be bullied. She ended up committing su*cide. We all had to have a sort of "group chat" in all of our first period classes the following day because she was all over the news and facebook and we already knew what happened. The shared sentiment between most of my classmates was "we should stop talking about her because it's just giving her attention and that's exactly what she wanted" 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
Jesus, that is a chilling lack of empathy and understanding. (Also illogical…like…it’s not attention if you’re not around to experience it.) It is disturbing how cruel teenagers can be.
horrifying that even after that, people had zero compassion
similar to amanda todd
That was amanda todd wasn't it
I forgot how Disney shoved the Panabaker girls in our faces in the 2000s. Where are they now??
i was wondering the same thing!!
I eventually got annoyed with how present they were as a kid/teen because they had so many roles that I would always forget their character’s names in the movie and accidentally recall their character’s name in some other movie instead 🤣
Danielle and Kay were pretty cool to me. The former ended up as a anti-villain in The CW's 'The Flash'. Kay, on the other hand, jumped ship from doing films despite her being good in 'Phil of the Future' & 'Life is Ruff'.
Kay Panabaker is a zoologist or something now💀
@@joyajohnson2216 Thanks for reminding me. That career's cool, but I would love to see Kay back on screen.
I wanna mention that it was really nice that you added not only a trigger warning in text on screen, but a noise notification as well for audio listeners to be notified. I believe you have an editor now? Whoever did it, you or them, I really admire that. You add thought behind everything you do and still manage to add humor where it's possible and I've always liked that about this channel :)
Also, yeah, I wound up switching high schools half way through because of cyber bullying. Best decision young me ever made ❤ great video as always, Nick!
Oh, my. How was the switch-up of the schools?
@@COSun25 it was AMAZING! I got to be myself but also start over. I was at a school where the class size was 70, and I switched to a school with a class size of about 250. I checked out a few public schools about 30 minutes from where I lived, and I chose the one that felt most inclusive. It was really hard because I have a younger brother going into high school at that time and I felt guilty leaving him. But his experience at that school was a lot better than mine.
@@SarahPaceSings Hope you're doing well.
@@twiggledowntown3564 I am 💜 I hope you are too :) thanks for your kindness. This is my favorite group on youtube
after 6th grade I was home schooled for 7th because of cyber bullying and then for 8th I switched to a different school. that school was even worse but if it weren’t for going there, I wouldn’t have known about the technology high school I ended up going to, and loving, that led me to a lot of people I love to this day. So going there was definitely the best decision young me ever made ♥️
I love how in every episode there’s a moment when it’s suddenly undeniable that you’re intelligent, well-educated, insightful, and articulate. Then the claws come back out and you’re 100% sass 😆
Omg I loved this film. As someone who also attempted suicide, I found this so relatable and used to cry at 'that scene' every time and now looking back I'm like girl, how the fuck did you relate to this cringe, ott, homophobic at times movie with literally Lily from Hannah Montana ? I'm so hyped for this vid lol, rip my old fave depression movie to shit 🥰 (even tho for some reason it's still a film I watch occasionally 😬)
Ps 'i can't get the cap off' is still unironically funny to me 😅
It was the only part of the movie that didn't read as cheesy and overdone to me, and I actually appreciated the "I can't get the cap off" as someone who's experienced firsthand how an attempt can be totally ridiculous despite being a serious situation.
Now though as an adult I can clock that the acting and delivery really do not carry it 😰
@@_gremlinboy oh for sure the first couple times I watched that scene as a teen I was in floods of tears and so glad she couldn't get that damn cap off and now as an adult that line just did not deliver how I used to think it did
I hope that you are doing much better now!
Seriously?? Are you me? because I felt exactly the same watching the movie when I was a young teen.
I think that Odd Girl Out was the better version of this movie. It dealt with the cyber bullying very well and it treated her attempt to unalive herself with seriousness.
NICK so one time JASON ROBERT BROWN came to my hometown and had a whole workshop with our theatre. Anywho, I was chosen BY HIM to sing Brand New You from 13.... I sang it in front of him and the whole group and my voice broke BADLY on the belt end of the bridge. I sobbed. This was 10 years ago and clearly I'm not over it
omg you must be a great singer (voice break or not) for him to choose you!!
@@NickDiRamioTVomg you are way too nice! Thanks for sharing yourself with us, Nick. We love you! You make my days better ❤
*"Highschool was demanding, stressful and for some reason it was always ice-cold"* 6:09 That line really got me. I remember that by the 2nd period classes I was so cold I felt like I was going into a coma and my body would sleep in response.
