Dear Editor,
Recently, a profile was created on Facebook called GBN Compliments and has become very popular amongst Glenbrook North students. The way it works is you privately submit an anonymous compliment about someone and GBN Compliments posts it publicly so that everyone can see it. In a world where so many hurtful words are exchanged over social media and where cyber bullying is a constant presence, many have taken GBN Compliments to be a breath of fresh air where kids can finally get to feel good and have something nice said about them for once. Surprisingly, in recent days, I have witnessed a growing debate about whether GBN Compliments is actually a bad thing. A handful of people have talked to me about how they don’t like it because they claim that taking compliments that should be said face to face and ruining the integrity of them by thrusting them out to the public anonymously from behind a computer screen. They claim that it represents our dependence on social media and inability to properly interact with people face to face anymore.
After spending a lot of time thinking about GBN Compliments just by myself, I believe that GBN Compliments is a good thing and a benefit to our lives, not a burden. I agree that people should stop hiding behind social media to say what they mean to people; I agree that a compliment feels best when you actually hear it from someone’s mouth, and I certainly agree that the lack of face to face conversations in today’s society is crippling our ability to form real, concrete relationships with substance. However, in today’s day and age, those things are unfortunately a harsh reality and GBN Compliments is not what is causing it. The fact of the matter is, almost all of those compliments would not have been said if not for GBN Compliments. With anonymity, people are finally given the opportunity to say things that they never would have been brave enough in person. By being anonymous, you can compliment someone who maybe you barely have ever talked to. It gives you the feeling that more people care about you than you think. GBN Compliments is not “crippling society”. It simply uses the most powerful communicative tool our world has ever seen and chooses to use it for good. Our dependence on social media is now an unavoidable reality. Why not make the best of it with at least one person’s day getting at least just a little bit better with each post?
Having received a “GBN Compliment” myself, I can testify that reading it truly did brighten up my day and made me feel better about myself. Seriously, what could ever be wrong with that? Whoever it was, certainly wouldn’t have ever said that to my face, but because of GBN Compliments, I was able to receive his or her heartwarming message.
Trust me, I wish all of these compliments could be exchanged in person so that people could truly connect over these truthful confessions experience real true compassion truly feels like. However, that’s just not the way we work as humans. Before GBN Compliments, did people just spontaneously approach other people and reveal their feelings of true affection for them? Heck no. In our world, doing that feels uncomfortable and awkward which is why we simply don’t do it and never have done it. Basically, GBN Compliments delivers messages that make each recipient feel better after reading, messages that never would have realistically arrived otherwise.
The Internet along with social media is transcending how we communicate whether we like it or not. Don’t like it? Take it up with the seven billion world citizens who use the Internet today. More often than not, the Internet and social media has been used a medium to easily exchange hate words without any real fear of consequence. For once, it has finally been used as a medium to share “love words”. GBN Compliments is a classic tale of good vs. evil as it takes a revolutionary tool with unimaginable capabilities and chooses to use to make people feel better, not worse. Keep fighting the good fight GBN Compliments! If anyone ever deserved a compliment, it was you. Now you have one.