Ep. 11: “This girl is drama,” navigating cyberbullying with Lyssa Chapman (Part 1)

Below you will find the show notes for “Episode 11” of the Communification Podcast.
Mahalo for listening! Welcome to the ‘ohana!

Mahalo to Waiakea Hawaiian Volcanic Water for donating to a local charity and sponsoring this episode.

In this episode we talk to Lyssa Chapman about bullying and cyberbullying. She is candid and forthcoming with her own experiences, and shares deep thoughts and insights on how she deals with these issues.

Main takeaways

Our “mean girl” experiences were a sign of the times
Malika’s defense mechanism for trauma
Balancing freedom of speech, exposure to tech, and safety
Lyssa fell into a bad crowd because they accepted her & didn’t judge
The internet is the wild, wild west

Time codes

GUEST: Lyssa Chapman

[07:55] RE-CAP OF EPISODE 10 TO LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR OUR DISCUSSION
[09:22] “DRAMA” AT HER DAUGHTER’S MIDDLE SCHOOL
[11:35] MALIKA’S BULLYING EXPERIENCES FROM HER YOUTH & PAST
[16:00] LYSSA’S BULLYING EXPERIENCING FROM HER YOUTH
[20:35] LISTENER EXPERIENCE AND QUESTION FROM TIANNE ABOUT BULLYING AND TROLLING
[28:39] LYSSA PERCEIVES THE THREAT THE SAME, WHAT SHE DOES TO PROTECT HERSELF
[34:33] DATA IS VALUABLE, WE ARE BEING USED BY COMPANIES TO STAY ANGRY AND AGGRESSIVE

Lyssa Chapman bio

Lyssa Chapman, or "Baby Lyssa," is an American businesswoman, best-selling author and former bail bondswoman and bounty hunter, most noted for her role on A&E TV's Dog the Bounty Hunter, in which she, along with her father Duane "Dog" Chapman and various friends and family, track down and capture wanted fugitives.

After the T.V. show ended in 2012, Lyssa owned and operated a light-therapy center in Honolulu, Hawaii for 7 years. She sold her store in 2018, decided to take her passion for clothing and share it with all the world.

Her clothing line "Baby by Lyssa Chapman" is a for everyone. It’s an everyday line consisting of simple "mix and match" pieces that Lyssa herself wears daily.
Website: Www.Babylyssa.Com

I’ll be giving away a copy of Lyssa’s book! Check out my Instagram page for details.
Buy Lyssa Chapman’s book

EPISODE 11: “This girl is drama,” navigating cyberbullying - Lyssa Chapman

Malika:
Hello!

Lyssa:
Hi Malika! Thank you for having me.

Malika:
I'm so excited. We've actually never met in person, but I've met your dad, "the dog.”

Lyssa:
The dog, the big bad dog.

Malika:
I was on the red carpet for Hawaii Five-O, the premiere, and it was a few years ago and he was just so nice to me. And of course, I've read your book.

Though your life is, I guess I can't put it into a sentence. It takes a book to really cover.

Lyssa:
Yeah. And I was 22, 23 when I wrote it. So I think I'm due for another one.

Malika:
I think so. Think there needs to be a part two, a sequel to walking on eggshells, discovering strength and courage, amid chaos. I can't wait to hear what the second title will be.

Lyssa:
All the courage.

Malika:
Oh, I like it. I like it. Speaking of, so I have her book here and I will be giving away a copy. I got one specifically to give away to one of our listeners. So that'll be in the show notes, details on how you can get a hold of this book that we're giving away. And I read your book and I realized, even though, you've definitely been through a lot. Your life has been rough. And I can't say that I can relate to many of the things that you've been through, but I was surprised at how much we did have in common, growing up on the big island, pageants, some of our thoughts on parenting and reading your life partner happens to be my life partner's cousin.

So we're basically related!

Lyssa:
Such a small, big islands, right? I'm telling you.

Malika:
Oh my gosh. I'm so happy to have you on, and connect, and talk about real stuff. Real issues.

Lyssa:
Yeah. I'm happy to be here. I'm really excited to do this. I think it's going to be juicy.

Malika:
Well, you are the perfect guest, because for those of you listening, Lyssa actually sent me an email saying you have to watch this documentary.

So I love that you did your own research. And I mean that you've been super into this process because I am the same. And I just feel like these discussions are so important. It's so important to have them. I know that we feel the same way about telling stories to help guide people. That's why you wrote your book, right?

Lyssa:
Definitely. Yeah. I think it's fate, because there's so much going on with bullying and the internet right now and just everything in general. So when you even said like the topic, I was like, this is just perfect. This is totally fate. And the research that I was doing is also in conjunction with my own experiences, not just for the podcast, but like, how do I deal with these situations?