I swear, the air conditioning only came on during the winter. Though the worst was the time the heat got stuck on in one of my classes and it was so bad that we had to go to the library
Didn’t get cyberbullied, luckily, just got bullied irl at school! I’m 34 and still talking about it in therapy, so I feel u
I’m about the same age and My biggest bully from elementary school is now an eat pray love mommy blogger. 🥲 and my biggest cyber (and real life) bully in high school is also super successful. Joy.
I like how they made Cheyenne out to be some who was never bullied because apparently a poc didn’t experience racism back then.
“Meanwhile they said that my kink is spanking, which I don’t even know yet because I didn’t even get to try it yet”. NICK 🤣🤣🤣🤣
You are pure gold
The bathroom scene would have been better if, instead of a teenager being bested by a child-proof cap that a 9 year old could get open, the door was actually locked so we Samantha is banging on the door screaming for her friend to answer her and we cut to see Taylor was on the other side, throwing stuff off the shelf and onto the floor as she's going through the medicine cabinet trying to find something like her recently prescribed anti depressants, medication her dad left behind when he left or anti anxiety medicine her mom takes for her high stress job, maybe even just gives up and tries to take the whole bottle of ibuprofen or NyQuil to really further convey how desperate she is to just have it all end. The paramedics arrive and Samantha is yelling at them to save her friend, they're yelling over Sam for Taylor to unlock it a couple of times before they get no response, so they have to break the class in the door to reach in to unlock it or they straight up just kick it open and we see them rushing in and we see Sam just sobbing at the edge of the screen as they rush past her like she's watching them work. Cut to her mom having to leave a very important meeting because she's getting a call from the hospital and the person on the other end says they have her daughter and she needs to come down immediately, that way we build up suspense on if the paramedics and doctors were able to get to Taylor in time or if it was too late.
Not leaving the door unlocked and a teenager saying "I can't get the caption off!" because, even though it's not supposed to be and the subject matter isn't funny, the execution of the scene and the dialogue is really funny.
that would probably have been far too intense for an ABC family made for TV movie that they wanted pre-teens and young teens to also watch.
@@gothboithick fair, some preteens and teens would find that a little intense but I think if they can handle a movie depicting conversations about sex, slut shaming, homophobia, harassment, a character posting a suicide note video and attempting to go through with ending their life then they can handle a little suspense and a movie made by people who don't think it has to be dumbed down for them to understand, though I wasn't really thinking of the audience that the movie originally intended, just what I thought would have been a better way to build suspense and make the audience worry for the character more, and convey the severity and weight that the scene should have had. In my opinion, once a young adult character is bestest by a simple childproof medicine cap that most people can open by the time they're 8 or 9, it kinda takes away the worry for that character being a danger to themselves.
Amazingly I've never been bullied online growing up. A lot of the pseudo-racist things were said/done directly to me. Like about my "fish lips", my "zombie eyes", the touching/plucking of my hair, the rumor that I was destined to drop out of school and become a pole dancer with fake boobs...good times...
That just sounds like actual racism
@@joelle4226 my mom just called it "people being jealous"
We really need to bring back some sort of punishment like beatings for racists who are found guilty in some sort of court… that would make me happy to see justice for their actions
That’s awful I’m so sorry
@@SixtySecondYoga its Florida. What can you do ya know?
The comment about the eyeliner reminds me of one of my biggest mistakes in 7th grades:
I had just started my emo-phase and was abusing the poor eyeliner. An older bully made fun of me for how it looked. I just ignored him and walked away, instead of asking him to show me how he does it on the weekends
It’s been years and I’ll never get over that missed opportunity
🔥🔥😂
my friend got shown this movie in class by a teacher and sat us all down after school like "you guys HAVE to see this shit" and it was one of the funnest afternoons I ever had.
they made us watch this in high school health class and we all hated it. the joke we had was that it looked like she gave up on the cap and just started trying to push the pills directly through her abdomen into her stomach
this movie is like peak “clip breakdown” material!! so glad you finally covered it!
whenever this movie came out, it was around the same year i got professionally diagnosed with depression. i also have been cyberbullied which led to real life bullying from other students in my high school. i’ve been hospitalized multiple times both for attempting and being in danger of attempting. i still find this movie absolutely hilarious and think of “i can’t get the cap off!” every time i take the cap off my medication bottles
still can’t believe they showed this movie to us in class like it was effective unaliving techniques 😭
Dude they showed doctor Phil in my health class… they wonder why most people don’t understand mental illness and issues
You're onTH-cam, not tiktok, hun,
@@ajsnyder6160 eh I didn’t feel like writing out the word today
@@ajsnyder6160 what
"why are you being so insensitive to my troubles, fairy-fruit-homo?" this line killed me xD
Man, this girl so homophobic!
