About: No social media presence
Public exposure in the media all too often attracts unwanted attention, aggression and even hate.
Most adults have a hard time dealing with that. That's why it is out of the question for our kids.
During lockdown we held many talks. We heard many opinions, we reconsidered established routines.
And we came to a number of conclusions. It is important to explain some of them.
In our early days, member families occasionally featured in newspaper and magazine articles.
They experienced two kinds of consequences.
One, that other parents approached them with the request to organize partner families for them too, hoping to take a short-cut around the application procedure. They had to decline; of course they would have much preferred not to have been asked to do something like that at all.
And, even more troubling, a number of kids were bullied for being in the media and for their international connections. Some of their peers mistook their eagerness to learn and their curiosity for elitism. They - quite unfairly - thought they were up themselves and so the bullies took steps to "bring them down". That's why we decided eight years ago that we would no longer introduce Global Native families to the public.
The names (and some places) in our case studies have been changed too.
They experienced two kinds of consequences.
One, that other parents approached them with the request to organize partner families for them too, hoping to take a short-cut around the application procedure. They had to decline; of course they would have much preferred not to have been asked to do something like that at all.
And, even more troubling, a number of kids were bullied for being in the media and for their international connections. Some of their peers mistook their eagerness to learn and their curiosity for elitism. They - quite unfairly - thought they were up themselves and so the bullies took steps to "bring them down". That's why we decided eight years ago that we would no longer introduce Global Native families to the public.
The names (and some places) in our case studies have been changed too.
The pandemic and the current climate - both political and social - have caused a great number of individuals on social media to adopt a very aggressive tone towards people who don't think like them. There are folks with truly disturbing conspiracy theories, there are folks who believe in all kinds of worrying ideas on the origins of the virus, there are racists, sexists, homophobic fanatics, Greta-haters and militant anti-vaxxers. We live in an era of hostile intolerance. For this reason, we have now completely withdrawn from all social media platforms.
Global Native families include their children in their conversations - their space ought to remain a place where opinion can be expressed freely and without the need to be defensive about it. We find the relaxed conversations within the community all the more inspiring and diverse.
Global Natives are open-minded families with a passion for science. We refuse to be drawn into futile online disputes based on weird arguments; we refuse to be harassed for taking a pragmatic approach to the pandemic and respecting the opinions of expert virologists. We do not believe that Bill Gates wants to kill us all through vaccines nor do we fear to be controlled by reptilians or illuminati. As dedicated parents and education-enthusiasts we have better things to do with our time than do verbal battle with folks who're quite resistant to reason and science.
Global Native families include their children in their conversations - their space ought to remain a place where opinion can be expressed freely and without the need to be defensive about it. We find the relaxed conversations within the community all the more inspiring and diverse.
Global Natives are open-minded families with a passion for science. We refuse to be drawn into futile online disputes based on weird arguments; we refuse to be harassed for taking a pragmatic approach to the pandemic and respecting the opinions of expert virologists. We do not believe that Bill Gates wants to kill us all through vaccines nor do we fear to be controlled by reptilians or illuminati. As dedicated parents and education-enthusiasts we have better things to do with our time than do verbal battle with folks who're quite resistant to reason and science.
We're "doing a Billie Eilish"
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In this half-minute commercial Billie makes it quite clear why she doesn't show her body. She has no intention to expose her body to the judgement of the public.
We take a similar approach. We give each other support and backing. But we seek no exposure as a brand. It seems that this philosophy is gaining traction. Nobody needs to accept unqualified attacks just for the sake of being on social media. |
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