Why is bullying still an issue?

Recommended Videos

Xanadu84

New member
Apr 9, 2008
2,946
0
0
The fact that millions of years of brutal, sadistic evolution drills the idea of killing at the slightest provocation, and yet that shows itself as bullying with very few deaths and a huge backlash is absolutely amazing.

You can't get rid of bullying though. We have come a long way, but we arn't perfect. How would you stop it? Zero Tolerance when a kid shows up after recess with bruises? Okay, but what about when a kid stands up to a bully, gives the bully a bloody nose, and then that kid gets the book thrown at him for self-defense? What about when a bully decides to screw with his target by accusing his target of bullying? What if a kid makes a mean comment on a bad day, and that screws over the kid? Do we plant a bug on every kid and put CCTV everywhere down to the bathrooms? Even if we became the thought police, how do you handle social bullies who ostracize and ignore the bullied? Unfortunately, bullying is too entrenched in life to be simply eradicated.
 

Bob_Dobb

New member
Aug 22, 2011
207
0
0
Well I can't see why it is still an issue, but to solve it schools need to make MLP Studies mandatory from Grade 1 to 12.
 

lonelymonkey

New member
Jan 26, 2011
2
0
0
Shit this is fucked up and i thought i was bullied badly im glad i dont live in the USA then again i dont think u guys have seen big until u have met a pacific islander and man do they hit hard
 

drisky

New member
Mar 16, 2009
1,605
0
0
Fuck the Darwinists of this thread, fighting back doesn't do shit when you are the easy target. Any attempts I had to fight back were laughable, I was the smallest and weakest in my class, thats why I was bullied. I was routinely beaten by the guys and emotionally abused by the girls every good damn day. How the hell to you "man up" against 5 people twice your size. Quit being Nazis and stop treating human beings like a weakness to get crushed. Also these experiences didn't toughen me up for the real world. It did teach me empathy for other people, knowing what its like to have nothing. Seriously, I have so much hate of a good section of the escapist right now.
 

Zing

New member
Oct 22, 2009
2,069
0
0
usmarine4160 said:
It's never going to stop, human nature.

Teach little boys how to be men and suck it up? Teach little girls to do whatever it is girls do?
This. People are too sensitive.
 

Vykrel

New member
Feb 26, 2009
1,317
0
0
bullying is still an issue because bad parenting is still an issue. if the parents arent teaching the kids not to be little shitheads to other people, then they will have to learn on their own... or never learn.
 

thelonewolf266

New member
Nov 18, 2010
708
0
0
In general people are ass-holes accept that and live your life the best you can, if enough people do that eventually it will change that's all you can really do.
 

dancinginfernal

New member
Sep 5, 2009
1,871
0
0
I used to have a real problem with bullying, mostly because of my long hair and lanky build. As soon as I worked my way through Freshman year I somehow worked myself into a state of extremely high self-esteem that came with self-identification. I suppose it has to do with realizing sheeple populate the majority of High Schools.

I guess you can never stop bullying, but you can help your kids be better prepared for it. Raising your kids to be intelligent, adaptive, self-sufficient, yet not afraid to ask for assistance, and generally sure of themselves would be a start. Many parents in the area blame schools and the government for not raising their child correctly, or not, ahem, "providing a stable environment in the schools for our children." That part obviously being bullshit, since our school is near the top 10 for NH public schools.

There are plenty of other explanations that could explain why bullying has proceeded to such a ridiculous state of being problematic, and how they could be resolved. I could go on listing them, but I'd rather go to bed early tonight.

Also,

Fudg40 said:
6 foot 7? I wouldn't dare make fun of someone that tall. We used to have a kid that was 6' 9" at my school and he was revered as a god for it.

I will never understand how people can alienate tall people, they're so awesome. You, sir, are an unappreciated king among ignorant serfs.
 

Carbonyl

New member
Jun 2, 2011
451
0
0
erykweb said:
Carbonyl said:
snake4769 said:
Then its natural selection. Might be sick to say, but if they are weak willed to stay down, then STAY DOWN and die.

