I remember when I first realized that something was wrong, but I'm a bit vague about some of the details. It was several years ago. I am not sure about the specific platform. I believe it was Facebook, but it could have been YouTube or Reddit. I was reading through some exchanges when the following comment caught my eye:
Go kill yourself!
The person who said this repeated it several times with slight variations (e.g., "You are too stupid to live," "You should do all of us a favor and kill yourself today"). What initially looked like a minor political disagreement had quickly devolved into this crap. I realize this sort of thing is commonplace today, but it was the first time I had seen it.
I found myself wondering about the person who was on the receiving end of this. How old were they? Was it possible that they were a child? Was it possible that they were depressed or suffering from some other mental health ailment that might have left them vulnerable to this sort of thing? How could the aggressor behave like this without considering the consequences?