Bit of a trigger warning on this episode for anyone who has been in a potentially dangerous situation on social media. This was a really difficult episode to record, probably the hardest one yet, because I've never talked about it until now, with anyone. When I was a teenager, social media was just starting to become a constant thing. It had been around for a number of years, but by the time I hit my teens, thanks to smart technology and things by a brand called Apple beginning with "i", social media was becoming more accessible than it had ever been before. Gone were the days of having to log into Facebook from your computer, or when 3G (!!!) was a thing in 2007 and every time we accidentally clicked on the Internet button on our brick phones we'd shit ourselves, because our parents would have a fucking fit when the phone bill arrived at the end of the month and go insane. (Nope, that one actually wasn't me!) In 2013, I made my first Instagram account shortly before my 16th birthday, and seven years on I still use it more than most social media apps. You can do so much more with it now - with most apps - than you ever could back then. I experimented with photo filters, used roughly 38 hashtags on each picture, posted cryptic emo quotes, and followed everyone who randomly liked my pictures. About a month after I made the account, a creep slid into my DMs (not at all uncommon in 2020, unfortunately), but this was a different type of creep, the worst type of Instagram creep that seven years later we are trained to look out for and avoid like crazy. But back then, with the accessibility of social media being so new, nobody was talking about this stuff, because it wasn't anywhere near as common as it is today. Safeguarding, stranger danger and all that is still so important, but social media introduced a whole different dimension to it, with online grooming becoming more prevalent all over the globe, which is exactly what happened to me at the age of 16. This was a really tough experience to go through, and it wasn't until earlier this year that I realised the impact and extent of what had happened to me. This is partly because I completely blocked it out and refused to acknowledge it, but also because I did some online safeguarding training during lockdown and it got me thinking deeply about this particular experience. For anyone who has been affected by anything similar, this might be triggering to listen to, so please feel free to skip this episode if you would wish, as I do talk about some difficult stuff. Here are some useful links that talk about online grooming and similar situations: https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/bullying-abuse-safety/online-mobile-safety/online-grooming/ and https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/articles/Online-grooming/