A diner from Sheffield was trolled mercilessly in 2018 for being a “fussy” eater after a post about her dietary requirements went viral online.

Billie Geena, 25, from Sheffield, wants to raise awareness of the detrimental effects of trolling after a complaint she posted online regarding a worker at a local Mexican restaurant who wrote “haha” next to her dietary restrictions garnered negative attention online.

Geena recalls how she went for a meal with friends in early 2018 and requested the fillet seabass dish from the menu to be served without onions, garlic, or milk in accordance with her dietary restrictions.

Billie was later shocked to see a rude note from the waitress to the chef on the receipt that read “no onion no garlic no milk haha”.

Credit: SWNS:South West News Service

“I have a stomach condition which is triggered by certain foods like onion, dairy and garlic,” said Billie, of Sheffield, South Yorks.

“We had a lovely meal, and on the receipt, they wrote ‘no onion no garlic no milk haha’.”

“I complained to them and didn't get an apology at the time. “

A furious Billie tweeted a picture of the receipt, and within hours was inundated with emails, tweets, Facebook and Instagram messages from complete strangers taunting her for her “fussy” eating habits.

Regarding the trolls, Billie said: “They picked apart how I looked and called me every name under the sun, in multiple languages.”

“I was sent home from my job as they had found out where I worked and apparently left threatening comments.”

Online abuse from strangers, often referred to as “trolls”, is not uncommon. A recent survey from Pew Research suggests that 27% of internet users have been called offensive names and 25% had seen someone being physically threatened.

Geena was no exception: “I had messages from strangers telling me that I should just kill myself. Others said they'd go to the restaurant just to spite me”

“One comment I got just said: ‘B*tch looks like Danny Devito’.” 

According to the Pew Research survey, such comments can affect an individual's mental health, causing symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Billie suffered from constant panic attacks and anxiety as a result of her ordeal.

“Every time I checked my phone, I burst out crying,” she said. “I had no self-esteem, I hated everything about myself. I deleted all of the social media apps from my phone for a long time.”

When asked whether she regrets posting about her negative dining experience, knowing now the abuse it would garner, Billie said: “I wish it never happened to be honest, but you can't change the past. I wish I just left it at the receipt. I thought I'd be a champion for those with intolerances, but it didn't work out that way.”

However, Geena admits she did learn from her experience: “I'm really cautious about what I share nowadays. It also taught me the importance of privacy settings.”

As a victim, Billie shared her thoughts on why people troll: “People troll because there aren't any consequences.”

“It's easy, they can hide behind a handle and an image of the union jack or a cartoon character. They share what they want so they can be unidentifiable.”

“They called me an attention seeker, but to be a troll you've got to be a pretty massive one yourself.”

Thank you to Billie Geena for allowing me to interview her for this article.

"Cancel Culture" by markus119 is marked with CC0 1.0

2020 was a year of change. Not only in terms of lifestyle and outlook for millions across the world due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, but for politics and society too.

We all followed the Black Lives Matter movement and the call for police reform on Twitter after the murder of George Floyd in May, and saw the Facebook posts branded #MeToo in the light of the allegations of domestic abuse against Johnny Depp by Amber Heard. British Politician Jeremy Corbyn was outcast from the labour party after anti-Semitic comments resurfaced and author J K Rowling’s name has trended more than a few times in response to her opinionated tweets regarding Transgender rights.

What do these events have in common? All were driven by public outcry on social media, the new way to protest for justice in the age of internet access and global lockdown restrictions across the globe.

 “Cancel Culture” has gained more media traction this year than ever -- a term coined to describe a modern form of online justice, in which a person is shunned from social and professional circles for expressing views or behaviour that goes against the left-wing ,“socially woke” norm of the internet today.

Or more simply, revoking support for those with status who are considered harmful to minorities, cultures or institutions.

