Thought Of The Day-Bully Wars

Off Topic
81

[quote]JLD2k3 wrote:
Interesting thread. I figured I would weigh in on a few things.

I was very small growing up, smaller than all the girls, and I got picked on a lot in preschool and K-1. I had a really bad temper, too, so when I had enough, I let people have it. I got in a lot of trouble and I was called a bully because I won the fights. Nobody seemed to care about what happened leading up to the fight, or that I was never the first to throw a punch or a kick. I was just the bad kid because at the end of the incident the other kids were crying and I was just beet red from anger. After 1st grade I didn’t get picked on anymore because one way or another the other kids got the idea that I was going to beat them up. In 4th grade I got in trouble because this punk kid on the bus was touching a younger girl between the legs and I bent his finger back and broke it. His parents marched him with his finger splint to my front door and I got a whoopin because the girl wouldn’t say what the other kid had done to her. So, long story short, “bullying” is hard to define and a lot of the time the wrong kid is punished or at least not listened to.

The Rutgers situation is terrible. As I understand it, the guy asked for the room, so he’s entitled to privacy when the door is closed and locked. The other kid may have been weirded out by his roomie having gay sex in there, but of course he had no right to access his webcam while his roomie had asked for the room. He should have had nothing to react to. When he saw what was going on, what he did was the ultimate in D-baggery. 18-year old gay males are usually not out of the closet and of course it’s a private matter. It doesn’t matter what he feels about finding out his roomie is having gay sex in the privacy of the room, even if it’s a shared room. He needs to address it privately with his roomie, and shouldn’t tell anyone. That’s room mate code as far as I’m concerned.

Anyway, I’ve probably said more than anybody will really take time to read, but the bottom line is I think that kids need to be empowered to stand up for themselves, not punished for hitting back. [/quote]

It stinks that the girl wouldn’t tell what happened to her but it was probably out of embarrassment or humiliation.

The sad thing is nothing can happen to the roommate. He should be made to pay somehow. I would sue him for wrongful death or something. I hope he doesn’t get straight As because his roommate committed suicide.

82

To me, it looks like some people are actually forgetting what it was like to be a teenager. Now I’m only 21, so it’s not like I am way past my adolescent stage but I sure can look back at myself 7 or eight years ago and laugh. But I sure wasn’t laughing at the time.

From the ages of 4-12 I went to a very small school where I was part of the cool kids(big fish in a very tiny pond, maybe 40 students in the whole school and only 4 teachers) and then from 13-18 I went into a school with about 600 pupils and I got the shock of my life. I was at the bottom of a whole new ladder and to make things worse, I had somehow become scrawnier, my glasses looked like crap(I wasn’t exactly fashion consious) and I was ginger(believe it or not, this actually played a part).

None of the cool kids wanted to hang with me but I played off some of the friendships I made in my old school for some social status(i.e not being a COMPLETE loser) and although there were some harsh taunts made in my direction from time to time, I didn’t back down from the occasional threat made by the ‘hard men’ of my year(got into one or two pushing matches but never any fights). I had also been obsessed with lifting for as long as I could remember(I just never had the brains to actually go to the gym and ask the big dudes). So when my brother bought the Rocky anthology I began doing as many pushups, situps and curls in my room as you could imagine. Since nobody at my school lifted or did anything close, I became the ‘strong guy’. I could beat the biggest in arm-wrestles and for some reason I could take a punch in the arm from the biggest and srongest without it hurting very much.
So that was how I created my own status when I was 14. That was actually very important in my development because I didn’t start to become comfortable with myself until I was about 16 and if I didn’t have the reputation as the ‘strong dude’ who could take as many punches as the kids could give without getting sore, than things might have been very different for me. I sure had the right ingredients to be a bullied dude.

I count myself lucky that I was about 17 before things like Bebo and Facebook became popular and hit the scene.

