Bullying

[Jose]

Bullying is the most awful thing I've ever dealt with in my life, but I don't even think I got it that bad. In school, the typical namecalling went around, mostly directed at my clothes by kids who found fashion to be the only object in a place where, I don't know..maybe we should be focused on LEARNING?!?! Anyways, as insignificant as it may seem, getting made fun of certainly did bruise my ego. I used to just dress for myself, maybe try to look good for the girls sometimes. Now I have to worry about GUYS comments on what I'm wearing? Come on, really? The most liberating thing for me was getting out of highschool and being able to go shopping not worrying what these assholes thought about what I wear. I tried REALLY HARD to look cool in highschool, and did develop my own sense of style, but it never seemed to cut it with the brand worshipping sheep of my generation, oh well. I thought I looked good... so when I went to college I just unashamedly wore whatever the fuck I felt like throwing on.. Thrift store sweaters, wacky colored button ups, ultra tight jeans, mix matched outfits ( like a plaid and polka dots sorta thing ) just anything... I knew I was in an environment of adults where the last measurement of your success is based on how you dress. I knew I stood out, and I wanted to. I'm sure people gave looks and talked about it behind my back, but it was my own private victory to be able to walk those halls and not GIVE A FUCK about anyone's opinion.

That's the least of the bullying I've gotten, kids can torture you in such a myriad of ways. Since I'm relatively average looking ( not 'ugly' ), seemingly financially well off, Social, but mostly kept to myself- these kids would look for the first thing they could get a rise out of me about so It was usually clothes. I'm so happy to be out of that place. Now I can admit I do put thought into how I dress, but it usually revolves around how I will look weight wise- so a lot of xl t shirts and baggy pants are my standby. I'm just glad that whenever someone notices my clothes now it's usually a compliment and not the bullshit I had to deal with. Maybe this seems overdramatic to bring up but fashion is a huge deal in highschool, kids just kind of measure you by it and want to be around kids who look like them. I didn't even realize it was a big deal for me until I started writing this.

I can get into a lot of the cruelty I've experienced later in this thread, lord knows it'd be good for me. For now, I want to go into why I started this topic. Bullying is RAMPANT in schools these days, but to those of us who have left ( I'm assuming most here are past highschool age ) it's relatively a non-issue until we see the news about another kid killing themselves. It's going on WAY TOO MUCH lately, and I think that social media has played a big part in giving the bullies more tools to do harm against others- you used to go home and it'd be safe haven from those scoundrels. Now I'm sure kids log into their social networking sites where they should be absolutely accepted and they catch another beating there. It's really sad how assholes always manage to co opt our greatest technological advancements.

Okay, so I started this thread because I witnessed a bullying episode while I was on the bus today that dredged up all these emotions I had from highschool. An overweight woman in her mid 20's sat down a few seats away from me in the back of a bus where the other seats were filled by black teenagers ( no stereotyping here, just the facts ) So first the kid she sat next to got up and moved seats when the other girls asked ' is that your girlfriend? ' and started laughing. From there I guess they decided to make this woman a pet project until they're next stop. They just berated everything about her but pretended to be nicely engaging so they could capture it all on video. It was too painful to listen to, so I just had my headphones on the whole time blocking it out. In the meantime this Women a few seats over is going through hell after a day of work, dealing with these creeps who have no right to take up even a second of her time. I wished she had the chance to move, or put in her own headphones and ignore them, but she had to endure every second of their taunting, and although I did my best not to listen, I could feel the discomfort in the air and these kids were not letting up. Saying the most vile things they could think of with no reprecussions. It made me want to become violent, but the last thing I need is an assault charge on a minor right now...I just got off probation last week.

So, I guess the question I would propose is: what line has to be crossed for you to stop minding your own business? I couldn't care less about anything in the world than what these punks had to say, but since they're making jokes out of a complete stranger I should intervene? It was a real dilemma in my head...because I knew that any involvement on my part would turn the bullying to me and questioning my 'manhood' and I absolutely could not tolerate it. One of these kids would get fucking knocked out. I can't have that happen in my life. So a women goes home feeling like total shit for having to deal with people who are utterly less than her, and I go home feeling like the biggest asshole for not defending her. And a couple kids make a video that will unfortunately probably go viral on youtube in a couple days. It's a sad state of affairs, the only silver lining I can see to it is that it won't be a video of me stomping a teenagers head in.

please share your thoughts on the topic of bullying. Sorry if it was overlong. I just had to get this out there...

