A young woman from East China’s Zhejiang Province who suffered cyberbullying because of her pink hair, was reported dead after struggling with depression.

Photo from Internet

“Due to cyberbullying and campus bullies, my friend Zheng Linghua left me forever on January 23, 2023,” a close friend of Zheng (screen name “Egggie”) revealed on social media on Sunday.

In July 2022, Zheng Linghua, a 24-year-old university graduate from Hangzhou, shared on her social media her story of rising all the way from being an art student who almost went to a vocational high school to attending a prestigious graduate school to purse a degree in music. She updated a photograph of the moment she shared this happy news with her grandfather, who is sick and bedridden. Her pink hair quickly became a target of online scorn.

Some people compared her to a "nightclub girl,” while others made links between her pink hair and prostitution. Some accounts stole her pictures to fabricate stories and rumors for their own purposes, including selling online courses. Some even targeted her sick grandfather.

“This incident has greatly affected my life and study. No matter how hard I’ve tried, my emotions and energy are totally disturbed by this event. Now I am very depressed,” Zheng said in an interview last July.

Zheng said she suffered sleep and eating disorders but was working hard to adjust, whether through reading or seeking medical help. Many people also gave her encouragement and good wishes, hoping she could come out of the shadow as soon as possible.

Zheng later took legal action against people who abused her online for her pink hair. She told reporters that she hoped her pink hair would become a symbol of resistance to online bullying.

Zheng started her graduate program in September last year, hoping everything would get better, but her depression relapsed and she had to stop her studies for treatment.

(Compiled by Xiong Yiyang)