The image shows Samina Demal, a Thai-African American girl of color with curly hair and dark skin, who is often the target of ridicule from her classmates at school. She is constantly teased about her hairstyle and skin color. Some days, classmates throw crumpled paper at her face and call her "black." Other days, they take pictures of her and use them to mock her on social media.
"Wow, you're even darker in real life than in the photos!"
"Yeah, you're right! Share this!"
Samina could only sit and watch her friends laugh at and bully her. She felt uncomfortable being treated like an outcast by those around her. Being teased every day made her feel stressed, bored, and she tried to distance herself from her friends to minimize conflict as much as possible.
"Mom, I don't want to go to school anymore," Samina told her mother in a trembling voice.
"You've been teased again, haven't you? I understand what you're going through, but since we were born this way, we can't escape it. I can't be with you all the time. If you give up and don't fight back, you'll be teased and bullied for the rest of your life. And the best person to protect you is yourself."
Her mother's words motivated Samina to fight back, actively participating in numerous activities to distract herself from the teasing. However, she continued to be bullied, from elementary school through high school, university, and into the workplace. How will Samina overcome bullying and live happily in society? Find out in the short documentary drama, "Color," inspired by Samina Deemaly's story of being teased since childhood. This documentary, one of six episodes from the "Stop It" Project 2, a continuation of the first project aimed at combating online bullying, is funded by the Safe and Creative Media Development Fund (Strategic Category) in 2022.
Warawut Chimkit, head of the Stop It Project 2, who has worked in production for almost 20 years, observed the escalating and ongoing problem of bullying. Therefore, he came up with the idea of using his expertise and that of his team at Kiddee Infinity Co., Ltd. to create media to stop online bullying, once again.
"After studying it, I realized that bullying has many interesting and worrying aspects. Cyberbullying, for example, can be categorized into as many as seven types, and hate speech can be further subdivided into eight types. There's so much more to explore. But the question was, how do we present it differently from others? So, we started with a short drama in our first project, and then developed it further into a documentary-style short drama in this second project."
The short documentary-drama series, "Stop It Project 2," consists of 6 episodes, each 7-10 minutes long, and will be broadcast on [channel name].
The YouTube channel yutza presents episodes that are inspired by the real-life stories of the people featured.
Besides Samina Deemaly, there are many professions where people are bullied. There's also the story of a production worker who belittled a colleague to the point of them quitting, and the story of a plus-size singer weighing over 100 kilograms who has been teased about her body since her school days.
These are stories about university students who are ostracized from their friends and ostracized if they associate with them; the story of an LGBTQ influencer who posted about selling agricultural products and was heavily criticized on social media for their appearance; and the story of a singer who previously competed on The Voice, who was bullied on TikTok for being short and forcing people to resort to this method of earning a living through live singing.
"In each episode, in addition to narrating the problems from the lives of the subjects, at the end, a psychiatrist will explain what they were experiencing and how to resolve it. It's like a summary, along with additional advice. In some episodes, a lawyer will also provide information about bullying. If something involves attacking or defamating others, it could fall under the Computer Crime Act."
Although the short dramatic documentary, inspired by the six individuals, has received a fairly positive response, reflected in its hundreds of thousands of views, that may not have brought Warawut Chimkit and his team as much satisfaction as making viewers see a clearer picture of how the victims felt, and ultimately leading them to stop or reduce the behavior.
Reduce bullying in society.
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