I am sorry but i feel as if im strong willed enough to go down in a blaze of glory. I'd sooner die trying to hurt the person trying to hurt me before killing myself.
Snake, you have no idea what you're talking about. It's obvious you've never felt so entirely helpless that you shut down and can't even bring yourself to resist believing what bullies say. When you're a kid, no one takes you seriously, no one gives you agency and you don't have any rights. When no one is your friend and no one is willing to back you up, when you don't conform to the normal standard of childhood behavior, your word is a good as dirt. No one listens to a kid and no one wants to. There was no one to help me. I lived in fear. I had no idea why people didn't like me and why they were hurting me and I thought it was my fault because I was small, and alone, and trapped. How was I supposed to contradict a grownup, who could I tell that I was bullied by the people I told on the bullies to? Between the ages of 4 and 10 you have about zero options for escaping that. By the time you get out of elementary school you have been so damaged by the experiences of your formative years that you don't even understand the idea of fighting back, you don't get to fight back, you're you and you're not worth fighting back for because it won't do ANYTHING. That's what you learn. You learn to shut up and sit down and TAKE IT. The ONLY reason I started to fight back was for my brother, I never would have done it for myself. I'm lucky, without that reason to fight I never would have, and I would have been one of those kids on the news.

Kids who are bullied are not the weakest. No one is the weakest and Social Darwinism is bullshit. No one can fight back against almost everyone that makes up their world, especially when they're 6. When the elementary school equivalent of the Third Reich decides you're enough standard deviations from the master race of coolness, no manner of advantageous characteristics will make it better. The problem is, if you get caught fighting back, you get beaten back down by the school or police, you're not allowed to fight and if you do you're the trouble-maker. Words will get you nowhere and you're not allowed to hit.

I had to fight kids on the way home from school, and no one was willing to tell anyone that the smallest girl in fifth grade just beat them and their six friends up. Little girls don't give boys black eyes.

Bullied kids aren't weak, they're afraid, and they're indoctrinated.

Honestly, This has more to do with being smarter than everyone else. Even at age 7, I could talk around the system. And when you are smarter, people tend to get irritated with you. I was never bullied. Why? Because the first time 3 kids tried to beat me up they ended up on the blacktop bleeding from their noses and fat lips. And I rubbed it in. They were beat and they felt it every time I spoke a word to them. I was not bigger or stronger than they were- I was smarter. Now, once you reach adulthood, this tends to even out a bit; the gap of intelligence becomes smaller, but it runs on the same principle. If you are taught correctly, and brought up correctly, then it will not be an issue. So every time I hear someone say they were bullied by person x, or psychologically scarred by person Y, I have little sympathy. If you make a display of violence against them, that is good. But if you hit them where they feel it psychologically- no one will ever bother. Fear is an emotion, the easier to invoke it is, the better off you will be.

Bullied kids ARE weak. They are made that way by the bullies. But they are not at the beginning. If they are smarter than the bullies at their own game, then there is never a problem.

Kid, I was and am still smarter than every one of those kids, I knew algebra at the age of five, I understood the structure of hemoglobin and the process of cell division when I was four. I was more eloquent, more observant, and knew more obscure insults. Not a single word I ever said made a modicum of difference, they laugh, they mocked. No one listens, things you say don't count, it's not like I could refute something as inane as "you're weird". You can't argue with tormentors, they laugh, because it hurts you and they won't take it seriously because it hurts you and they mock every damn word because it hurts you and your words are worthless. I know now that their parents were too busy getting their hair done or telling their kids to lose weight to love them, but I never played with them, I had one friend, my family life was great, and so was hers. I had no concept that the other kids lives were anything but perfect, how in the hell was I supposed to psychologically damage them? And even if I did know, I wouldn't have said anything, they'd just hate me more, make my life more miserable. I wasn't bullied by person X. I was bullied by 85% of the people I had come into contact with at that point in my life. They told me I was weak so I thought I was.

I was the smallest, thinnest, meekest girl in school and no one ever listened. But I wasn't weak. But I didn't know that.
There is no talking your way around the system when the system doesn't listen to a word you say.
 

Carbonyl

New member
Jun 2, 2011
451
0
0
Zing said:
usmarine4160 said:
It's never going to stop, human nature.

Teach little boys how to be men and suck it up? Teach little girls to do whatever it is girls do?
This. People are too sensitive.

