Love from, Florence Grace

Today is National Social Media Day (yes that really does exist!), so I couldn't let the day pass without writing about it!  Social media has quite literally changed my life. It has opened my eyes to so many issues I wasn't aware of, it has connected me with people all over the world, it has strengthened me as a person, made me new friends, given me a voice and, best of all, created my career for me.  I have worked on and off with social media for the last year, and I have been blogging for almost two years. I have had all of my media opportunities presented to me via social media. I have found jobs via social media. I have used my online presence as a portfolio. It has always helped me and never let me down.  Of course, social media hasn't always been my friend. When I was younger, I suffered a lot from online bullying. It really damaged the person that I was, it damaged my confidence, it made me hate myself for a period of time. Now that I'm older, i...

I can be a pretty emotional person when it comes to TV shows and movies. However, at the moment there's one advert  that really gets to me and I well up every time for a totally inexplicable reason. Every time it comes on YouTube I actually refuse to skip it. I get goose bumps, my chest goes all tight and I become overcome with a weird  emotion that I can't quite place. Here's the advert I'm talking about:             Weird, right?! I can't help it though! There's just something about it, from the choice of song to the clips included, I just get so emotional! I think it all actually boils down to one thing though, and that's pride. I have a huge sense of pride when I watch this video because I know I've helped to make these moments happen, I've shared them, retweeted them, watched them, laughed at them. I've used the hashtags to help find the dancing man, I've welled up over the Obama's dancing, I used the hashtag to show supp...

Posting something cruel about somebody else online is nasty. Doing it repetitively quickly becomes bullying. That's right. Bullying.  Tweeting someone directly, tagging someone in a status, or a photo on Instagram, saying something nasty, humiliating or cruel about them is bullying . Doing the same without  tagging the person is also bullying . Directly or indirectly, they both hurt and they're both bullying.  I see it all the time- and in the past have definitely done it myself, as I'm sure most others have too- where you post something online about someone else, either directly to them or indirectly about them. I've also been the victim of it, as have several people I know, and it just makes me so mad. It's 2016, we all learn about bullying and not to do it from as young as five  when we first join primary school- so why the heck is it still happening?! If you're slagging somebody off regarding their lifestyle choices, sexual relationshi...

Today is #InternetFriendDay and this is a day that means a lot to me! I have built a career on the internet and through that I have made the most wonderful friends because of it. This is a concept that can be a little hard for people to get their heads around. As children we are told over and over not to share personal details over the internet, not to speak to people we don't know for fear that they may not be who they say they are.  And hey, I guess there is still that risk. Of course there is. You can be anyone you want to be on the internet. However, it's not all bad news any more. Now that there is a growth in online activities such as blogging and vlogging, strangers from all over the world can connect via the mere touch of a button and friendships are formed.  Whilst many still envision a creepy old man sat in a dark room befriending naive individuals across the internet, this is not the only kind of person socialising across the internet now- almos...

"Bitch" "Whore" "Pathetic" "Attention seeker" "Man hater" "Embarrassing"  Don't these words make your skin crawl? When you imagine somebody calling you pathetic? When you picture someone standing right in front of you, looking you in the eye's and calling you a whore? Don't worry. That's not something I've ever had to deal with. Instead, I dealt with having these words, plus many more, flung at me almost every day for the vast majority of my teenage life via the "safe" platforms of social media. I've been named and shamed for things I haven't even done, had screenshots of my statuses, blog posts and comments shared on Twitter with hundreds of people making nasty comments. I've had subtweets about me, almost every day. The worst part is, about 40% of these people were people I called friends. People I spoke to and hung out with regularly. Yet what kind of "frien...