Robin Williams’ daughter, Zelda Williams, has deleted all social media apps from her devices after being bullied online.
After commemorating her dad’s passing with a sweet message on her Twitter, Zelda began to receive abusive messages about the small number of images she had online with her dad. Somehow those who sent these messages tried to imply that Zelda had no right to express her pain on social media or to grieve at all because she hadn’t lived out her relationship with her dad online.
This is what Zelda replied to all those who judged her relationship with her dad:
“I will be leaving this account for a bit while I heal and decide if I’ll be deleting it or not. In this difficult time, please try to be respectful of the accounts of myself, my family and my friends. Mining our accounts for photos of dad, or judging me on the number of them is cruel and unnecessary. There are a couple throughout, but the real private moments I shared with him were precious, quiet, and believe it or not, not full of photos or ‘selfies’. I shared him with a world where everyone was taking their photo with him, but I was lucky enough to spend time with him without cameras too. That was more than enough, and I’m grateful for what little time I had. My favorite photos of family are framed in my house, not posted on social media, and they ‘ll remain there. They would’ve wound up on the news or blogs then, and they certainly would now. That’s not what I want for our memories together. Thank you for your respect and understanding in this difficult time. Goodbye. Xo.
It’s a fact that so much of our lives is lived out online, but this in no way means that all parts of our lived are lived out online. To say that our relationships are only limited to that which is seen or “liked” by others is insulting.
The best we can do right now is send Zelda and her family all of our love.