Not This. People are too insensitive.
 

Blind Sight

New member
May 16, 2010
1,658
0
0
I'm more interested in hearing people's ideas to solve bullying. What ways to you suggest that can prevent this behaviour? What sort of punishments do you feel are necessary? Because I usually hear quite a lot of complaints about school bullying but not a lot of suggestions except for empty campaigns 'against bullying' that are completely out of context.

Of course, the way I solved bullying when I was in elementary school was to fight back, worked pretty well for me then. In high school, not so much, because usually there's a bit more of a gang-up. I solved that problem by waiting until after school when the guy who was bullying me was walking home alone, then usually hit him in the back of the head with something and kicked him around for a bit. He really wasn't willing to admit the guy who was a head shorter then him kicked his ass. Worked well for me, but it's definitely not the ideal situation. Bear in mind, I was pretty much borderline sociopathic in high school so I didn't really have an emotional damage as a result of bullying. I mostly saw it as an 'eye for an eye' sort of deal.

Different situations require different solutions, so I'm not saying that my method should be broadly applied. All I know is that I was bullied a lot in early elementary school, didn't really affect me then, doesn't really affect me now. Maybe it was because I fought back later on, maybe it's because I was willing to put it behind me, or maybe it's just because I couldn't give two shits about my hick hometown anymore, but my experiences didn't really have a massive effect on me. Maybe it was just my logic: elementary school sucked, high school sucked, nothing you could do about it, just suffer through and graduate. I don't know, I could just have a bizarre perspective on the subject.

But I'll be completely honest and say that bullying will not stop, regardless of what you try to do. The strong prey on the weak, much like in nature. It's pretty much a constant, it's not like bullying ends after school either. So like I said, I'm interested in hearing some solutions, because I basically think you're battling against inherent herd mentalities that are a product of human nature.
 

the spud

New member
May 2, 2011
1,408
0
0
Sadly, but honestly, it won't stop. And coming as someone who was bullied, it is hard to say, but there is little you can do to comfort yourself other than keep remembering the fact that in 10 years they will more than likely be making significantly less than you. Or, you could always hack their FB account and fuck with their stuff like I did, not that I would condone such actions. That would be wrong ;)
 

spartan231490

New member
Jan 14, 2010
5,186
0
0
It's never going to stop. It's human nature. Humans thrive through conflict. And for every kid who goes suicidal or whatever over bullying, I can point to poor parenting, or pre-existing emotional or mental instability.

I was bullied on a scale that truly outshines just about every example I've ever heard of, and you know what, I'm glad. It taught me a lot about myself, and it made me stronger. I'm not the only one either, in fact, we outnumber the crazies.



On a side note:(and I know I'll probably get flamed to ash for this, but it needs to be said) To everyone blaming schools, STOP. You are right that they don't do anything about it, but that is only because they can't.

Suspension to a kid is paradise, if it's short. and anything over a few days and schools are mandated to pay for a private tutor, when they can barely afford to pay their current staff.

"In school suspension" is even more of a joke, because it is again a break from school, a reward not a punishment; and it also puts all the violent angry children together in a small room with just one teacher to control them.

Call home. Don't make me laugh. The parents either don't give a crap, or they will believe whatever bullshit their kid feeds them, or in rare cases, they will just beat the kid leaving said kid even more pissed off and more inclined to lash out at the outsiders.

Detention works best out of everything, but it's still not good enough to stop the most bullies.

Expulsion would actually be an amazing solution. Expel one or two kids every few years and then the threat would control most serious trouble makers, but "no child left behind" movements everywhere put a school under huge pressure not to expel anyone.

You want bullying to stop, quit whining about corporal punishment, cuz that's the only way a school could be intimidating enough to stop a bully.


The modern education system has a serious flaw in it's punishment system because it can't make the punishments more sever after the 2nd or 3rd infraction. Either the school can't afford it, or it just doesn't work, or mommy will sue if special Timmy is kept in detention one more day. It's not the schools fault, it's the laws and parents that restrict any punishment with any hope of actually controlling the disruptive kids.
 

viranimus

Thread killer
Nov 20, 2009
4,952
0
0
Maybe, Just maybe, it has more to do with the parents lying to their children pretending like they are special than the damage done by bullies dispensing a healthy dose of "Uhh, no your not"

Seriously... can we stop with this


Nonsense?

