Another day, another viral video that has prompted much debate over on TikTok, this time courtesy of a feud involving school children (you know, playground antics).
The debate arose last month, when TikTok user Victoria (wickatoria89) uploaded a video recounting a story involving her seven-year-old son Ethan and another student at his school. According to Victoria, Ethan had been quarreling with an unnamed classmate of his for some time, resulting in meetings with herself and the school teachers.
These antics — which Victoria said involved “verbal arguments” and “talking smack to each other” — came to a head during school camp, when Ethan was approached by the classmate’s grandparents with a note.
The note in question was shown at the end of the video, and warns Ethan to “please stay away” from the classmate and to “keep your hands [and] mouth to yourself.” The note, which was addressed to Ethan and clearly not written by a seven-year-old, prompted outrage from Victoria, who said the situation left her “infuriated.”
Victoria said she uploaded the video to get advice on how to handle the situation so she didn’t “go off on a parent,” and later said the note was evidence of the classmate’s parents “bullying my son.” Naturally, users flocked to the comments section to add their two cents, largely agreeing that handing the note to Ethan, and not Victoria, was “a type of privacy invasion.”
“It should have been sent to you,” one user wrote, with another adding that “no adult should be allowed to talk to anyone’s children without permission.” Others took the side of the classmate, suggesting Victoria should’ve worked harder to ensure Ethan wasn’t bullying in the first place, and sharing instances where they took matters into their own hands regarding child bullies.
“Sometimes parents feel like school/camp aren’t doing anything,” one user wrote, while another said Victoria’s taunting of the classmate is “the bigger issue here.” Elsewhere, viewers wrote that “there’s more to the story here,” and said they “want to hear the other side before I come to a judgement.”
In any case, Victoria updated users in a follow-up video, revealing that Ethan and the classmate were arguing before the letter being given, and that the grandmother had “sat and waited for my son to arrive.” She also said that she wrote the grandmother a letter of her own, requesting she doesn’t interact with Ethan and would instead prefer if “you and I could talk about it.”
While that letter didn’t make it to the grandmother just yet, we’re sure there’ll be an update on the situation soon. Should this whole thing be called Letter-gate?