Now I feel the need to add a disclaimer before I proceed. I am in no way making fun of cyberbullying, it's a serious topic that can destroy a person's life. However, if you are going to make a movie about the subject, try not to make it a melodramatic mess.
We meet Taylor Hillridge, blond, well-liked, bright future, basically doomed. She is finally allowed to go online without her mother watching her every move. She joins a site called Clickster, which essentially Facebook with no rules and inexplicably no delete button.
Taylor meets a cute guy online who is everything she ever wanted (sound familiar) but soon turns on her. The high school lemmings follow suit and soon Taylor is considered the town whore. Not only that her best friend and other man of her dreams abandon her as well.
If things could not get worse, the viewers learn that her other best friend, Samantha created the dreamy guy's account in order to mess with Taylor. What possible reasons would she have to betray her best friend like that, you ask? Because Taylor liked a guy that Samantha didn't think was good for her. Apparently Samantha was wronged by a guy and sees all guys as the enemy.
Taylor reaches the breaking point and posts a video implying that she is going to kill herself. Samantha sees the video and races to Taylor's house with Taylor's mom and ambulances in tow. They throw open the bathroom door to find Taylor struggling with a child-proof cap. Yes, I am not kidding, her whole suicide was thwarted because she couldn't figure out the complicated dynamics of a child proof cap.
ABC Family, if you are trying to make me feel sympathy for the main character you failed.
So Taylor gets counseling and Samantha confesses her role in the whole cyberbullying thing. Samantha is soon the school's whipping girl but feels she deserved it. Samantha essentially gets away with what she did. No arrests, no one sues her, and Taylor still hangs out with her. A great message to young teenage girls out there.
Taylor and her mom commit themselves to making a anti-bullying law. Taylor publicly confronts the head mean girl and her fairweather friends and dream guy join her accompanied by other outcasts. Of course, the head mean girl falls off her pedestal and the Internet is safe again. There is even a montage of kids texting one another in joy. All that is missing is a rising rendition of "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead"
Did anyone involved in this movie ever see the movie Heathers? Sure, the head mean girl might be dethroned, but someone else will just take her place. ABC Family had a great chance to shed some light on the issue but instead chose to make yet another unrealistic, melodramatic, teen movie.
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