[MizLzie]

First off, I would like to say I totally relate about the clothing bullying. I recall moving to a new country/school etc when I was going into grade 5 and my mom being a single mom, and living near & under the poverty line meant cheap clothes. I remember the kids making fun of me for my discount store brand shoes. One of the girls, popular of course & a bitch really, always had brand name clothes (her mom worked at the store so she got them discounted, not like they were super well off or anything) and she would frequently be the ring leader with the teasing. This one girl came from a rough family and she started borrowing her sisters brand name clothes. Well, that didn't go over well, she got teased SO BAD one day that all of us girls got called into a meeting. Yes, I was a part of the teasing, but I remember thinking "I don't care what she's wearing, but why is she trying SO hard to get us to pay attention". I admit I was kind of disgusted that she would go to those lengths to get approval. I was also 10/11 years old...

In 7th grade overalls came back into fashion. We were all wearing them, yet it was me wearing them with a plaid shirt & my curly frizzy mop prompting the kids to call me "farmer girl" for a long time. Seriously? We were all wearing them! Why single me out?? Lots more stories to do with clothes, hell I even remember thinking how "put together" the other girls looked in high school with their clothing. How I would never be like that. I still feel that way!

Social media + teenagers scares the crap out of me. I know people with teenage kids and since they don't care about privacy I was able to stalk these kid's pages. The brutality was overwhelming. I can say with honesty that I don't know if I would have made it through school if social media had been around. I've seen this topic addressed on sitcoms even! In one, the mom was worried her "weird" daughter wasn't being accepted and tried to force it on FB, I can imagine my mom doing something similar, which would inevitably lead to more bullying. SO SO grateful that I didn't grow up with FB.

As for your question about getting involved, that's a tough one. It's painful to watch things like that go down in front of you, and scary! You're right, what if you did say something and they turned on you, your reactions could land you into some serious trouble. Of course it's not your fault that this woman's day was ruined by these horrible kids, as you said, you know how it could have ended. But what can we do? People jump in to stop physical assaults, sometimes... What if the person being hassled doesn't actually care? Some people are offended if you jump into their business... It's nearly impossible but it's more about stopping it before it even starts than trying to turn around a scenario already in progress.

I have a LOT to say about bullying, especially in this age of social media. We're losing so many kids due to bullying and it only seems to be getting worse.

[rockfisher]

I was bullied pretty bad in Elementary School and Jr. High pretty bad. In High School it seemed to taper off a bit because i got away from those kids who made my life miserable just out of dumb luck really. My house was on the other side of an invisible line, that dictated what High School you were sent to, and the majority of the kids from my previous school years went to one school, and I went to the other. The only downside was, I absolutely knew nobody, and the few kids I did know I wasn't friends with, so I had to break new ground with new people. The isolation from other boys can really be unreal if you don't like to play sports or any of that bullshit. I was never into wrestling, or basketball, football, or any of that crap. I could care less about those things. It was 1987, and I was one of only 4 white kids that was heavily into the rap music scene at my school, and I got shit on for that. I went to all of the rap concerts I could, and would go back to school with the concert shirts on and just get dumped on. Now I think it was a pretty cool thing, back then I just wished I could be accepted. At least instead of hiding it, I was going to school and flaunting it. Wearing full on Adidas track suits and things like that. It did isolate me from most of the kids though, and I still have two very close friends from those days. We still talk on a daily basis. For years after high school I didn't think I was popular at all, and that always bugged me about high school, because I should have been popular. I was a total leader in the late 80s hip-hop movement. Lol. Anyway, Facebook came along, and I eventually joined...have since quit. I skipped all of my high school reunion because, fuck those people. I get on Facebook and I was really surprised at the reception i received there. "Yo man! What's up! I've wondered about you for years!" I got that reaction from tons of people who basically treated me like garbage. I couldn't understand why people would have been wondering about me for years. Having that Facebook experience made me realize something. That kids in high school are just all trying to get by and strive to be accepted. They are too stupid to know that your brand of pants doesn't mean anything. Idk what I'm trying to say here, except that high school is an awful experience that should be abolished. I think it really hampers a person's creativity. High school should just be done on line or something like that. All of that pain and bullshit i put up with, and then to realize that it was all for nothing, because really, high school doesn't do anything for you. It's just this stupid hurdle. I suggest kids just take the GED and GTFO of that situation. BTW, I didn't give any of those people on Facebook a pass at all for treating me like shit, and then 20+ years later try to act like we were down and old friends. It felt good to tell them that I remember how it really was, and to go fuck themselves, in not so many words. Facebook is an awful thing to be involved with. It's like that highschool bullshit all over again. If you sign up for it it's just like signing up for more highschool.