You know what I mean?

RE-CAP OF EPISODE 10 TO LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR OUR DISCUSSION

Malika:
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. First I'll kick it off by recapping a little bit of what we learned with the cyberbullying episode. It was Episode 10 from Dr. Savage and La'anui. So they defined many of the terms surrounding cyber bullying, so flaming, trolling, doxing, cyber-stalking, et cetera, et cetera.

There are so many different terms and it's constantly changing and things are being named and it's just moving so quickly. We had Dr. La'anui who came from the FBI cyber squad perspective. And so he talked a little bit.

Lyssa:
So cool.

Malika:
I know, I was like eating that stuff up that bio- psycho- social side of it is what Dr. Savage called it. And then Dr. Savage shared more of the communication research and those research-based strategies that we can use if we fall victim to cyber bullying. So many topics in between. Oh my gosh... sexting, generational gap, some alarming statistics.

To kick off our discussion, was there something in particular that really just peaked your interest?

“DRAMA” AT HER DAUGHTER’S MIDDLE SCHOOL

Lyssa:
There were a lot of things I thought what was really interesting was all the different types of bullying. Like you mentioned, like how many different ways, and it's crazy because we've all experienced them and to think wow, we've all seen this, we've seen it in our families. We know someone who's gone through this.

So many different things that occur. It was just mind blowing to me. Like we can get into it later, but the drama, how he brought up the word drama and well actually, I think you brought that up. That was just like mind blowing because I have a preteen, I have a daughter who's 12 and she just hit middle school and we have a situation going and this girl is drama and Whoa.

So again, it was really fate that I was able to listen to that podcast and just have some insight. Even though we're experiencing it, I think as a child, you experienced it so different cause you don't have a lot of context, in life in general.

And I'm thinking like, this is such a huge thing in my daughter's life, because this is a huge, biggest thing that has ever happened to her, so it's pretty incredible to see for me, just how much influence social media, cyber bullying and how he said, like it's the world's strongest communication they have it at their fingertips.

Just what that really means and the power that, that holds for our children. We can sit here all day and talk about the negatives of it and like how many horrible things they can do.

Or we can know that it's a fact and, teach our children that these are dangers. Also you can, make this a whole new world where people aren't that way and you can do good things with the internet. You can research, you can make a whole city, you can be an architect, you can be a mechanic.

You can learn so much from the internet. So while it does have its destructive things, it also has a lot of things that can help children. So I don't know... how do we raise them knowing that this is in their lives and keep them safe at the same time.

MALIKA’S BULLYING EXPERIENCES FROM HER YOUTH & PAST

Malika:
Oh, I can relate on so many levels to everything that you're saying.

It's grandpa Google, right? It's amazing that we can just get the answer to anything we want to know ever, but where we get in trouble is now we're using technology to communicate and that's where things get tricky. It's this communication aspect of it. So we will go into the mothering thing in a little bit.

I wanted first though, to step back and share our experiences from our youth. With traditional bullying, like prior to social media. So I have a couple of short stories, and then I'm sure that this will spark stories in you as well. So you talked a little bit in your book and we have a unique experience here in Hawaii.

Where, if you have white skin, it makes you a target. And, I was a really sweet non-threatening kid. And as an adult, I can totally understand the kinds of generational trauma that may have fueled that type of bullying, the bullying that I experienced because of the color of my skin. For me, what was even more confusing is that my mother is brown and my sister is brown. And so we were treated completely different in school. Like she fit in, people loved her, she's the creative one. And I was like the skinny haole girl, and I won't go into the proper definition of the word haole, but basically, it's a white person.

It's a difficult thing to talk about because like I said, it comes from historical trauma and it's a very unique experience in Hawaii. But having said that I'll just share a couple of instances of my personal experience with that. So there was this one time, I think I was in middle school and I was in front of the class with the class announcements and the guy that I shared a desk with was being loud.

And so I just stopped for a minute and looked at him and his friend from across the room. Yelled, what are you looking at haole girl? And I was just like totally in shock. I don't even remember what I did. I think I probably just blanked out. And then there was this older girl basically, she did the same thing. I was in the cafeteria one day and I was already scared of her. Like she was scary to me. And when she did that to me, I never looked at her again. Cause I was terrified that she would physically harm me.

And then like later in life I had rumors going around that I was sleeping with my two best friends, Brian Keaulana and Lanai Tabura because we spent so much time together and we were like the three Musketeers. And so we were an odd threesome, yes we were, but never, nothing like that happened. They're like my big brothers, I love them to death, like having those types of rumors.

