This has to stop!

Today when I woke up, I jumped on Twitter like I usually do. When I was done checking my feed, I got bored and decided to check out the trends to see if there was anything funny or weird on there. What I saw shocked me to my core.

One of the top trends was Nazisarebetterthanbeliebers.

REALLY?!  We've gone so far as to compare an overly excited fandom to NAZIS?!
WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!!!

A lot of the tweets were saying how this was horrible and it should be blocked by Twitter, but there were still many more who were not only agreeing with it, but trying to keep the trend going. Sick, twisted ignorant individuals. Shame on all of you!

(Luckily the trend was eradicated from the top trends shortly after I looked at it)

Nazis are not something to make light about and I'm really getting tired of things getting compared to them. You can scream at me til you are blue in the face that they were brainwashed and didn't know what they were doing, but I still think they are the most vile scum of the earth and positively evil.

I have every reason to. You see, my great grandparents (and I believe my grandmother too but not sure, just know she was born in Germany) on my mother's side escaped the Holocaust. Even though I am a quarter German, they still had enough Jewish blood in them to be considered an enemy. There lives were still in grave danger if they did not escape. I do not know the exact details because this is not something that is really talked about in my house or my family. They don't make light of this, they don't even want to talk about it because it's not funny. It's very serious, deadly serious. You don't compare ANYTHING to nazis in my family. If you do, you suffer the wrath of us, at least on my mom's side. My dad's side didn't have any Jewish blood in them or (as far as I know) know anyone who had to escape the Holocaust, but they still don't disrespect something like that. And you definitely don't trivialize it by comparing fans of a musician to it.

I think there is a massive disconnect with the younger generation and with people who don't know anyone who has experienced this. I feel like the atitude is that if it didn't happen to them, it's no big deal or not that important. The thing is, they are wrong. This is very important. I wouldn't dare compare this to 9/11 since this was an attempted genocide, but it's a pretty big event and it's probably one of the few things I can compare it to that would get the point across.

Later in the day, I was scrolling through the trends again (I'm a glutton for punishment, apparently) and noticed there was a trend RIP Justin Bieber. Oh Lord, not again. For those of you not familiar with the idiosyncrasies of Twitter, it's popular to "kill someone off" in the trends. I've seen some other celebrities and pseudo celebrities "die" on Twitter so this is nothing new to me. Anyway, I went scrolling through the tweets and I saw a young girl say how the tweet was the most disrespectful thing ever. I politely disagreed and said the one about comparing Beliebers to Nazis was much more disrespectful. She sort of disagreed with me and it was a little shocking. Granted, she is a teenager but an older teenager (I'm not disclosing her actual age since that's rude and she is a minor).

I think it shocked me most at first because I immediately assumed there was something wrong with her schooling. How could she think being compared to nazis was better than saying JBiebs died?! She did say that she'd rather people pick on the beliebers rather than the actual artist. Ok, fair point. I replied back that the nazis killed 6 million people and I didn't believe that they deserved to be compared to that. I also stated that I thought both were really disrespectful and left it at that. She agreed with me and followed me.

Going back to the point of her education (or what I assumed was a lack thereof), I thought about other possibilities as to why she didn't think it was an extreme insult to be compared to a nazi (or rather say a nazi was better than her). I started thinking that maybe it was more of a generational thing and that it wasn't because she didn't know about it, maybe it was because it didn't directly impact her in any way.

With me, nazis and the Holocaust are a touchy subject; touchy in the way that you don't want to discuss it lightly around me. Like I stated above, though, I have somewhat personal connections to it. I didn't experience first hand, but it's a deep part of my family history. Maybe this girl just doesn't know about it or doesn't have any personal connection with it.

I think this happens with a lot of generations and their big historical events. Heck, it probably happens to every generation. Every generation has their 9/11 or Iraq War (for my generation, anyway) but it still doesn't mean we should trivialize those events. Just because we didn't experience them ourselves, doesn't make them any less important. In fact, it makes them more important so we learn from them.

As George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".

I tend to use that as a personal mantra and I wish other would adopt it as well. I seriously doubt it will happen, but it really needs to. History has already begun to repeat itself. I really don't want another Holocaust, though. Please, let's at least keep that from happening.

What all this boils down to, really, is cyber bullying. It really has to stop. This is the second Justin Bieber fan I have talked to about stuff like this. The first one was upset because her friends were making fun of her for liking him. Bullying is NOT OKAY! As someone who was constantly bullied and picked on throughout my life, I can attest to the fact that it does some pretty awful things to your self esteem and self worth. It's even worse when you can't see your attacker and don't know exactly who they are.

We also need to stop comparing people and things to nazis and using those as tools for cyber bullying. That's really NOT OKAY!! Nazis were vile and horrible people that did unspeakable things because someone told them to. Not all nazis went along with it, but a lot of them did and a lot of people paid the price.

Also, if you are being bullied, this is my message to you: Hang in there. It gets better. I promise. It might take a while to get better, but you will get stronger and things will get brighter for you. If you need someone to talk to, feel free to contact me here or on my Twitter account which this should be posted to. It's moosefaces if you can't find it. I am here for you as a friend and believe me, you are probably going to need one sooner or later. I've gone through bullying (although haven't experienced cyber bullying yet but there's still time, I'm only 26) and it's not a fun experience but it helps to have people who relate to you and can just listen or offer advice if you want it. I'm here for you if you need it.

Have a great day everyone and please be kind to everyone you meet for you never know what kind of battle they could be fighting.

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Quote source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_said_Those_who_do_not_learn_from_the_past_are_doomed_to_repeat_it