Former student, cheerleader takes stand against cyberbullying

The news media have been abuzz today (Thursday, Feb. 7) with the story of a former UW-Green Bay student who is taking a stand against cyberbullying. Kaitlyn Collins was a student and cheerleader during fall semester 2009, when someone took a photo of her cheering at a Packers game (as most of you know, our cheerleaders pull double-duty for the Pack for the team’s home games). Someone got ahold of that picture and posted it — with a nasty comment that spurred other nasty comments — early this week on a Facebook fan site for the Chicago Bears. Collins tried to get Facebook or the fan site to pull the photo, but she was unsuccessful. So Collins decided to tell her story in a YouTube video that very calmly but very definitely takes a stand against cyberbullying — not just for herself, but for others who are victimized online. You’ll likely see news stories about this in the coming days, so we thought we’d share Collins’ heartfelt and touching video here. It’s also worth noting that many Facebook commenters showed kindness for Collins and revulsion toward those who taunted her, and even a couple of Packers have gotten into the act — T.J. Lang and Donald Driver both tweeted their support. (Please be aware that some of the comments Collins cites in her video are vulgar, though curse words repeated are obscured with asterisks.) See video.