It doesn’t really come as a surprise when you see a blog post going viral. Every day, bloggers write stories that go viral. One blogger named Melissa Blake had this happen to her after she wrote a post about Trump. Her post ended up getting a lot of attention and quickly going viral, but for all the wrong reasons. For some reason, people shared and commented on it, but it wasn’t because they agreed or disagreed with her message. This is why many people on both sides of the political spectrum are angry.
A lot of the people who wrote on her blog didn’t seem to care about what she had to say. Instead, they only wanted to look at the picture of her that was in the story. The article was talked about on a YouTube channel after she took a selfie. Not long after, a lot of mean people started trolling the picture online, which made people act badly. To go over this one more time, the comments didn’t say anything about the article’s content or setting. Politics can get pretty nasty these days, but the online bullies who picked on her mostly picked on her because of how she looked.
“The comments had nothing to do with my work; they were just mean about how I look,” Melissa told “Good Morning America.”
Melissa took pictures of some of the rude comments and shared them on Twitter as well. It said in the caption, “Reminder that this is what it’s like to be a disabled woman writer on the internet AND #ThisIsAmerica in 2019.”
Melissa told Newsbeat, “People said things like’she looks like a parade balloon’ and ‘you look ugly.'”
But the one that really upset her was the one that said she shouldn’t take pictures of herself because she was too ugly. It was then that she chose not to let it bring her down.
“I thought, I’ll show them they can’t beat me by doing the opposite.”
She posted three more selfies on Twitter as a response to the people who were mean to her.
Once more, Melissa’s post went viral, but this time, people were more likely to praise her than criticize her. In the time since then, the post has been shared over 30,000 times and liked nearly 300,000 times.
A lot of people don’t believe Melissa is a journalist, even though she has been writing for 14 years. She says that people only judge her by how she looks sometimes.
“This is something I see a lot of women who put themselves out there dealing with: being attacked visually.”
She had 26 surgeries over the course of her life to fix the joints in her knees and hands. She also got help for her scoliosis.
Melissa tries to stay positive, though. She does say, though, that the bad things can make her feel down sometimes.
She said, “I’d be lying if I said they didn’t bother me. It’s hard not to feel bad about yourself.” “These people just stay home and hide behind their computers.” “I don’t think they would say half of what they write online in real life.”
Melissa has now set a new challenge for people to use the hashtag #MyBestSelfie to share pictures of themselves.
“I hope this makes people think about disabilities.” “How narrow is what we think is beautiful?” she asked.
What did you think about Melissa’s story? Leave a comment and let us know. Also, please tell your friends and family about her story.