When “Victimhood” Becomes a Weapon
One of the more troubling trends online is the way some people position themselves as victims while actively using social media as a tool to attack others. Posts are framed as “sharing my story,” “speaking my truth,” or “warning others,” but the content itself centres on naming, shaming, insinuating, and inviting public judgment.
There is a critical difference between sharing an experience to heal or educate versus using a public platform to prosecute someone in the court of public opinion.
When storytelling becomes selective, emotionally loaded, and aimed at discrediting another person rather than processing an experience, it stops being about healing or helping others. It becomes retaliation wrapped in virtue language.
Calling something “my truth” doesn’t make it complete, fair, or appropriate for mass consumption.
Why This Is Inappropriate and Harmful
Social media is not a neutral space. It strips context, discourages nuance, and rewards outrage. Using it to air grievances about specific people creates an imbalance of power, not accountability, and shows weakness.
Masking attacks as advocacy blurs important lines:
Personal pain becomes public ammunition
Followers become a jury
Complex situations are flattened into villains and heroes
These types of online posts invite pile-ons, speculation, and long-term reputational harm, often based on one-sided narratives. Even when pain is real, public shaming is rarely ethical, constructive, or proportionate.
Weak Communication Masquerading as “Brutal Honesty”
There’s a popular myth online that being rude equals being honest. It doesn’t. Honesty without restraint is not bravery; it’s laziness. If the only way someone can express their experience is by attacking another person rather than reflecting on events, boundaries, or lessons learned, that’s not truth-telling—it’s emotional outsourcing.
Effective communicators understand the difference between:
sharing insight and seeking validation
accountability and punishment
boundaries and public humiliation
Online bullying, no matter how well-branded, often signals an inability to communicate privately, directly, or maturely.
Insecurity Loves an Audience
Social media provides something bullies crave: validation. Likes, comments, shares; each one acts as a tiny reward, reinforcing behaviour that would be unacceptable in face-to-face interactions. The language of victimhood can amplify this effect, because it discourages questioning and rewards unquestioning support.
But reliance on public affirmation is itself a vulnerability. When self-worth depends on sympathy, outrage, or applause, it becomes fragile. The need to repeatedly revisit, repost, or escalate narratives often reveals unresolved insecurity rather than resolution.
Disrespect Is Not Power
There’s a mistaken belief that public exposure equals strength. In reality, it often signals a lack of control. People who are secure in themselves don’t need to destroy others’ reputations to validate their experiences. They can acknowledge harm without becoming harmful.
And while targets of online attacks may feel the impact immediately, reputational consequences often linger longer for the person doing the posting. Patterns emerge. Screenshots last. Over time, people notice who seeks understanding, and who seeks spectacle.
What It Ultimately Reflects
Using social media to insult, bully, or publicly discredit others, whether framed as honesty, advocacy, or victimhood, reflects:
Emotional immaturity: difficulty processing conflict without an audience
Insecurity: needing public validation to feel believed or important
Poor communication skills: substituting exposure for dialogue
Lack of self-awareness: ignoring how behaviour is perceived long-term
Ironically, the more someone claims moral high ground online, the more their methods reveal what they lack.
A Better Use of the Platform
Social media can be a place for awareness, learning, and genuine support. But those things don’t require naming, shaming, or revenge disguised as storytelling. Sharing an experience responsibly means focusing on insight, boundaries, and growth—not on punishing others publicly.
In the end, how someone behaves online is a character reference they write for themselves—one post at a time. And no amount of likes, sympathy, or righteous language can permanently disguise insecurity, poor judgment, or cruelty.