I'm so ready to hear you tear into her for how she treats her gay classmate. I've been waiting 11 years for this. 😆
I just got regular bullied (cos the internet wasn't really a thing in my school days). Weirdly, it was mostly because I was "too nice" which is very strange and further proof that kids really will just be randomly mean over anything.
I’ve been bullied for that too! that
When this movie came out, I guess there was a segment on Dr.Phill or something like that about cyberbullying. I guess my mom watched it because one day she asked me "If you were being cyberbullied would you tell me?" And of course, being the type of teen that I was, I replied "No, I would just block the person or ignore it"
that "You really are gay though" scene lives rent free in my head ever since I saw the film in high school. It has been branded into my brain and thinking of it causes the pain to flare up.
I watched this in middle school I think twice, and it was/is so bad. I remember thinking it was weird that there was no warning about a suicide scene until it actually happened. IMAGINE killing all tension in a film with a SINGLE line
i think that line was meant to convey that she was so frazzled and upset and panicked and frantic that she just wasn’t thinking clearly enough to slow down and do the multistep process one at a time, and I could honestly believe that, with how hysterical she seemed at the time.
It’s such a weird shame-fueled conservative after school special.
This movie gave me so much anxiety that somehow everyone would find out what I was doing online and that I would get hacked.
I remember being a tween and finding this movie somehow, watching it over and over again. I think it was because it validated the idea of multiple stressors, each one you used to be able to deal with or could deal with one at a time, building up until they felt insurmountable. So even though nothing huge has changed, it all hits you and you break a bit.
Scott's acting bugged me even back then with how bad it was.
Also, don't diss the eyeliner on the waterline practice, I still use a little bit just on the outer edges, it brings the sharpness!
i like how gen z fixed this problem by just cyberbullying everybody until we all became super jaded
I relate to the humor of "I cant get the cap off" as someone whose attempt included a rube goldberg type of contraption, which my brother found and then stole my fucking closet door (was crucial for it to work) 😭 this was like 5 years ago and to this day I dont have a closet door and I still laugh about it.
It is darkly humourous I guess.. but your brother sounds like a good lad making sure you didn't go through with it. Hope you're better mentally now I know it's a struggle ❤️❤️❤️
Great, now I have to write a song called "Rube Goldberg Suicide"! But forreal, hope you are able to laugh about it for the rest of your appropriately long life
@@yesterdaydream The next will wood song
@@marybonner7432 I am doing a lot better now :)
@@yesterdaydream I would love that song 🤣
Thank you! As a certified Old Person, I was unaware of "I can't get the cap off!" until this very moment.
I'm lucky to be alive after the laughter-induced seizure, but it was worth it
My favorite computer science teacher (so sweet and wholesome bless his soul) play this on like national cyberbully awareness Day and him being an older man he watched that movie and thought "wow this is really going to connect with the kids".....we laughed the entire time especially at the "I can't get the cap off" people were just making fun of her and my teacher looked so freaking disappointed 💀
"I CANT GET THE CAP OFF" is permanently engrained into my phrase repertoire because of this movie
I got the lowkey vibe that Samantha had a crush on Taylor and didn’t like that Taylor talked to boys. The catfishing kinda fed my theory lol
i thought the same thing!
These days you just never know w/ these weird females lol
I never even thought about that but that makes so much sense
There was a trinity of terrible teen movies at the same time as cyber bullying, one was about a pregnancy pact and one I actually watched on TV was about a guy who becomes a chronic masturbator
I am mexican and i just wanted to say that your pronunciation and use of "¿Qué onda?" and "Está muy chido" is really good!! I wish more people would learn spanish that way, the way people actually do speak it haha. Amazing job Nick!! Tu español está muy chido!
Yeah I had a very rough MySpace era high school experience being openly gay at an “alternative” school in a HIGHLY republican state. I went from somewhat normal day to day to a good chunk of the school yelling slurs, thre4tening me, etc very sudden social rejection scenario. I also was dealing with depression and an anxiety disorder at the time. I ended up dropping out and beginning a substance abuse/ self medication trajectory that ended up with me having multiple addictions/ overdoses/ stays in psychiatric units. The good news is I’m clean now and my heart rate barely went up a tiny bit retelling my trauma. progress!
