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Local 16-year-old fights online bullies with positive message

Posted at 6:48 PM, Sep 15, 2014
and last updated 2014-09-16 10:19:47-04

A local 16-year-old high school student, Jordyn Bensyl, is a YouTube personality who has more than 85,000 followers and is wildly talented.

Unfortunately, she became the victim of online bullying like so many other teens, so she made a bold decision about how to approach it and her answer is in a video.

It starts out with words written on the screen over a soft piece of piano music. "I asked you one question," it reads. "What makes you happy?" "Here's what I've found."

Just a few weeks ago, Bensyl was a victim of cyberbullying.

"It was just a really rough time for me,” she said during an interview Monday.

"People were just writing really rude stuff on a Twitter account," she said. "Some of them were, like, threatening comments."

Instead of returning hate with hate, however, Bensyl did what would probably be hard for most adults: She returned hate with love.

"I was, like, really sad in that time. I didn't really know where to turn, so I thought I would get some inspiration from my subscribers," she said.

The 16-year-old junior at Oak Park High School asked for other girls to send her videos of what makes them happy. The video has more than 9,000 views. The response she got was global.

Girls started their videos saying where they were from, including England, Massachusetts, New York and Australia.

Her experience is not uncommon. According to nobullying.com, 20 percent of U.S. students in grades nine through 12 have experienced bullying and 70 percent of teens have seen bullying in their schools.

Bensyl, at such a young age, is one of the few who will change the statistics.

"It let more positivity in my life," she said.

Oak Park High School Principal Mark Maus talked about cyberbullying at his school. Like a lot of schools, he said they try to get to the source as soon as they hear a complaint.

"Any time there is a report of bullying, anything, whether it is cyber or if it's something that is reported in the hallway, we immediately investigate it and try to gather every piece of evidence that we can and intervene on the students behalf," Maus said.

Bensyl continues to make videos - she says - because it makes her happy.