Seriously. your doing infinitely more harm than any good that you could ever hope to get out of it.
 

soulsabr

New member
Oct 9, 2008
190
0
0
My dad put an end to bullying with me REAL fast. The first time I came home and told him I had been picked on, and that was why I was covered in mud, he sat me down and had a brief chat with me. He said the next time that happens and the other kid isn't at least as bad off as I am he'll tear into me next. The next guy who pushed me was then the last guy who pushed me.

 

spartan231490

New member
Jan 14, 2010
5,186
0
0
Carbonyl said:
erykweb said:
Carbonyl said:
snake4769 said:
Then its natural selection. Might be sick to say, but if they are weak willed to stay down, then STAY DOWN and die.

I am sorry but i feel as if im strong willed enough to go down in a blaze of glory. I'd sooner die trying to hurt the person trying to hurt me before killing myself.
Snake, you have no idea what you're talking about. It's obvious you've never felt so entirely helpless that you shut down and can't even bring yourself to resist believing what bullies say. When you're a kid, no one takes you seriously, no one gives you agency and you don't have any rights. When no one is your friend and no one is willing to back you up, when you don't conform to the normal standard of childhood behavior, your word is a good as dirt. No one listens to a kid and no one wants to. There was no one to help me. I lived in fear. I had no idea why people didn't like me and why they were hurting me and I thought it was my fault because I was small, and alone, and trapped. How was I supposed to contradict a grownup, who could I tell that I was bullied by the people I told on the bullies to? Between the ages of 4 and 10 you have about zero options for escaping that. By the time you get out of elementary school you have been so damaged by the experiences of your formative years that you don't even understand the idea of fighting back, you don't get to fight back, you're you and you're not worth fighting back for because it won't do ANYTHING. That's what you learn. You learn to shut up and sit down and TAKE IT. The ONLY reason I started to fight back was for my brother, I never would have done it for myself. I'm lucky, without that reason to fight I never would have, and I would have been one of those kids on the news.

Kids who are bullied are not the weakest. No one is the weakest and Social Darwinism is bullshit. No one can fight back against almost everyone that makes up their world, especially when they're 6. When the elementary school equivalent of the Third Reich decides you're enough standard deviations from the master race of coolness, no manner of advantageous characteristics will make it better. The problem is, if you get caught fighting back, you get beaten back down by the school or police, you're not allowed to fight and if you do you're the trouble-maker. Words will get you nowhere and you're not allowed to hit.

I had to fight kids on the way home from school, and no one was willing to tell anyone that the smallest girl in fifth grade just beat them and their six friends up. Little girls don't give boys black eyes.

Bullied kids aren't weak, they're afraid, and they're indoctrinated.

Honestly, This has more to do with being smarter than everyone else. Even at age 7, I could talk around the system. And when you are smarter, people tend to get irritated with you. I was never bullied. Why? Because the first time 3 kids tried to beat me up they ended up on the blacktop bleeding from their noses and fat lips. And I rubbed it in. They were beat and they felt it every time I spoke a word to them. I was not bigger or stronger than they were- I was smarter. Now, once you reach adulthood, this tends to even out a bit; the gap of intelligence becomes smaller, but it runs on the same principle. If you are taught correctly, and brought up correctly, then it will not be an issue. So every time I hear someone say they were bullied by person x, or psychologically scarred by person Y, I have little sympathy. If you make a display of violence against them, that is good. But if you hit them where they feel it psychologically- no one will ever bother. Fear is an emotion, the easier to invoke it is, the better off you will be.

Bullied kids ARE weak. They are made that way by the bullies. But they are not at the beginning. If they are smarter than the bullies at their own game, then there is never a problem.