Cancel Culture has largely affected the social media “influencer” crowd, with many being criticised for “misusing” their fan-dependent platforms with the controversial content they put online. Youtuber Shane Dawson is among many to have suffered a career blow, losing 60,000 subscribers after coming under fire for past displays of racism and paedophilia.

Cancel Culture has even been the driving force in more prolific instances, such as in the case of Kathy Griffin, American comedian, who faced backlash and lost her spot on CNN in 2017 for uploading a picture of her posing with a likeness of former President Donald Trump's severed head.

“OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!”

“Cancelling” can be gruelling for those involved because of its public nature. Twitter has become the mothership for cancellations of public figures, the ‘trending hashtag’ feature allowing thousands of Twitter users to spread the word of someone’s wrongdoings to the masses in minutes.

It could be compared to a modern form of execution; a guilty party is held accountable for their crimes in front of the digital masses, but instead of losing their head they lose their online presence, their reputation or in some cases, their career.

But is it a rallying cry for those with public platforms to be held accountable for the rippling aftereffects of their actions? Or is it simply a counterproductive way of punishing them, “casting stones” as former President Barack Obama said at the Obama Foundation summit in 2019, without bringing about the true intention behind cancel culture: change.

A CAUSE FOR CHANGE?

“Call-Out Culture” largely originated as a response to the #MeToo movement, gaining media traction in 2017 after the widespread sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein surfaced. The movement aimed to empower women, seeking change and solidarity in numbers by publicising allegations (or “calling out”) the sex crimes committed by powerful men in society to the masses.

In the era of the internet, this largely took place on social media; new allegations appeared almost daily, and the public’s attitude towards the accused warped. They were now “cancelled”, or in other words, ostracised from society. For those who were “called-out”, such as singer-songwriter and alleged sexual abuser R.Kelly, their past work and legacy became tainted; his music was no longer enjoyable in good taste to his fans and his popularity diminished despite being found innocent. For many following the case online this was a small, but ample form of justification for his crimes, spearheaded by the public on behalf of his victim’s where the legal system appeared to fail them.

The term “call-out culture” has evolved in recent years, giving birth to it’s more mainstream sister “Cancel Culture.” It slowly leaned away from just existing to hold abusers accountable and became a way for normal people like you and me to reject views that don’t abide by our moral codes. Lisa Nakamura, professor of media studies at the University of Michigan, defined cancelling as simply a "cultural boycott" in which “the act of depriving someone of attention deprives them of their livelihood” in an interview with The New York Times in 2018.

Whether that be in the case of Kevin Hart who was forced to step down as host of the 2019 Grammy’s after a controversy regarding homophobic tweets, or the never ending stream of politicians and celebrities being called out for racism, cancel culture became a tactic for those of us who lack the social power to enact change; to dismantle oppression and abuse as a collective, simply through our refusal to participate.

Cancel Culture has played an integral role in letting voices for change be heard this year. The Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 was spearheaded by powerful internet activists who demanded reform and justice, “calling out” the racial prejudice ingrained in pop culture by using “cancelling” as a form of accountability. This is one example of a call for greater equality, a reckoning. A digital way to protest, in which social media users refuse to support harmful ideals any longer.

“Held accountable or silenced?”

Whilst there are evidently “mobs” of supporters, those who are the loudest critics of “cancel culture” are also some of the loudest defenders of “free speech” and “open debate”. An open letter presented by Harper’s Bazaar in July 2020 views cancel culture as being inherently harmful in and of itself. The letter, which was signed by 150 writers, academics and activists, says that: “free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted”.

“In a spirit of panicked damage control, [we] are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms.”

“We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus.”

The letter goes against what Cancel Culture represents completely; it presents it as suffocating, as a way of stifling freedom of expression using fear tactics. Instead of enforcing a new set of moral and political commitments through change, is cancel culture just silencing those who do not favour ideological conformity?

Education VS Ostracization

Ayishat Akanbi, British stylist and writer, believes in the importance of education as a reckoning for change. In an interview with Double Down News she said: “Mistakes are how we find ourselves, it’s how we learn.”

