Why do people use images of other people in a cruel way?

Face it, the netizens looooooove to judge.

Someone could deliberately use photos to hurt others, but generally a drama starts out like this: someone gets a hold of a photo, goes into judgemental mode and post a seemingly “harmless” comment about it. The post happens to gather more judgemental people and it just spreads.

It isn’t the first time something like that happened. Many netizens really think there is no consequence behind the mask of anonymity, so they freely unleash their demons indiscriminatingly and this is what happens.

It’s not that they “use images of other people in a cruel way”. They mostly don’t care who she is. They just think it is cute to judge a photo and a person.

The real question here is why people are cruel. It is a good question, and one that is very difficult to answer.

I have been around the block a few times and have seen a few things in life. I have found that people operate with one of two basic emotions: love or fear. I would say that people are cruel to each other out of some type of fear.

In the case mentioned in the OP, the people on the internet were probably cruel because they are scared of facing their own insecurities about their appearance. They chose to lash out at an unknown woman in a need to feel value for themselves. It is a kind of diversion from their own fear. Feeling superior assuages their fear of inferiority.

@Mimishu1995 true, your right. People really don’t care. They have nothing better to do.

@Hawaii_Jake I like your answer. People are just truly jealous of others and to make themselves feel better they take it out on others. Which I still think is wrong.

I don’t know why people do it. I don’t think they do ‘think’ about how the content they post could affect others. They’re often in the moment and trying to make themselves look clever and cool.

There was that photo of the Muslim woman walking past those hurt in London’s recent terrorist attack. The inference was that the look on her face suggested she was untouched by the event. Other photos from the series showed she was actually in distress. It suited someone’s agenda to post one photo and suggest she was evidence of how awful Muslim people are. It’s just sad that someone would use such a situation to demean others. I can’t imagine how that poor woman must feel.

Recently I saw on a twitter account, that a young girl had posted a photo of herself, in a selfie with an older female behind her. So, the purpose of the photo was to humiliate the stranger behind her. The woman behind her was cold clearly and wearing earmuffs and a pompom hat. Whilst the young girl was ‘dressed up’. She had her finger pointing over her shoulder and wrote LOL. I was horrified for days.
Cruel, insecure, immature, low intelligence, attention seeking, bully and frankly a disgrace.

Looks like someone doesn’t understand the concept of a meme.
Memes are supposed to be funny. You’re not supposed to care about the person on the image, but the content/ the text. The person becomes the character and people are not supposed to care about the real people behind it. That is the whole niche behind the Overly Attached Girlfriend, Scumbag Steve, Bad Luck Brian etc. The same goes with motivational poster jokes too. It’s supposed to be a joke. No one is supposed to care about the real people on the image.
In this case, however, the audience didn’t get it. Instead of just laughing it off, they spread it around as if it’s truth. The woman’s career is ruined because of some morons who can’t understand what internet jokes are. smh

I’m baffled there are people that take memes literally.

I don’t know why I wrote “niche” in there. It should be something like “point”.

Well I guess that’s okay if you are not the person featured or if you agreed for your image to be used as a source of ridicule. Perhaps the person featured in the meme did not want or agree to become a ‘character’, so they find it hard to be amused by people on the internet laughing at them.