For Sean O'Brien, it was just an ordinary night out with friends. He knew that people sometimes mocked him for being overweight, and he was usually able to shrug it off. But this time, as well as laughing at him in person, someone decided to publicly fat-shame him by posting a video of him dancing online, with a hurtful comment. Sean was completely unaware of it, but the post about him was shared widely, and it prompted a wave of abuse from immature Internet trolls.
However, as well as the cyberbullies, other people were watching. A group of women in California, who were campaigning to encourage people to have a positive body image whatever their size, decided to take action. They put out a message on Twitter, inviting Sean on an all-expenses- paid trip from London to Los Angeles, to meet and dance with them. When Sean's friends first told him about the search for dancing man, he figured it was a bit of nonsense which would soon blow over, and decided not to bother doing anything about it.
But the movement got bigger and bigger. Sean rethought his decision, made contact, and the women - all 1,700 of them - started raising money to throw him an extra-special party in LA. He went to the party in California. Sean had assumed that just a few people would turn up, but he realised his mistake as soon as he saw over 1,000 people queuing to get into the nightclub! Sean danced all night and the story of how he and the women's group in California took a stance against cyberbullying was reported aroun the world. As a result of the event, some of the women set up Dance Free Movement, an online forum where anyone who felt they had been bullied or victimized could receive support. The 'dancing man' himself has become a fundraiser for several anti-bullying charities.
Sean commented in an interview at the time that he was amazed that something which started out so badly, had become such a positive movement. He said that he had actually never really thought about the people who posted the original images, concluding that they must have their own insecurities, to put the spotlight on someone else so maliciously. Sean certainly had the last laugh. We are often told that the best idea is not to give bullies any attention, but it may be that the best way to deal with cyberbullying is to act as these women did and be brave enough to make it clear that we are uncomfortable with this kind of behaviour, that we disagree with what is being said and that bullying is completely unacceptable.
(Adapted from High Note by Rachael Roberts and Caroline Krantz)