“We should be a bit more forgiving of peoples mistakes … if you are seeking a deeper understanding, you welcome being wrong, it’s a pleasure to be wrong. Because when you are wrong, you are closer to being right.”

Akanbi warns of the dangers of advocacy simply being motivated by the fear of being cancelled. If we cannot make mistakes, how are we to expect ourselves and others to learn from them?

“Mob culture is terrifying.” She admits. “But if you are committed to trying to make the world a better place, you have to be prepared to think for yourself.”

"One and Other-Mental Health" by Feggy Art is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The UK government has announced plans to reform mental health laws and how individuals are sectioned in England and Wales, according to Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

The recommendations are to be set out in a government White Paper and will be the first significant change the Mental Health Act has seen since 1983.

The major changes come after The Independent Review of the Mental Health Act in 2017 criticised the forty-year-old Mental Health Act for its discriminatory practices that see a disproportionate amount of black, ethnic and disabled individuals wrongly sectioned.

The review of the act – which allows individuals struggling with their mental health to be sectioned for their own safety – presented shocking statistics that people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds in the UK are more than four times more likely to be detained under the act than white people.

The proposed changes aim to empower patients to have more control over their treatment, implementing the right for the individual to choose a nominated person to look after their interests when they are unable to do so themselves, as well as introducing culturally appropriate advocates so that patients from all ethnic backgrounds can be adequately supported.

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: “I want to ensure our health service works for all, yet the Mental Health Act is now 40 years old. We need to bring mental health laws into the 21st century.”

“This is a significant moment in how we support those with serious mental health issues, which will give people more autonomy over their care and will tackle disparities for all who access services, in particular for people from minority ethnic backgrounds.”

The government’s plans to reform the Mental Health Act have been met with positive conviction from many mental health advocates also.

CEO of charity Rethink Mental Illness, Mark Winstanley, responded to the announcement in an open letter: “Despite its faults, the Mental Health Act is a lifesaving piece of legislation. It protects people when they are very unwell. But now nearly 40 years old, it is desperately out of date and doesn’t reflect how a modern society thinks about mental illness.”

“Specifically, we're pleased to see a clear emphasis on improving outcomes for the disproportionately high number of Black people and people from other ethnic minorities who are detained under the Act.”

“We're also pleased with increased patient involvement in treatment plans, improved carer and family involvement, and greater legal weight for advance decision-making.”

The reforms will also ensure that autism or a learning disability cannot be a reason for detaining someone under the act.

The White Paper suggests that another psychiatric condition must be identified by a clinician to order a detention.

The National Autistic Society reacted to the news via twitter: “This is a huge step forward in the fight to stop autistic people being wrongly sectioned in mental health hospitals.”

A Mental Health Bill is to be published in 2022, following a consultation of the plans.

"Parada LGBT de Nova Iorque marca os 50 anos de da Rebelião Stonewall" by Brasil de Fato is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Nearly £4 million in government funding for educational LGBT bullying programmes in schools has quietly been cut, say LGBT activist groups.

The news comes as a blow to many on the cusp of Anti-Bullying Week 2020 and the anniversary of Section 28’s repeal, with ministers acknowledging that “LGBT youth face more hardships than ever at school in 2020,” the BBC reported.

‘We are committed to tackling it.’

The Government Equalities office published an LGBT Action Plan in July of 2018 after the shocking results of the 2017 National Survey of LGBT People were released to the public.

The survey received more than 108,000 responses, with 21% of respondents currently in education reporting experiencing a negative reaction involving someone “revealing their LGBT identity without their permission” and 19% as being a direct target of “verbal harassment, insults or other hurtful comments.”

The Government’s preceding action plan outlined their commitments to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in England and Wales by establishing a £4.5 million ‘LGBT Implementation Fund’. This went on to successfully provide over 1200 schools with educational programmes to support both students and teachers in tackling the ongoing bullying of LGBT individuals in their communities.

