The Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect proposes that the flap of a butterfly’s wings can cause a hurricane across the world. I like this theory because it explains a lot about humanity. In a sense, it’s a metaphor for humankind as a whole, and the connections we have with each other. In another sense, it displays how little we know about the world in general and the curiosity we have to try to understand it.

The last time I heard this phrase was recently when watching the new Netflix show “13 Reasons Why.” A tragedy about a 17 year old girl named Hannah who commits suicide and leaves 13 mixtapes of her recorded voice laying out “everything that went wrong” and the people who contributed to her downfall. Although personally I feel the show is flawed in some ways, especially in the sense that it seems to glorify suicide, I also feel that it has sparked a serious and demanding topic about mental health and the way we treat one another especially as young adults and teenagers.

My best friend told me she was talking with her friend from out of state about the show and he said, “It’s easy to connect with the show, especially when you have felt the same way as Hannah has.” My best friend told me she was shocked as she wasn’t aware of any sort of struggle he had or is experiencing. “So many people share similar stories and experiences yet no one wants to talk about it,” she commented. According to an article written by Wendy M. Craig and Yossi Harel, in the United States about 40% of 13 year olds were bullied at least once in the few months prior to their investigation. It’s terrible that it’s happening. But it’s even worse that no one is really talking about it or at least in the right context.

Mary C Lamia wrote an interesting article on Psychology Today explaining that “Advertising campaigns are promoting the idea that bullies truly feel bad about themselves” and that this is not really the case. Most of the time, she goes on to say, bullies have not acknowledged their mental health, and are bullying others they seem as weak to feel confident and superior, almost as a way to relieve their insecurities, not because of them.

13 Reasons Why does a good job at displaying both sides of the coin. Some of the “bullies” were insecure but the biggest, baddest of them all was the most confident guy in school. And the show clearly showed you cannot deal with both of them the same way.

I hate to be frank, but obviously what we have in place for bullying prevention in younger kids isn’t working. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center says that one in 5 women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college. One in 5 women and one in 71 men are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. If what we are teaching teenagers is really affecting them, these numbers wouldn’t be this high. And for anyone says that bullying and rape are not connected is wrong. They are both about control and dominance.

I’m glad that 13 Reasons Why has reached out to so many people and have begun to call out the bullshit surrounding what most of us face everyday. And I hope people truly understand the butterfly effect in the way that every action no matter how small can really affect the life of someone around you, positively or negatively. As humankind, we need to be more compassionate but also to call for help or stand up for those who can’t. Otherwise, we’ll have more people who end up like Hannah.