You've come so far ❤ congrats on your healing journey and I'm so thankful you're still alive
@@BlackCatMagic0 that is so sweet, thank you 😊
“My heart rate barely went up a bit retelling my trauma”
Guess I never realized how common of an experience that is (for folks with trauma, anyways). Anything related to it, my heart rate skyrockets. I’m glad you’re making progress. You’re doing great! 💜
@@thedestroyasystem I’m sorry to hear that we share that. All I will say is with time, stability, healthy outlets, good people around you, and psychiatric help- things can and will change for the better if you keep fighting! Good luck ❤️
@@thedestroyasystem also thank you 😂
Highschool bullying is scary, those kids are old enough to know better. They are already so hurt that they hurt others. It's hard redirecting that behaviour after puberty. Schools really need an ethics class all through highschool
Sharing your story unapologetically while still remaining positive and instilling hope for the public… my favorite part about you.
You are my favorite channel!! Love you Nick ❤
We watched it in one of my classes freshmen year of high school and it was great because everyone was either making fun of the acting and stuff, or they were like me and had already been "cyberbullied" so it was just sitting in a room with a bunch of classmates laughing at the plight of the character while having flashbacks. Also it's still so mindblowing that they had her get better so fast? It's been almost a decade since the start of my cyberproblems and I'm still struggling with it.
Edit: I can agree that the movie is funny in how bad it is sometimes is, like the "I can't get the cap off".
I was 21 and in college to be a high school teacher when this movie came out. This movie was just making waves as a way to potentially teach about cyber bullying and it was being pushed as something we should all watch. It was around the same time all those kinda cheesy play assemblies were happening where they would talk about how cyber bullying could cause someone to take their lives.
Yeah cyber bullying was just so much this whole big new thing to all the teachers but all the millennials in the were like "But we know children are bullying each other via social media. Not sure why this is news to you."
The point you made about her “but it’s true, you are gay” is so good. Because the difference is that those people in the movie as well those dbags irl is that they aren’t making a statement they are saying it as if the word is a slur and they are trying to shame you.
Nobody should ever be talked to like that.
Edit: omg your voice in her head was so funny. Love that you are so real about normalizing STD/STI because that makes it more comfortable for people who need to reach out and get educated and help.
I’ve actually been in a situation where a “friend” faked an account lying to me, saying that this guy likes me and pretended to be him. I actually liked the person (that I thought it was) and didn’t know what was going on until someone else in our friend group went silent when I told her about this person I was talking to. She got really quiet for a bit and then asked some questions then when she realised I wasn’t in on the “joke” that the person lying (catfishing me) to me and seemed proud of it. I asked others in our group and everyone actually got extremely mad at her. I couldn’t talk or even look at her and told her to give me space. She genuinely didn’t see what she did wrong until everyone “turned” on her and everyone got even madder when she didn’t even bother to apologise to me. I told her that I will forgive this instance but I will never believe anything she tells me ever again and I don’t trust her any more. Some of our mutual friends actually stopped being friends with her because she did other attention seeking stunts and had enough. They saw me crying and that was it for them.
I was clinically depressed from primary school in to high school at the golden age of cyber bullying, it was so new so no one knew what to do about it and kids were just going wild. I loved this movie growing up cus it made me feel hopeful that shit might change for me. I watched this again probably like 6 months ago and I was bawling my eyes out, even tho it’s been about 8 years since I last tried to unalive myself the emotions are still so raw inside and I feel like they actually do a very good job at showing how sometimes it isn’t this big plan where you know you’re going to do it for a week but it’s actually a very sudden feeling you have to just end it all. Not the best example of what it’s all like but it was one of the first and I think it did a lot of good in it’s time.
I love that Nick casually mistakes a child for dog and we all just let that be. lol This was delightful as per usual
I came out as gay to two of my closest friends. Then, the next day when I was telling a few more of my friends, they said "yeah, Lindsay told us. She was warning us that you're a lesbian" I hated every day of high school. Have you done a clip breakdown of The Truth About Jane? That's a Lifetime movie about a young teenager figuring out she's queer. It's got Ellen Muth and Stockard Channing. It came out in 2000. It really gave me hope as a teenager.