Kid, I was and am still smarter than every one of those kids, I knew algebra at the age of five, I understood the structure of hemoglobin and the process of cell division when I was four. I was more eloquent, more observant, and knew more obscure insults. Not a single word I ever said made a modicum of difference, they laugh, they mocked. No one listens, things you say don't count, it's not like I could refute something as inane as "you're weird". You can't argue with tormentors, they laugh, because it hurts you and they won't take it seriously because it hurts you and they mock every damn word because it hurts you and your words are worthless. I know now that their parents were too busy getting their hair done or telling their kids to lose weight to love them, but I never played with them, I had one friend, my family life was great, and so was hers. I had no concept that the other kids lives were anything but perfect, how in the hell was I supposed to psychologically damage them? And even if I did know, I wouldn't have said anything, they'd just hate me more, make my life more miserable. I wasn't bullied by person X. I was bullied by 85% of the people I had come into contact with at that point in my life. They told me I was weak so I thought I was.

I was the smallest, thinnest, meekest girl in school and no one ever listened. But I wasn't weak. But I didn't know that.
There is no talking your way around the system when the system doesn't listen to a word you say.
You need to be a specific kind of smarter to do what that guy was talking about. I did it all the time in middle/high school, and you sound a lot smarter than me. To do it doesn't require intellect, it requires the ability to understand the other person, to look at that person and find their emotional weak spot at a glance, and how to exploit that. In short, it takes people skills. It takes a confusing mixture of empathy and cruelty. The ability to get in someone's head enough to see their weak spot and then enjoy hitting that spot with everything you have and watching them squirm is a rare ability, and it may speak to the mental stability of the individuals who have it.

The system always listens, the trick is knowing how to make it hear.
 

Troublesome Lagomorph

The Deadliest Bunny
May 26, 2009
27,258
0
0
Cause you're not supposed to fight back, and I guess they want to re-enforce that by not letting you fight back using the system.
Meanwhile, they ***** about trolls and try to crack down on that.
 

Carbonyl

New member
Jun 2, 2011
451
0
0
Blind Sight said:
I'm more interested in hearing people's ideas to solve bullying. What ways to you suggest that can prevent this behaviour? What sort of punishments do you feel are necessary? Because I usually hear quite a lot of complaints about school bullying but not a lot of suggestions except for empty campaigns 'against bullying' that are completely out of context.

Of course, the way I solved bullying when I was in elementary school was to fight back, worked pretty well for me then. In high school, not so much, because usually there's a bit more of a gang-up. I solved that problem by waiting until after school when the guy who was bullying me was walking home alone, then usually hit him in the back of the head with something and kicked him around for a bit. He really wasn't willing to admit the guy who was a head shorter then him kicked his ass. Worked well for me, but it's definitely not the ideal situation. Bear in mind, I was pretty much borderline sociopathic in high school so I didn't really have an emotional damage as a result of bullying. I mostly saw it as an 'eye for an eye' sort of deal.

Hell, I know bullying can't be solved or stopped or abolished. But it shouldn't be supported. It shouldn't be school-sponsored, my third grade teacher shouldn't have encouraged kids to bully me or given them reasons to hate me. I shouldn't have been told it was my fault. It's not ok, it's not right, it shouldn't have been allowed to happen. At the very least, schools should provide support, provide a safe place to hide from bullies, to eat lunch. I shouldn't have been punished for being afraid or for asking for help. I should have been told they weren't right to hurt me, I shouldn't have been told that I needed to be quiet, I shouldn't have been told that being afraid or in pain was disruptive, I should have had someone to talk to who believed me and listened even if they couldn't stop the kids. Someone, anyone, should have, at least once, defended me, told off those kids. I should be able to remember more than a single anomalous hour of positive social interaction between the ages of five and ten.
I shouldn't have been alone.

These are things schools could easily do, have a guidance counselor who listens, lets bullied kids eat or spend time in their office without fear of tormentors, hell, the bullied kids could find each other there and form a damn support group. I want teachers to be trained and incentivized to watch out for bullied kids and direct them to places they can get support. I never want another kid to suffer alone again. I never want them to have to live with pain like this, like I did.

It's disgusting what was allowed to happen, what is allowed to happen. There should have been someone who was nice to me, even if it was just their job. I want that someone to be there for other kids, for my kids, for every kid who needs it. It takes so little effort, it's not that hard; it takes one salary, one broom closet, a couple training sessions, and a shred of compassion. It won't fix everything, but it would make it so much better.