And then I have a mean girl story. Where, when I was, this was probably middle school as well, which is when they said that it peaks, right? Like this bullying type of behavior.

And the funny thing is, I'm sure more of these things happen to me that I just don't remember because my defense mechanism is that my mind just shuts it out and I don't remember it.

So even this story, it's so crazy, because I forgot this story. And it was my childhood friend who told me a few years ago, recounted it to me and I have zero recollection. So I guess it was that traumatizing. So I used to go to swim lessons at the Hilo yacht club in the summers. And I had a crush on this boy. It was this older boy and his younger sister was my age and she was a great swimmer and a popular girl.

And according to my friend, one day I was in the shower and she took my towel and my clothes, and she hid them.

And I can't even tell you what I did. I just don't remember. But she was just saying that was the meanest thing that she'd ever seen someone do. And yeah.

Lyssa:
Yikes

Malika:
It can make you laugh about it now.

Lyssa:
You don't remember like how you got out of there with no, like what did someone leave clothes?

Malika:
I don't remember at all. I think sometimes you know how sometimes you can see photos and then you'll go, oh, maybe I do remember that. So I don't know if I'm recreating the memory from the recounting of my friend telling me this or if it's actually a memory, but I think maybe I yelled out to my sister or I don't know.

LYSSA’S BULLYING EXPERIENCES GROWING UP

Lyssa:
Yeah. That totally seems like something that girls of our generation would do. It's incredible. The haole thing when I came to Hawaii, so when I moved here, I was six or seven, so I didn't really understand what that meant or what was going on with that? So it was just, luckily for me, haole has never really affected me, but for me it was like always being the new girl everywhere.

I was victim to clique dramas so bad. Getting invited into cliques and then getting like totally teased and made fun of, and just for me, I remember there was a girl that I really like idolize and she had those big soda shoes. You remember? They were like the clogs and everyone had the big shoes and I bought a pair and everyone just ragged on me so hard cause I bought the same pair that she had.

I had one pair of overalls and I was really poor growing up. So I like loved these overalls. I wore them every day. They had a green border around the bottom and I thought they were just the coolest thing ever. And I would like one day I'd wear them patched, and then the next day I'd wear them around my waist.

And then one thing the next day, like literally every day, every week I remember like being in the bathroom and hearing them make fun of me. And I like put my feet up and just cried and cried.

So for me, it was always cause I moved schools so much, I really never fit in anywhere. I never really had I still don't to this day, like a childhood friend or someone that I keep in touch, a good close girlfriend that I've known since I was little. I have family, so that's good. I'm grateful for that, but yeah I've always watched like TV shows and seen like the girl trips and been like, I don't even know, like one person that I could invite on a girl trip. So I have my wife though, so we go on girl trips.

Malika:
And now you have your daughters too, youve' got your girl gang.

Lyssa:
Definitely. But it was, it's interesting that it was so bad in school for me. I was never able to develop a really close friendship with any group of girls or even an individual girl, because the bullying was just so intense and I didn't go to the same school consistently. I switched schools sometimes twice a year.

So I was always the new girl, and weird and poor and smelly. And it didn't have a bra and, didn't brush her hair and I didn't have a mom, so I didn't have a mom to take care of me and tell me you can't stink and you can't, you gotta take care of yourself. So it was hard for me growing up.

And then I had a baby at 15 and I dropped out. So that was it. I ended my school career in 10th grade.

Malika:
Wow. I think our listeners are like "whoa."

Lyssa:
Yeah. For me growing up, like fitting in with the kids that were like, the bad kids, those were always a really accepting group for me. That was the place where I found the home. I don't want to say that's what led to my pregnancy, but that's what led to like my problems in my teenage years and everything leading up to that.

The group that was the most accepting was the bad kids, and the addicts, and the kids who had things to hide. You know what I mean? So that was a group that didn't judge me the way that quote unquote, the normal kids did.

Malika:
So complicated because you are who you hang around, and that's what guides you, and that's what you had is as an example, but they also made you feel like you fit in to a certain degree.

Lyssa:
Exactly. Yeah. The outcasts are the bad kids. It's interesting how that works.

LISTENER EXPERIENCE AND QUESTION FROM TIANNE ABOUT BULLYING AND TROLLING

Malika:
So interesting. I do have a listener experience and questions, so I thought we would start with that. And then we can start to roll into this idea of cyber bullying and unpack that a little more. So this is Tianne.

Tianne:
Hi, Malika and Lyssa. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast today. I've dealt with some trolling in the past. People writing stupid comments that I want to argue with, but I never actually engaged because who has the time, right? I'm sure most people have actually dealt with a little bit of trolling or cyber bullying.