Just a few weeks ago, my best friend called me and asked me to help him look for his younger brother.(My buddy lives out of home and his brother is 13). He had told me before that his brother had been getting into fights and stuff but to me he just showed signs of being an uncomfortable teenager looking to prove himself to the other kids to avoid getting bullied. We looked around for a while and eventually came across an old lady who overheard us discussing where to look. She pointed us in the right direction and we confronted a group of about forty 13 year olds.
We managed to extract my friends brother and talked to him for a bit. He had been drawn into a few fights, and had even been tricked into organising them because he was so conscious about what others would think of him if he backed down.
He had even been concussed at one stage due to fights and they were only getting more frequent because some other kids had seen the opportunity to look like a big man.

The thing is, when we got him to my car and talked to him he just broke down in tears. As far as he was conerned, his life was over. The humiliation in school would have been incredible.(Of course, it has all blown over by now) but I was still stunned by the effect your peer-group can have on you at that age. It actually brought back a lot of memories of being awkward and worried about what the cool kids thought.
As seems to be standard these days, the fights were put up on youtube and apparently ‘everybody was expecting this one’ until we showed up and spoiled the party(big, tough men that we are).

Try to remember that what others think of you is the end all and be all when you are that age. And it actually important to go through that stage in your life to realise just how little it matters what most people think of you.

83

the guy that got some national media attention for storming onto a school bus and verbally threatening a bunch of punks he thought(mistakenly though) were bullying his special needs daughter is a fucking HERO in my book…

that being said, I sort of agree and disagree with the OP. Yes I too was picked on as a kid, the worst in middle school through junior high, and yes it was motivation for me to get big and strong, but i also think parents and education professionals etc. should know when to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

I gained 40lbs of muscle between my junior and senior year of highschool, went from nobody chubby kid to all state track and field in shot-put and hammer, AND won the school weightlifting championship. I took it upon myself to stick up for the nerds and misfits that got ruthlessly picked on in my school. it was sort of my way of going back in time and taking up for the short chubby kid (me) that got bullied when nobody else would help. I wish others is similar situations would do the same.

84

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

[quote]JLD2k3 wrote:
Interesting thread. I figured I would weigh in on a few things.

I was very small growing up, smaller than all the girls, and I got picked on a lot in preschool and K-1. I had a really bad temper, too, so when I had enough, I let people have it. I got in a lot of trouble and I was called a bully because I won the fights. Nobody seemed to care about what happened leading up to the fight, or that I was never the first to throw a punch or a kick. I was just the bad kid because at the end of the incident the other kids were crying and I was just beet red from anger. After 1st grade I didn’t get picked on anymore because one way or another the other kids got the idea that I was going to beat them up. In 4th grade I got in trouble because this punk kid on the bus was touching a younger girl between the legs and I bent his finger back and broke it. His parents marched him with his finger splint to my front door and I got a whoopin because the girl wouldn’t say what the other kid had done to her. So, long story short, “bullying” is hard to define and a lot of the time the wrong kid is punished or at least not listened to.

The Rutgers situation is terrible. As I understand it, the guy asked for the room, so he’s entitled to privacy when the door is closed and locked. The other kid may have been weirded out by his roomie having gay sex in there, but of course he had no right to access his webcam while his roomie had asked for the room. He should have had nothing to react to. When he saw what was going on, what he did was the ultimate in D-baggery. 18-year old gay males are usually not out of the closet and of course it’s a private matter. It doesn’t matter what he feels about finding out his roomie is having gay sex in the privacy of the room, even if it’s a shared room. He needs to address it privately with his roomie, and shouldn’t tell anyone. That’s room mate code as far as I’m concerned.

Anyway, I’ve probably said more than anybody will really take time to read, but the bottom line is I think that kids need to be empowered to stand up for themselves, not punished for hitting back. [/quote]

It stinks that the girl wouldn’t tell what happened to her but it was probably out of embarrassment or humiliation.

The sad thing is nothing can happen to the roommate. He should be made to pay somehow. I would sue him for wrongful death or something. I hope he doesn’t get straight As because his roommate committed suicide.[/quote]

I’m pretty sure the roommate who broadcasted the video can face criminal charges for streaming the video without consent. I, too, would like to see him sued.

85

[quote]JLD2k3 wrote:

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

[quote]JLD2k3 wrote:
Interesting thread. I figured I would weigh in on a few things.

