Go to hell, bitch.

The unregulated world of social media has become a playground for us all. Digital and analogue lives are inextricably linked. We share private information, comments and intimate images in real time. But what happens when our images fall into the wrong hands, when boundaries are crossed or personal information is misused?

In #BYEBITCH, the young audience witnesses how the quest for popularity on social media escalates and leads to devastating consequences. Who does the spread of hate and hostility allow to feel powerful? What happens on the other side? How can a group become a safe space?

Inspired by celinesvoice, a cyberbullying prevention initiative by the Pfister couple from Spreitenbach AG, the Stick Around collective has developed an interactive play at the Schauspielhaus Zürich. The focus is on missed opportunities when people could have intervened with civic courage – because the reality is that perpetrators are almost impossible to stop. Supporting the victims goes without saying. But it is the wider community that must intervene – and, in the best-case scenario, prevent such incidents – and this can only be done by those who are seemingly uninvolved, by taking action.

---​

The Stick Around collective’s artistic research explores suicide, the despair of young people and the reasons why they give up, whilst questioning social structures. Suicide is a phenomenon at the heart of society. Particularly during adolescence, the question of the meaning of life is ever-present, and young people are often regularly confronted with suicidal thoughts even at a young age. That is why Stick Around sees the need, as an artists’ collective, to respond to this and create appropriate initiatives. In doing so, they do not limit the topic exclusively to ‘suicide’, but take the issues and questions faced by young people as a starting point for their thinking, questioning and dialogue.