Cathy Matthews (Melanie Hill) in Coronation Street is currently facing a horrific situation that’s seen a simple comment online about Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford) and Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson) escalate into a trolling nightmare.
The Weatherfield residents have shown community spirit once more and turned their backs on Cathy after discovering the hurtful comments she made, and with things set to get even worse, this storyline is really showing the terrifying impact online bulling can have on people’s lives.
People may assume online bullying occurs with young people, those that are able to get their heads around social media platforms and emojis, but as Melanie Hill explained, showing someone like Cathy struggling with trolling is hugely important:
‘I felt it was interesting to have it start with a character like Cathy, not one of the more obviously outspoken nasty characters. This shows just how easy it is to become a troll and hurt people’s feelings, by just not thinking about what you are doing.
I am grateful that I have got this storyline to play out because it shows how becoming a troll can ruin your life, not just the people you are trolling. It makes it worse because it is her, she is not equipped to deal with it.’
Melanie continued, adding how important it is for Corrie to play this storyline out, and hopes it will encourage a conversation during a time where we are more glued to the life of social media than ever before:
‘It is a very current situation and it is important to highlight it because this bullying online is just horrific’ Melanie said.
‘It is because people are anonymous, they wouldn’t say that to someone’s face but they can write it in a comment. It has got even worse in the pandemic because people can’t go out and everyone is online.
Corrie is really good at getting conversations started in living rooms and if the viewers can see that Cathy could get caught up in something like this then anyone could and hopefully it might get people talking and thinking about what they post.’
Melanie also revealed her experiences of people she knows that have been trolled: ‘Sign Along with Us who were on BGT had an awful experience. I was supporting them on the show, and they contacted me and other famous supporters asking for help as they were the victims of awful trolls. Christian had the most horrendous things said about him online.
It was ironic that it was the week I was starting to film this and it really brought it home to me how important it was to get this message across.’
‘Social media has got so much power and it is scary.’
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