I was very small growing up, smaller than all the girls, and I got picked on a lot in preschool and K-1. I had a really bad temper, too, so when I had enough, I let people have it. I got in a lot of trouble and I was called a bully because I won the fights. Nobody seemed to care about what happened leading up to the fight, or that I was never the first to throw a punch or a kick. I was just the bad kid because at the end of the incident the other kids were crying and I was just beet red from anger. After 1st grade I didn’t get picked on anymore because one way or another the other kids got the idea that I was going to beat them up. In 4th grade I got in trouble because this punk kid on the bus was touching a younger girl between the legs and I bent his finger back and broke it. His parents marched him with his finger splint to my front door and I got a whoopin because the girl wouldn’t say what the other kid had done to her. So, long story short, “bullying” is hard to define and a lot of the time the wrong kid is punished or at least not listened to.

The Rutgers situation is terrible. As I understand it, the guy asked for the room, so he’s entitled to privacy when the door is closed and locked. The other kid may have been weirded out by his roomie having gay sex in there, but of course he had no right to access his webcam while his roomie had asked for the room. He should have had nothing to react to. When he saw what was going on, what he did was the ultimate in D-baggery. 18-year old gay males are usually not out of the closet and of course it’s a private matter. It doesn’t matter what he feels about finding out his roomie is having gay sex in the privacy of the room, even if it’s a shared room. He needs to address it privately with his roomie, and shouldn’t tell anyone. That’s room mate code as far as I’m concerned.

Anyway, I’ve probably said more than anybody will really take time to read, but the bottom line is I think that kids need to be empowered to stand up for themselves, not punished for hitting back. [/quote]

It stinks that the girl wouldn’t tell what happened to her but it was probably out of embarrassment or humiliation.

The sad thing is nothing can happen to the roommate. He should be made to pay somehow. I would sue him for wrongful death or something. I hope he doesn’t get straight As because his roommate committed suicide.[/quote]

I’m pretty sure the roommate who broadcasted the video can face criminal charges for streaming the video without consent. I, too, would like to see him sued. [/quote]

X2

Why did he set up the webcam in the first place? What is so strange about asking for some privacy?

86

Ok, this lady compares bullying to genocide.

Is this part of the problem? Are people making too big of a deal out of this issue. Some bullying may get out of hand, but genocide?

87

I don’t know about genocide. I understand the dehumanizing effect of both, but…bullying isn’t about the systematic extermination of a population, it’s about making someone feel like shit so you feel better. It’s a self esteem thing, where genocide is a belief: my people are better than yours, your people are the reasons everything bad happens to my people, therefore you need to not exist anymore.

88

On a related note, if this actually sets some sort of legal precedent, that will be huge (and about time):

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=19983

89

[quote]TallBaldDave wrote:
I think there’s a big difference between the “assholes” who end up in management, and the “bullies” who end up in prison. The assholes (usually jocks), did off-hand pranks and (mostly) irritating stuff. Whereas the real bullies seemed to really live for making others’ lives miserable.
[/quote]

I still think the issue isn’t quite so cut and dry as some want to make of it. I mean come on now, that one kid who got a lot of news coverage a few weeks back was at rutgers - as were the supposed bullies, an asian girl and an Indian kid. Not exactly the low functioning doofus type that people are trying to pigeonhole all bullies as.

In reality I think that’s what most bullies are, fairly normal people who are just pricks, and not some stereotypical al bundy caricature giving wedgies to dorks at recess.

90

It looks like the roommate also tweeted about it…

91

[quote]Eli B wrote:
I’ve read that the single biggest influence on a young persons mind is their peer group[/quote]

I agree. I’d say that a strong ‘peer’ influence can be offset by good parenting, but weak parenting coupled with a strong peer influence is a recipe for disaster. Especially if your ‘peers’ became your ‘peers’ through their own lack of parental guidance.

In a situation where a bunch of troubled kids come together through circumstance, you have to wonder where the actual ‘bullying’ begins and ends. Is the real bully a well brought-up, but malajusted kid whose wont is to force his ‘lieutenants’ to pick on weaker kids to assert his authority?

Or was he beaten up by his step-dad and followed suit in the schoolyard?

