Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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OCT. 29 - NOV. 4, 2014 UCW 5 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM I am far beyond anyone including me in "30 Under 30" anything, but I did read with considerable interest news accounts of Forbes' magazine's recent "30 Under 30" summit in Philadelphia. Few of the young people highlighted at Forbes' occasion are not household names, at least not yet, but they are clearly up and coming — I just had to say that — in fields ranging from media and marketing to science and law to finance and food. They are doing all sorts of things from developing and marking craft beers to researching how global climate change may affect civil unrest and conflict. A particularly interesting young man, 22, is figuring out how to sell us more goods and services tailored to us individually through various apps on our gizmos. He considers these opportunities personal rewards for us, and, not surprisingly, his clients already include Proctor and Gamble and Pepsi. None of them is older than 29. One of the speakers at the "30 Under 30" seminar is a bit older than the young whizzes, 41 to be exact, and she is definitely a household name. Monica Lewinsky is so well known, some would say notorious, that she has never been hired for a job. That, though, was not her focus at the seminar. Referring to herself using current Ebola terminology as "Patient Zero," Lewinsky told the young whizzes and everyone else with computer access that she was the first victim of cyber bullying. In 1998, she may well have been. Bullying, of course, is probably as old as the human race. I imagine there has always been someone itching to prove his or her value and standing by degrading someone else. I have seen it since I was a child and suspect you have as well. But the Internet, which really came of age in the 1990s, allowed bullying to go viral, so that ugly and painful words that a generation ago might have died on a playground now live on forever, available to millions to forward in perpetuity. I have heard parents of children who have been cyber bullied, sad and angry as they may be, speak about their children's situations as if they are just another part of growing up, a true downside of the digital revolution. But back to Monica Lewinsky. In her remarks, she says that as a 22-year-old straight out of college, she "fell in love with my boss," and things went on from there. I have some empathy for this position, as I was once a 22-year-old who made some less than stellar decisions — not that less than stellar, but still…. She says the disclosure of her relationship with her boss, the President of the United States, catapulted her from a "completely private figure" to a "publicly humiliated one." She goes on to talk about the pain of exposure — "My own personal shame, shame that befell my family, and shame that befell my country — our country….I just wanted to die." For more than a decade, little was heard from or of Lewinsky but in 2010 when a Rutgers freshman committed suicide after his roommate videotaped him having a sexual encounter, Lewinsky seemed to have a turnaround. Citing grim statistics about cyber bullying — a 43-percent increase in suicides since 2010, which refers to as being "humiliated to death" and high rates of bullying, more than half reportedly, among young users of Facebook and other social media, Lewinsky decided to make reducing the evil practice her cause. Is there a self-serving element in Lewinsky's efforts against cyber bullying? Probably. She has been a persona non grata for going on two decades, and it is hardly surprising that she is hoping for a little public redemption. She explained it to the young whizzes this way. "…having survived myself, what I want to do now is help other victims of the shame game survive, too. I want to put my suffering to good use and to give purpose to my past." I briefly met Lewinsky, who is surprisingly petite, during the height of her humiliation. It was clear even in passing that she was a person in significant distress. She could barely leave her mother's side. Whatever you think of her, though, she is right in what she says about cyber bullying. It is an ugly practice that inflicts tremendous pain and destroys lives. If Lewinsky can use her own notoriety to help others in similar situations — even though one just like hers will likely never occur again — I say go for it. MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com.. 910.484.6200. THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Serving Fayetteville Over 50 Years! 484-0261 1304 Morganton Rd. Mon-Sat: 6am-10pm Sun: 7am-2:30 pm Daily Specials • Breakfast • Lunch • Dinner Fresh Seafood • Hand Cut Steaks • Homemade Desserts • Italian & Greek • Children's Menu Banquet rooms available up to 100 guests Contest&RequestLine: 910-764-1073 www.christian107.com KeepingtheMainThing...theMainThing. visitusonline FocusontheFamily 20Countdown Magazine Adventures in Odyssey "That Woman" Has a Point by MARGARET DICKSON Monica Lewinsky