Students from Tecumseh Middle School attended an assembly last Tuesday, September 1 to hear speaker Keenan West deliver a timely anti-bullying message. West is the spokesman of Secret Deodorant’s “Mean Stinks” campaign, which encourages teens and pre-teens to stand together against bullying.

The entire middle school crammed in the Tecumseh High School auditorium last Tuesday to see West’s Nicest Tour Ever presentation, which began with West inviting several students and two teachers up on stage to dance to his music. He noted that everyone danced differently, and that there was no need to make fun of their respective dance moves because they were all having a good time. West used this demonstration as an “ice breaker,” warming up to the students and teachers alike.

West said that the majority of bullying among teens and pre-teens now occurs through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, noting that face-to-face bullying still occurs, however it is rare. He said an incident that formerly would have gone unnoticed by the majority of the school is now instantly broadcast for all other students to see via social media, meaning that the victim’s shame is often increased exponentially.

“Thanks to social media, by the end of the day, everyone knows what happened now,” West said of cyber-bullying.

He said the best way to prevent modern-day bullying is by urging students to be empathetic before posting hurtful pictures or statements about others, asking them to simply put themselves in the victim’s place before typing. He told them that laws against bullying are changing daily, noting that some online acts could result in arrest.

West described the real-life struggle of a high school girl from Ohio named Jessie, who ended up taking her own life after a leaked nude photograph earned her constant scorn from friends, family, and even strangers. He said that Jessie meant only to share the nude photograph of herself with her boyfriend, but he passed it around to so many of his friends that they too began sharing it with their friends. Jessie’s parents said she struggled for nearly a year before seeming to get better with handling the shame and guilt, but that one day she regressed and took her own life in her bedroom. West said that anyone in possession of a nude or sexually-explicit photograph of anyone under the age of 18 can be charged with having possession of child pornography.

West encouraged young men and women to become “upstanders” instead of bystanders, targeting the so-called “cool kids” and urging them to take it upon themselves to set new standards. West said he once thought of himself as a “cool kid” in high school and realized too late what a difference he could have made in the lives of other students who were bullied. He presented statistics showing that in 57 percent of bullying cases, the problem is shown to stop within ten seconds if someone stands up or speaks out against the action. West said that according to the United States Secret Service, 81 percent of violence in U.S. schools was known about ahead of time by someone other than the attacker, and spoke on the importance of speaking up, no matter how insignificant the act may seem at the time.

West is a speaker and recording artist who delivers anti-bullying methods to teens in ways that they can understand and relate to. Secret’s Mean Stinks campaign encourages participants to flood social media platforms with positive messages instead of degrading posts.

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