Also, I have a funny story before social media days, these girls once stole my senior picture from my college dorm room and taped it on all the doors.

They made copies of my photo, taped it on every single door and wrote captions under each photo.

And as I look back now, I think it's hilarious because this is what you did before there was the internet. With social media now, and also being a celebrity, trolling is probably all around you. How do you deal with it?

Malika:
Oh, good question. First of all, that experience, but I guess, like you said, that's, that sounds like the mean girls from when we were younger.

Lyssa:
Exactly right though? Yeah, writing in yearbooks, remember that? I just found my sister's old yearbook from Kealakehe and there's like faces crossed out and devil ears and like horrible things written under names. Nice things, parts I'm like, wow, that was the original.

Malika:
Oh, totally. Those were our Facebooks. So the books that had the faces in them now they're all online. So her question was, how do you deal with trolling?

Lyssa:
So I feel like this is such an important question because I feel like no one should have to deal with trolling. I don't think that we should be able to say things to people through the internet that you wouldn't say to someone's face.

If you were walking up to someone and saying all of these terrible things, you could possibly go to jail for terroristic threatening, for harassment, for stalking, if you did it multiple times in a day, the way that people do, you can have defamation, you can have so many things. I don't think anyone should have to deal with it.

There are other countries, and there are other places that have laws in place that protect their citizens from certain types of trolling and cyber bullying and stalking. And I don't think that it should be allowed honestly. There should be a way to deal with it because I don't think it should occur.

What I do, what you may notice recently, Malika is I go completely offline. There comes a point in time where things start to get too personal. I've seen like Khloe Kardashian clap back at people about her body. And you can see literally a hundred thousand people comment, "you look amazing" and she'll clap back at that one hater because it doesn't matter who you are. What's going on in your life. People get too personal and it puts you in fight or flight. It literally is a threat. It's a direct threat on you and your person, and it makes you react, and you react sometimes in really unhealthy ways. You react in defensive ways that sometimes puts you on the offense.

So I think the best thing to do is literally go completely offline. When you get to a point where the comments start to bother you, or things get too personal for you. The best thing to do, and I think it's funny, we call it social media cleanse because the only thing that I cleanse from in my life is bad things.

You know what I mean? Like when you cleanse your body, you're getting all of the yucky stuff out. When you cleanse your house or you cleanse your car, it implies, cleaning out the crap.

And I think social media might be a lot of crap because we're not protected. And there are laws in certain states that protect their citizens, but really these big companies get away with it.

You know what I mean? Twitter and Facebook, they could totally be policing. They could totally just make standards that people need to follow and that's it just to make it safer for people. So that's a world that I envision is a really safe internet world.

Malika:
Yeah Lyssa I mentioned earlier had me listen to this documentary and it's called 15 minutes of shame and it was produced by Monica Lewinsky.

I'll put a link in the show notes for you guys, and they reiterated what Dr. La'anui said in episode 10 about how tricky it is legally to gain any traction against a cyber bully. And one of the stories in the documentary was Taylor's story where she had run for student office and won, and then these awful things started happening and she went to law enforcement and they told her there's not much we can do for you because it's online.

So it is great to see that there's hope with other countries like France and Australia and Germany and India. They have laws now in place to keep people safe on the internet and to hold those social media giants accountable for that.

But in the U S we have a law that actually, we need to try to dismantle in addition. But that's in addition to making new laws and we know that technology, and this is what Dr. Savage and Dr. La'anui was saying, technology is moving so quickly, and our legislature moves like snails and so there's a problem there.

Lyssa:
Yes. I loved how they kept saying it's the wild west. It's the wild west, because it literally is a lawless playground and people know it and it's come to the point where it's like freedoms versus safety.

And I think that's a really hard space to be in legislature. Playing with the amendments and playing with the constitution, it's really hard to work laws around that. And I think people have their work cut out for them. And unfortunately, like you saw in the documentary, it took a woman who took her life, from online bullying. And how many times have we heard those stories in this country? Especially from the youth, heartbreaking.

And so one time is too many, in my opinion.

And something I find interesting is even though I've taken a break from social media, my daughter is still on it. And so like the other day we were in the car and I had this little epiphany wait, you're off and she's still online oh no. Because we don't realize like how prevalent it is really in our children's lives and our lives, how we connect to people, it's our source of news, and then we can't even get started on the misinformation that's out there.

So it's just, it's the wild west.

References

Please view the show notes for Episode 10 for academic references mentioned in this episode.

“15 minutes of shame” documentary on HBO Max.

The YouTube version of Episode 11:

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