‘Lifelong Effects’

Homophobic tendencies are most likely to develop in school children, and could lead to physical violence in adulthood if formal LGBT education is not accessible, ministers have been warned. The news comes just a year after two 28-year-old lesbian women on a London bus were targeted in a brutal attack for their sexuality and left needing hospital treatment.

Drag performer Divina De Campo, 35, of West Yorkshire, became a voice for LGBT youth going through bullying after they spoke out about their own experiences in a 2019 interview with the BBC.

"The teachers felt like they couldn't talk about it. Nothing was said about gay people at all."

They went on to describe the long-term effects bullying had on their life after leaving school: "I'm constantly worried that people don't like me or that they're making fun of me. And I always carry with me the idea that I'm not good enough, that there’s something wrong with me."

Similarly, Twitter user Ashley N was vocal about his views on the long-term effects of the decision to axe funding: “This is abhorrent. It's 10 years since I left school. I'm still affected by the bullying I experienced throughout my school years. LGBTQ children need and deserve to be protected.”

‘Celebrating differences’

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson released a statement via twitter regarding Anti-Bullying week following the news: “I want children to be able to celebrate their differences.”

“Working together, we can make sure every child grows up feeling confident and free to be themselves.”

However a recent report from Diversity Role Models, an organisation committed to providing inclusive education services in schools, shows that only “27% of secondary school students say their school would be safe for LGBT+ individuals to ‘come out’.”

Clare Balding, patron of Diversity Role Models, said: “The figures suggest that LGBT+ pupils or those from LGBT+ families may not feel safe at school.”

“Many may think it’s not a problem if something negative is described as ‘gay’ but the micro-aggressions add up and the negative connotations build.”

“This report is crucial in finding a way forward because the answer lies in education, language and behaviour.”

The Government Equalities Office stated: "The anti-bullying grant fund, which provided 2,250 schools across the country with materials and training, was always due to end in March 2020."

However, this will be the first time since the funding was announced in 2014 that it will not be extended.

School Meals 081" by Cheshire East Council is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Education catering and food services teams Chartwells and Harrison have been slammed online after their free meal programmes failed to meet government standards in England and Wales.

Families who receive free school meals have been afforded food parcels as a substitute amidst bids to lower Corona Virus rates close schools in favour of remote learning.

However, many have taken to Twitter to express their disappointment in the scheme after they received a few pounds worth of food instead of the £30 value parcel they were promised.

The issue gained traction online after an unnamed woman with the handle @Roadsidemum on twitter published an image of the bag she received to feed her children for ten days that included a single tomato, eight cheese sandwiches and a tin of beans.

Picture via @Roadsidemum on Twitter depicting ten days’ worth of food given under the government's free school meal scheme.

Calculations suggest the hamper can be valued at no more than £5.22 if purchased from a local supermarket.

“Issued instead of £30 vouchers.” She penned with the post. “I could do more with £30 to be honest.”

The image has been shared nearly 20,000 times since it was posted on January 11^th and has encouraged an onslaught of similar tweets from disappointed parents who are struggling to provide lunchtime meals for their children which they would have otherwise received at school.

Chartwells, the company responsible for providing the parcels, responded to the tweet, citing: “Thank you for bringing this to our attention, this does not reflect the specification of one of our hampers,” and claimed they would “investigate immediately.”

Footballer Marcus Rashford, known for campaigning for children in the UK to receive free school meals over the holidays, gave his thoughts alongside another picture: “Three days of food for one family… Just not good enough.”

Similarly, self-proclaimed “former foodbank mum” and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe was quick to express her outrage, posting a screenshot of the Government’s legislation on free school meals as a comparison to the “shoddy” parcel scheme.

“Not one [of the parcels] comes close to containing a third of what is on that list,” she tweeted in a response to Chartwells. “I don’t think I’ve seen a pea all day.”

