Something Amazing.

[Shinsei-J]

After a few years of being here I feel a lot of us on the Escapist have suffered from some sort of torment from people.
These issues are a sad thing and they hit home for me too after being bullied for years but the feelings you have during this time are hard thing to articulate. Now I've found something that describes it all too well.


I cried after watching it and I hope you do too because it's a beautiful thing.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Meh, I wasn't really bullied as a kid.

I didn't let myself be a victim and I was surrounded by friends who had my back.

Helps if you're funny too. People are less inclined to beat up the kid who made them laugh

 

[Bertylicious]

Suprisingly I was never victimised at school; my peers were all pretty good sorts and we all had a laugh together.

Anyway, everybody knows that thumping the socially awkward is the best way to build character. It's why we have so many wars.

 

[taciturnCandid]

After a few years of being here I feel a lot of us on the Escapist have suffered from some sort of torment from people.
These issues are a sad thing and they hit home for me too after being bullied for years but the feelings you have during this time are hard thing to articulate. Now I've found something that describes it all too well.


I cried after watching it and I hope you do too because it's a beautiful thing.

Cried after watching it. The whole thing made me cry and I don't cry very often.

A ton of what they say is true and maybe some were lucky enough to find a way to escape negative social pressure. Maybe some people stood up and had people leave them alone or found a way to laugh about it. But those who both failed ended up hurt. Hurt and still have in the back of their mind doubts because of rejection

I still have self-esteem problems. Those who say they just got over it were the lucky ones. It isn't the occasional word that hurts, it is the systematic never-ending barrage. It is being taught to be inferior. To be taught that even if you say something or stand up for yourself that nothing changes. That you are still laughed at and still rejected.

I had friends, but they all were going though similar things and were too taught to just lay down to stand up. Learned helplessness meant that it was too late.

But I'm glad this video was made. maybe some people who found a way not to be rejected can understand just a little bit more.

 

[Quaxar]

Meh, I wasn't really bullied as a kid.

I didn't let myself be a victim and I was surrounded by friends who had my back.

Helps if you're funny too. People are less inclined to beat up the kid who made them laugh

Amateur. I carried a gun to school. Shut those bullies right up!
Unfortunately, it didn't do much good for my teaching practice review.

I kid of course.
Got an A+ for making that kid cry like a baby.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

That was pretty damned good, I can partially relate (I wasn't bullied at school, so much as shunned, until I found my friends. My older brothers bullied me quite a lot though). I think a lot of people who didn't have to deal with it struggle to understand how it still affects you years later, even if it might not have seemed like much to the bullies at the time (I know that if I told my brothers now how big an effect they had on me now they would be pretty damn shocked).

 

[Korolev]

Nice animation style.

I wasn't bullied at school. I went to a fancy private school that actually took bullying half-seriously. Also, I managed to avoid bullying by basically mimicking wall paper, so that no one would notice me, and it worked - no one did. Nobody hated me, nobody liked me, I was just "some guy" who went to school. Sure, it would have been fun to have been popular, but I settled for not being hated or noticed or bullied.

But I think I can relate how bullying hurts people in ways they don't want to admit. These days, you have adults who say "why is there so much fuss about bullying?", without really understanding that it can be very traumatic for a child. When you're 30 and have a career and a family, when you look back at bullying (even if you experienced it yourself), it seems like a distant thing, something that's not so bad. But of course, the 13 year old or the 10 year old kid being bullied has a very different perspective than an adult. A 10 year old or a 13 year old kid might not have things in their life they can feel good about. They don't have the experience to deal with harassment or bullying, so for them it is much, much worse.

I've seen the effects of bullying. I know one kid who tried to kill himself. It wasn't just the bullying, he had other things going on at home, but the bullying contributed. Luckily he didn't kill himself. I know of people who descended into abusive relationships because bullying made them feel as if they couldn't do any better. I know of people who, to this day, refuse to even be in relationships because of the deep-seated insecurity bullying instilled in their minds.

It's a serious problem. One that adults tend to overlook because either they never experienced it, or because, for most, it has become a distant memory of a different life. But it still hurts the kids who bear the brunt of it.

Unfortunately, what can one do? Kids are idiots, for the most part. They're selfish, and most of them cannot comprehend the gravity of their actions. You can't punish kids in the same way you'd punish adults. What can the authorities do? It's up to parents to stop their kids from bullying, but parents have a natural instinct to defend their children and see their kids in the best light possible.

 

[Starik20X6]

-snip-

I just saw this the other day and had forgotten what it was called. Thank you for finding it again. One of our teachers made us watch it in class. I found it incredibly moving.

 

[axlryder]

Very beautiful. I've seen his performances before. They're very good. As someone who got the shit beat out of them regularly, I can say that words hurt far worse, and often cut much deeper.

 

[Coach Morrison]

I thought the video was nicely put together and just wonderful. Though I was lucky enough to have teachers that cared early on and just stopped caring in the later part, so bullying was never a big problem for me. Though the video is still very depressing.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Oh, man, that was moving.
I've seen it before but it's still just as impacting.
Anyway.
It still saddens me that people think bullying is something we simply can't stop like it's some intangible force that we have literally NO WAY of fighting. To me, that's an excuse made by people who don't want to try.
I was never *seriously* bullied though so maybe I'm too optimistic, but that's what I think.

 

[Ruedyn]

I got partially bullied, stood up to all but a kid with a hearing aid. I've walked away with bruises, but never lost a fight, and I think that's why it stopped for me, as I'm chubby and always have friends that are 'weird'. I hate too think what would've happened if I didn't get the correct genes...

The video was well put together, and the speaker is quite good. I teared up a bit.

 

[Damy]

I couldn't watch it. I was bullied a well as the bully.