Am I Ugly | videos | Koala hat

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“Am I Ugly?” Video Trend A Reminder Why It’s A Terrible Time To Be A Pre-Teen

9:32 am, February 24th | by Laura Donovan

Judging by the number of bully-influenced suicides our nation has seen the past few years, the recent “Am I Ugly?” YouTube video trend, which involves young girls asking Internet users to rate their looks, could potentially drive young people to take their own lives.

One video, which has received more than 3 million YouTube hits, is narrated by what appears to be a pre-teen girl who sought to make the clip to determine how attractive — or unattractive — she is. Proudly wearing a Koala hat, she seems very young and unaware of the level of cruelty people would gladly unleash upon her through this experiment.

“I just wanted to make a random video seeing if I was like, ugly or not because a lot of people call me ugly and I think I am ugly…I think I’m ugly and fat,” says the girl, who flashes Myspace-style snapshots of herself to the camera, peppered with her own commentary, and asks to be ranked.

It’s pretty easy to see how an endeavor like this could end badly. The clip generated hundreds of comments, one of which states, “you is [expletive] ugly, b-tch, kill yourself, and stop the makin videos like this.” A nonsensical yet equally cruel comment reads, “i saw u on the today show and u wont the truth and yes u r utgly.” Another comment is slightly kinder but still a blow to one’s ego: “ugly…NOT because of your looks, because you are pretty, but because of how low your self esteem is.”

Other girls have hopped on the bandwagon to see what the Internet thinks of them, and while they may appreciate the rare nice comments from non-rabid trolls, this is essentially asking to be bullied and needs to stop. In a country that clearly cannot manage school bullying, this could worsen the problem and cause more young people to take their lives senselessly. It only makes me grateful that I wasn’t introduced to YouTube until college, as it’s understandable how millions of mean-spirited comments about a 13-year-old’s appearance wouldn’t sit well with the girl in the spotlight.