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When Ashley VanPevenage let her friend post a before-and-after makeup pic of her, she never imagined that it would go viral, let alone turn into a crazy meme. She certainly didn't expect that the pics—meant only to showcase her friend's cosmetic skills—would haunt her all across the internet.

"In January of 2015, a friend of mine who runs a makeup Instagram account asked to do my makeup," Ashley explained to us. "I was having an allergic reaction to Benzyl Peroxide at the time and I knew I needed help covering my acne. The make-up artist posted a before and after photo of my make over on her IG timeline. Months later, I was told that there was a meme circulating of me. At that point, my meme had been shared over 125 thousand times. I think at one point Twitter tracked my meme at over 5 million shares."

The image, a side-by-side pic, was captioned with the phrase, "This is the reason you have to take a [girl] swimming on the first date," and was followed by hundreds of horrible comments about Ashley's appearance and acne—and jokes about how girls wearing makeup is "false advertising."

"I already had a hard time struggling with my acne and now it was impossible for me to have any self confidence, knowing what people were saying about me."

But Ashley decided not to take the hate lying down. Instead, she posted a video to her YouTube speaking out against the meanness and offering her own story. Check it out.

"I wanted to get the message out there is a real person behind those memes everyone laughs at," Ashley shared. "I wanted people to know that I wasn’t going to let the horrible comments or negativity get to me. I wanted to use my own experience to help out anyone else who may be a victim of being cyber-bullied."

Now, Ashley's doing even more. She's teamed up with Curology and the Tyler Clementi Foundation to start a campaign called #CureTheHate that aims to combat cyber-bullying and acne-shaming.

She's also telling her story on Syfy's new show The Internet Ruined My Life—catch her episode airing tonight, March 9, at 10:00 p.m.

By sharing her story and putting a name and a face to one of those seemingly silly memes we see online, Ashley is showing how powerful and strong our words can be—and that, though they can do damage, especially when they come from anonymous accounts behind a computer screen, they can also be used to make other people stronger and to raise up friends and strangers alike.

Are you inspired by Ashley's experience? How do you stand up to bullies? Tune in to see Ashley tell her story on Syfy tonight at 10:00 p.m.

Photos credit: Syfy, Ashley VanPevenage

by Chelsea Duff | 3/9/2016