The UK’s Department of Education responded to the outrage via Twitter: “We have clear guidelines and standards for food parcels, which we expect to be followed. Parcels should be nutritious and contain a varied range of food.”

Conservative MP Simon Clark appeared to back this, stating the Department of Education are: “investigating the [parcel] highlighted last night” and that “school caterers have now been issued with clear guidance about the food to provide in their parcels.”

As someone with a deep rooted interest in Welsh poetry, it has been my mission to expand my interests and listen to the voices of the more underrated poets to emerge from this country who often get lost in poetry anthologies beneath the likes of the well loved, tried and true Dylan Thomas and R. S. Thomas types. Born near Aberdare in 1915, Alun Lewis is remembered for his relatable portrayal of the inner thoughts of a Welshman in a war riddled Great Britain, and his telling’s of his turbulent personal life had me hooked from my first reading of Collected Poems. As a Welsh writer and avid poetry reader myself, Lewis’ works are rich in cultural heritage, so I felt inspired to do some further reading.

Lewis has primarily been described as a war poet, in fact often considered one of the finest of his kind, so when I picked up Collected Poems I was expecting a more straightforward recount of the brutalities of the second world war in which Lewis found himself entangled. Indeed, many of Lewis’ works do deal with the circumstances of his time in the traditional sense -- he enlisted in the army in May 1940 and was stationed in Burma on the brink of fighting by 1944 so Lewis certainly wrote an assortment of Poems in Khaki. There seems to be a certain admiration for his more notable works like Raider’s Dawn, a poem detailing the lives of men waiting for the time they would be called to war, and later The Last Inspection, which shared a number of short stories derived from army life. A piece which stood out to me in particular is The Defeated: for Wales, in which Lewis expresses a degree of disdain when he refers to the “honour”, “valour” and “fame” that propaganda promised to young men who, like himself, served as soldiers in the war. He contrasts this with the graphic reality: “bled white are our wounds”. As a notable pacifist, his poetry doesn’t shy away from sharing the blatant and honest opinions of a man who was aware of the realities of war which were far from heroic.

But as one reads deeper into the words of Lewis, it is clear to see why he has been described as “tortured” by his biographer John Pikoulis.  Lewis was upfront about the fact that he was fighting his own war with his shaky mental health and the realities of life --  a war that may be considered less traditional in terms of definitions, yet nonetheless one which most of us will also stand on the frontline of in our lifetimes. It seems that Lewis uses the setting of war to take us behind, beneath and through a battle fought between man and himself. In The Sentry he wrote “I have begun to die / For now at last I know / That there is no escape / From night,” a reference to the dark, all consuming depression which plagued his living days, and some say a foreshadowing of his suspected suicide.

Lewis wasn’t afraid to talk about the darkest parts of the human experience. Goodbye uses the perspective of a soldier, presumably himself, going away to war to explore the anguish of leaving a  loved one and Lady in Black deals with the losses of the said loved ones who are left behind. Lewis even wrote about the guilt that overwhelmed him regarding the affair he had with a married woman in Burma in Ways.

Lewis’ use of the circumstances of his time to explore issues we all face as humans is what makes his poetry appealing to a new generation, still trying to understand their own nature. Of course, Lewis died under mysterious circumstances while on active service in Burma, so it is impossible to ask whether he ever found what the answer in life he was looking for. However, Collected Poems inspired me to make my own trip as a part of my own journey of discovery to Aberdare where Lewis was born and raised -- and where he fell in love, where he suffered from the “gestapo” of his own brain, and where he was eventually laid to rest – to see the cwm where Lewis recognised that life is a war filled with it’s own daily bittersweet brutalities. Our circumstances are different; I am not living in a country riddled with war. I am not a pacifist stationed in Burma forced to fight. But as I sit upon a “namless hill” overlooking Aberdare – where I imagine he may have stationed himself, armed with a pen and not a gun – I am certain he is more than just a war poet. I feel a connection to Alun Lewis. For we are all the same in human nature.

Collected Poems is available via Amazon.