It’s a hugely complicated situation, and made even more difficult to fathom now more than ever because a lack of a peer group is no longer a problem thanks to the internet.

Personally, I think the term ‘peer group’ is redundant and always was. ‘Peer’ implies ‘equal’. Dig into the background of a group of supposed ‘equals’ and you’ll soon find the person who’s calling the shots. You’re either a loner or you aren’t. The question is always who is doing the influencing and who is influencing them? The answers flow quite freely after that.

92

I’m glad this thread was started, because I had a massive argument with my best friend’s mom and her friend over bullying.

93

“Americans are unhappy about the level of violence in the schools, which keeps going up,
and the educational standards, which keep going down.
Parents are increasingly concerned that their children are not safe in public schools…”

“our education system is far more expensive to administer and
at-the same time sinking to unprecedented levels”

on the way to a public “school”

boob-hatcheries becoming even worse.

94

Looks like the first boy just gave into the teasing from the other kids. It’s not much of an excuse but there are probably lots of kids that would’ve done the same.

The second kid is just a little douche looking for a bit of attention.

The kid that broke it up seems like a very mature and level headed young man. I don’t know if I would’ve done the same at his age, so well done to him.

95

[quote]Zaroaster wrote:

Completely depends on the place. I live in nyc now, and used to live in LA, and assholes run both of these cities at all levels.

[/quote]

Just because the people who “run” these cities are assholes now, does not mean they were the type to bully others in high school. I’ve noticed the same thing as X, in that most of the bullies don’t end up as successful as the nerds or quiet people. The biggest assholes hang out at the local bars 5 nights a week and work blue collar jobs.

I live 15 minutes outside of Manhattan and have worked in the city for 5 years so I’m from the area. I agree that the most of the very successful people are assholes. But I’ve also seen alot of them transform into asshole right in front of my eyes in college and in the work place. Alot of times it’s the whole “turn over a new leaf” experience that happens to people who move away to college and who end up getting a job in NYC. It doesn’t necessarily mean they were bullies when they were younger.

I’ll admit, I did a little bit of bullying when I was younger. I didn’t think nothing of it, but I’ve been confronted or twice later on in my late 20’s by a couple people I bullied. I apologized. One of them didn’t seem satisfied with the apology. I’m not sure what else he wanted me to say. It’s not like I recorded him doing gay porn and put it on youtube, I just called him a few names.

96

[quote]sam_sneed wrote:

[quote]Zaroaster wrote:

Completely depends on the place. I live in nyc now, and used to live in LA, and assholes run both of these cities at all levels.

[/quote]

Just because the people who “run” these cities are assholes now, does not mean they were the type to bully others in high school. I’ve noticed the same thing as X, in that most of the bullies don’t end up as successful as the nerds or quiet people. The biggest assholes hang out at the local bars 5 nights a week and work blue collar jobs.

I live 15 minutes outside of Manhattan and have worked in the city for 5 years so I’m from the area. I agree that the most of the very successful people are assholes. But I’ve also seen alot of them transform into asshole right in front of my eyes in college and in the work place. Alot of times it’s the whole “turn over a new leaf” experience that happens to people who move away to college and who end up getting a job in NYC. It doesn’t necessarily mean they were bullies when they were younger.

I’ll admit, I did a little bit of bullying when I was younger. I didn’t think nothing of it, but I’ve been confronted or twice later on in my late 20’s by a couple people I bullied. I apologized. One of them didn’t seem satisfied with the apology. I’m not sure what else he wanted me to say. It’s not like I recorded him doing gay porn and put it on youtube, I just called him a few names.[/quote]

Agree completely. Being an “asshole” when older doesn’t mean you were a bully when a little kid. Some people who were bullied become assholes because they were bullied. Hell, some “nice guys” turn into jerks after finding out that women don’t seem to really go for “nice guys”. That doesn’t mean they were jerks to start with.

In general, I seriously doubt the people who spent a great deal of time as kids fucking up other kids end up becoming more successful than their peers over the age of 25…unless they changed drastically themselves.

As far as being “assholes” in New York, I thought that was mandatory to become successful in that city. I can see why most successful people there are and doubt it has anything at all to do with who they were as kids.