As someone who went to a religious school where we couldn't even say the word hell, all of our bullying was done online. It was crazy, people became so toxic over time, much worse than this movie, because they could say anything without consequences online. No adults had a single clue since our pastor still thought the Internet was made by Satan. Who would've thunk it, if you force your kids to act a very specific way and repress every emotion and feeling they have, they'll go crazy and do some wild shit.
we were shown this in health class as part of the curriculum in high school. our teacher told us about when someone in a previous class laughed at the OD scene and the girl sitting in front of him turned around and started beating him up. honestly, that stuck with me a lot more than this entire movie ever did. i have no idea who this girl is, but i hope she's doing okay
Omg I remember watching this movie in 2011, when I was a middle schooler and cyberbullying assemblies were like a monthly occurrence. This movie kind of reflects how the adults saw it at the time - it wasn't always some big public attack on one random person. Like you said Nick, sometimes it would be between a group of friends, and sometimes it wasn't this overly dramatic but it still felt like shit to be a part of. Even if it was like... one of your friends doing this to another and you were caught in the middle. Not long after this movie it seemed like schools were suddenly VERY concerned about cyberbullying and kept trying to say stuff about it, but it was never really helpful in stopping it lol. Even the word cyberbullying is (and was) cringe, and it was never something that went away after high school. It's just morphed to keep up with the times.
This movie still made me feel lots of EMOTIONS at the time, even if it did feel like a more Disneyfied Degrassi plot knock off. Now it's one big meme lmao.
Always so weirded out by that scene between the gay boy and the main character. Like. "You are gay tho" yeah but you have heard of the concept of a slur right.
"I'm the janitor and I follow her around with a mop" nearly made me choke
“I’m the janitor again,” made me choke on air 😂
The first time I ever heard of this movie was in high school drama class. One of the groups reenacted "I CAN'T GET THE CAP OFFFFF." It was very dramatic. Especially as one of the girls on stage were giggling the whole time.
Having watched it... gotta be real, Taylor is a really mean person. It's hard to feel bad. The bullying was such, like... they were terrible at bullying. If that was the bullying I got in school I would probably have left with a lot less trauma and just laughed at them. That is just me tho. Not tryna take away from anyone else's experiences.
Tbt, when I did re-watch several times, I thought that, they could've made her a lot meaner.
@@twiggledowntown3564 oh absolutely. I'm glad they didn't, though.
The climax of this movie used to make me sob uncontrollably as a 12 year old but now I’m like…she doesn’t know her way around a child proof cap?
That movie made me cry so many times as a kid. Even now that I'm older and think the suicide attempt scene is kind of oof, the songs still makes me tear up.
It takes comedic chops to make trauma funny. You do it well, Nick.
When Cyberbully came out, I vividly remember thinking “Lifetime’s Odd Girl Out (with that really bad wig Alexa Vega wore in the 2nd half) did this entire plot like 6 years ago already though?”
Since I was bullied/cyberbullied in junior high, by default I related more to Odd Girl Out. By high school, people just stuck to their own groups and did their own thing.
Oh my gosh. We had this movie in our program at the inpatient behavioral health center I worked at, alternating weeks. I had to watch this movie every Saturday for 3 years. the flashback line got me good
what the fuck.... why would they put on a movie about s*icide in an inpatient center???
The way I told my (Now ex) friend I thought this movie was funny and she told me I just "didn't get it" because I'd "never been bullied before"... when I was being bullied everyday and she'd never been bullied once and was always pretty popular/well liked.
I immediately started scream laughed when you pointed out they made Taylor in the end shot open the bottle for her friend 😂😂😂 that is so dark yet so unintentionally hilarious
I actually spit my drink out at the final joke about her not being able to open the pill bottle.
Nick I love you so much. I admire how you find it so easy to be real and vulnerable with parts of your past while seconds later going right back into your dark humor. Laughter is literally how I get through the day and majority of my days you help me with that.
when i watched this for the first time in middle school, i was with a bunch of friends at a sleepover. i remember they were all crying at the scene where taylor is trying to take the pills and i was trying not to giggle 💀 i felt like something was wrong with me lol
omggg same!!!!! i full bodied busted out laughing & felt so bad bc everyone was emotional 😭
Dont worry when my class was forced to watch in 7th grade like nearly the entire room laugh
I remember finding this movie. I had been getting bullied and was struggling with wanting to unaliving myself. It was so ‘cool’ to find a movie that actually talked about this kind of things
i feel like while early movies like this were doing their best to portray teen struggles, but it would have been nice if any of these writers/directors spoke to some actual highschoolers. the form bullying takes is often so much more insidious and difficult to get help with than getting slurs and slander posted on your page under peoples real names.