Jordan Schmidt

English 2010

Jessie Szalay

2/19/20

Kristopher Lamberson
In the online world there are some people that are idolized and looked at as

celebrities and icons. Theses individuals hold the attention of hundreds of thousands of

people every single day. With that type of attention there is a great reaction of feedback

most of that in a positive light. However, through all the love and support these online

celebrities host plenty of negative and malicious people that attempt to ruin the happiness

and joy. According to the CDC and a study done in 2016 34% of people experience

cyberbullying at one point.

 Cyberbullying has become more and more of an issue for online creators and

viewers. The Merriam-Webster defines cyberbullying as “the electronic posting of mean-

spirited messages about a person often done anonymously.”

Kristopher Lamberson livestreaming for an audience of 2,000 people

Kristopher Lamberson is a twenty-three-year-old online gaming content creator

and entertainer on platforms like YouTube and Twitch. On YouTube Kris has amassed

over one million subscribers over the eight years of him producing content. He has built a

very loyal audience over the years but with that there are trolls and haters wanting to put

him down. From a survey done by Cox internet on internet safety in 2014, it was found

that 54% of surveyed teens had witnessed some sort of cyberbullying and 29% of that
was on YouTube.
 I recently had a phone call with Kris where I dug into his background a little bit and

wanted to ask him about the negative comments he has received over the years as his

success had grown and how he manages to deal with forms of online negativity. One of

the first questions I asked him was “Have you ever experienced hate and cyberbullying in

your comment section on YouTube?” His response to this was “Yes, all the time. I get a

lot of love and support in my comments but there are always a few people here and there

that have some sort of negative thing to say.” This made me realize that people no matter
their level of success become victims of cyberbullying and harassment.
 Kris with is 100,000 subscriber plaque

We had a great conversation about why people act the way they do online. I asked him

“In your opinion, what do you think causes these people to act out towards you online

when they haven’t ever met you or get a real sense of who you are?” He thought it over
for a minute or two and had this to say “I feel that when it comes to online hate no matter

who it is directed at, the person showing the toxicity has some sort of jealously of the

success or position someone is at. I also think they ones that are the angriest online might

have somethings going on in their personal life that they don’t know how to deal with.”
 Kris surprising his mom with a brand-new car

Kris has been very fortunate to create a career online and become very financially stable

through his online business. There is one specific moment in his career that I recall him

getting bullied online. It was a couple years ago when Kris finally decided he had done

well financially enough he decided to surprise his mom with a brand-new car. The uproar

of support and praise was there but I specifically remember seeing random weird

negative comments. I asked him about this specific moment, and he said “People were

trying to tear me down about this, it was one of my greatest accomplishments in life.

These people online don’t understand the effect their words can have on someone.”
 Kristopher with iconic entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk

One of my final questions to Kris was what some of the best advice was he had

received when it comes to people online cyberbullying. His answered with “I recently got

to interview social media icon Gary Vee and one thing he said to me was that if you have

even one person hating on you, you’re most likely doing something right. People will

always have something to say about you whether it’s positive or negative. Regardless of
what they say or how they view you just remember to say true to yourself and keep on

doing your thing.”

 Work Cited

Summary Of Our Cyberbullying Research (2004-2016)

Justin Patchin- Adrian- Adrian- Heman- Heman- Grace -
https://cyberbullying.org/summary-of-our-cyberbullying-research
Select

Internet Safety Survey Overview

https://www.cox.com/aboutus/take-charge/internet-safety-survey.html