Artist Turns Awful Cyberbullying Messages Into A Way To Empower Women (Photos)

Especially here at Elite Daily, we're no strangers to Internet trolls and hateful comments. Anytime you put something up for the world to see, you open yourself up to criticism. But what happens when the content of these messages is largely gendered?

You turn the online bullying into kick-ass empowering art, like 21-year-old Lindsay Bottos did.

The art student is no stranger to vicious online commentary, with people telling her to "get an STD and die." What could she be doing to deserve such cruel backlash? Taking selfies.

Seriously... that's all there is. Bottos uses her Tumblr to post her selfie projects and has even been described by art publications as "honest and melancholy in the best ways possible." But instead of admiring her art, the Internet is more concerned with spewing hate all over it.

Rather than succumb to the words of her haters, Bottos decided to superimpose them on her selfies and uploaded them to her Tumblr page. The project is a forthright look at sexist insults online and the objectification of women, their sexuality and their bodies.

Bottos writes, "I get tons of anonymous messages like this every day and while this isn't unique to women, the content of the messages and the frequency in which I get them are definitely related to my gender ... The authority people feel they have to share their opinion on my appearance is something myself and many other girls online deal with daily."

Check out Lindsay Bottos' project on her Tumblr page; it's a startling look at how we pepper our commentary with sexist remarks and gender inequalities. Just because an artist is female, furthermore, does not mean we can remark on her body. We need to stop tying being "female" with criticism of a woman's aesthetics.

H/T: Policy Mic, Photos Courtesy: Lindsay Bottos