Internet Trolls Start Sick Trend To Encourage Justin Bieber Fans To Self-Harm
Tuesday, 08 January 2013
Written by Elliott Batte
A sick and twisted Twitter trend was started by internet trolls last night, encouraging young fans of Canadian superstar Justin Bieber to self-harm in retaliation to reports that he had smoked cannabis.
The trend, headed by the hashtag #cut4bieber, saw trolls from sites such as the infamous 4chan and the offensively titled GNAA team together using fake Twitter accounts to post pictures of what appear to be heavily mutilated arms and body parts to try and persuade other, younger fans to join in.
The pictures - which you can see in Tweets embedded below (discretion is advised) - were accompanied with messages like ‘It hurts but I do it for my Justin :(‘ and ‘Bieber please go to rehab I would #cut4bieber and i would #kill4bieber :(‘.
The trend has seen an incredible amount of people join in - including both trolls and those who’ve been trolled - and some of Twitter’s most notorious troll accounts (such as DutchMinati, a long running troll account who has also pretended to do things like 'microwaving her guinea pig' as a sacrifice to the cause).
While the troll is a ridiculous one, it’s also one of the biggest of recent times and its hard to tell how many of the #cut4bieber Tweets and pics could be real. It’s believed it was started due to the small backlash Bieber faced when pictures of him smoking marijuana - something now legal or decriminalised in many America states - emerged. The overly-biased, non-liberal anti-marijuana advocates (especially in the US) are often a target for such trolls, though as previously mentioned, this is probably the biggest yet.
Some of the dark Tweets and photos can be seen below - thankfully, the majority of them aren’t real but are taken from Google image searches or websites across the internet, but discretion is still advised.
Interestingly, Bieber has tweeted a number of times since the trend started, but hasn’t yet commented - it’s unsure whether he is aware that the trend has been started by trolls, as many news sites believe and have reported that the trend is entirely true.
Self-harming is a serious problem that many people unfortunately come face to face with in their lives, and we believe it should not be downplayed or ridiculed in this way ever. Please, if you are a Justin Bieber fan, do not self-harm or cut yourself in anyway - remember this whole thing is the work of (severely messed-up) internet trolls who have used pictures and social networking to attempt to encourage others.
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