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Some morons took these two photos of Sean,
the one on the left of him dancing, the one
on the right showing Sean after they jeered
at him for having the temerity of dancing
in public. You go Sean!!! |
I'm happy to report another victory in the battle against trolls and cyberbullies. It seems that the rule about online bullies, "Don't Feed the Trolls," isn't always the best advice.
Earlier this week, we had
Curt Schilling fighting back brilliantly against cyberbullies. Now we have another case, and this one involves thousands of people.
A guy who now has Internet fame as "Dancing Man Found" is the latest winner in this battle.
The whole story, which I love, has
become A Thing and it's a really fun story.
Some idiot on the
social media site 4chan took a photo of an overweight man dancing to some band's music and wrote: "Spotted this specimen trying to dance the other week. He stopped when he saw us laughing."
The accompanying photos this moron posted showed the guy dancing, and then, having bee stopped by the laughing jerks, looking a bit hurt.
Apparently, to this 4chan nutcase, only people of a certain weight and appearance have the right to enjoy music and dance.
I always thought that music is to be enjoyed by everyone.
Luckily, that's what a whole bunch of people online think, the lowlife from 4chan notwithstanding.
Somebody re-posted the photos of the dancing man on
another social media and photo site, Imgur. The person who posted on Imgur objected to the idiot from 4chan. People agreed, and in the discussion on Imgur, people wanted to do something nice for the man in the photo.
 |
A bunch of people who hated
that Sean was cyberbullied
tracked him down and
invited him to a big
dance party in L.A. Looks
like the party will be awesome. |
Cassandra Fairbanks, an activist and writer with
The Free Thought Project, spotted the photo. She said the initial photo from 4chan "
broke all of our hearts."
Fairbanks put it on her popular Twitter feed and tweeted:
"Anyone know this man or who posted it? There's a huge group of ladies would would like to so something special for him."
As is always the case with the Internet, there's no hiding, and the dancing man was quickly found. Fairbanks posted a new photo of the man, smiling and holding a hand-scrawled sign that read:
"Hi Cass + Twitter. (as requested)!
The guy is named Sean and he's from London. In response, he started his own Twitter account @dancingmanfound
He's out of the country on business, but is available for the dance party in a couple weeks. That should be fun!
In just 20 hours
A GoFundMe page had raised $22,889 as of early Saturday morning to send Sean to Los Angeles for the dance party. Money left unused in this fundraiser will go toward an anti-bullying campaign.
I don't think the details of the dance party are final yet, but I can tell it's going to be a doozy. Sean has already said "Watch Out LA!"
I believe him.
Even
Pharrell Williams might get involved. He tweeted: "Hey @CassandraRules keep me posted about your dance party! @Dancingmanfound, never be ashamed of yourself."
Other musicians who produce great dance music, such as
Moby, have also expressed interest in performing at the dance party.
Fairbanks said she's had a conversation with Sean, who told her, "
Big-hearted people far outweight the small minded, every day of the week. "
The lesson here, reinforced by Curt Schilling earlier in the week is, we need to stand up to the cyberbullies, just like kids sometimes have to stand up to playground bullies.
The additional lesson is we can't stand by and do nothing when somebody is attacked. The women who invited Sean to their dance party are a great example of that. Take something ugly and make it into a fun event.
The cyberbullies will never go away, unfortunately, I read that original thread on the 4chan discussing Sean dancing in public.
A number of people defended him, but there are a bunch of people who left comments like a moron who said that heavier people should just lose weight in private before going out in public. Apparently, a heavier guy should not go out to nightclubs and interact with women, says this presumably thinner idiot on 4chan.
Why? Because of the competition? As has been demonstrated, women are quite understandably much more turned on by Sean and his dancing than the idiots abusing him on line.
Go back to your mom's basement, 4chan loser.
And Sean, I hope you keep dancing forever. Any time somebody partakes in a happy dance, the world becomes just a little bit better.
