The Internet can be such a cruel, harsh place.
The “Elida Compliments” Twitter page reminds you it doesn’t have to be.
One person “has a really really really nice singing voice. I wish I heard it more often,” one tweet says.
One teacher “will talk to anyone. Absolutely love her for the help she has given me,” another tweet says.
Another person “is such a kind hearted person. Not to mention drop dead gorgeous,” reads another.
Found online at twitter.com/complimentelida, those are just a handful of the anonymous posts this week on the Twitter feed. A pair of Elida seniors started the page anonymously last year, precisely to battle the negativity they’d seen online.
“In the school environment, there’s so much bullying, especially with social media,” said Keely Kipp, a 17-year-old senior at Elida who co-founded the page. “It’s good to see people trying to stop it. They’re trying to see the positive side of things.”
Emily Alderman, 17, also a senior at Elida, started the page last spring. She complained to her mother that someone needed to counter all the negativity online. Her mother asked her why she didn’t do it herself.
“It’s nice to know other students will will say nice things about other students, if they just have a place to do it,” Alderman said. “We’ve seen the loss of high school lives in the past few months. You wonder if people came out and noticed some good things about you, would that turn around your entire opinion of yourself?”
People send a direct message, out of sight from the world, to the Elida Compliments page. Then Alderman and Kipp post the message on their behalf, tagging the person being complimented if they can find the right Twitter handle.
They saw an instant result from the page last year, Alderman said, even if no one knew the duo was behind the page at first.
“We started the page on a Friday night, and I walked into school Monday morning hearing people talk about it with their reactions,” she said. “There are such nice things people are able to say. I smiled to myself, that what we did actually meant something to people.”
The page now has 412 followers. Its idea spread to several other local schools, with varying success.
At Elida, it’s making a difference, the girls said. Recently the compliments spread to their teachers.
“I had a teacher pull me into class, and she told me she Googled it last night,” Kipp said. “She saw all the comments people were making and compliments made about her. She didn’t realize she was making a big difference. … It’s important they know they are actually helping.”
It’s helped both of them find something good in people they didn’t see much good in before, too. It opened their eyes that everyone deserves a compliment noticing something special about them. They also put out other positive messages, such as, “A huge thank you to everyone’s parents who help behind the scenes too. We owe you all so much.”
Once they graduate, they hope to find an able underclassmen to keep the positivity flowing.
“Some people in my parents’ generation just see it as a way to bully other people, and they’re not too keen on social media in my household,” Kipp said. “It’s nice to have a way to show them it’s not all bad. It takes a certain level of maturity to see past the hate and bullying.”
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