Social Bullying

Well it isn't exactly nice to change yourself entirely because you have been forced into it by others.

And if you look at it as a community problem and not an individual problem, then someone deciding that they need to basically raise the white flag encourages the bullies to redouble their efforts against the other targets.

If it even works in the first place.

The unfortunate part is that there's no easy or real solution to this. All we can do is as part of a wider society is try to mitigate the damage. (More funding for mental health, a more accepting view of different lifestyles, etc)

edited 9th Feb '11 10:33:00 AM by Karmakin

@JB: Then don't change, but don't complain when somebody decides to knock your teeth out.

^You say that like changing your attitude is so horrible.

Not horrible, just difficult.

Bullies tend to pick on their victims — regardless of the victims' attitude or behaviour, because they already see their victims as people lower than themselves, and as such, ego-boosting amusement.

This seems correct to me, but nevertheless, certain behaviours draw attention to apparent inferiority, and certain attitudes render many forms of bullying comparatively painless.

You know, instead of asking the bullied to change, why shouldn't the bullies learn to not be assholes.

In my experience, the bully wasn't at all interested in causing me to conform to some standard he'd set — he was already one of the people in the class best able to think the same way I did and we shared a lot of proficiencies, so there was nothing to conform to. His motive was 100% to mentally wreck someone for giggles.

edited 9th Feb '11 10:44:56 AM by Pykrete

Because nobody makes them, duh. If you're some little kid and you don't change, you get your ass kicked. If you're a bully and you mess with somebody, nothing happens. At least until that kid decides he's had enough and kicks your ass.

edited 9th Feb '11 10:44:51 AM by Kino

Because they won't stop behaving like assholes just because you ask them nicely.

Besides, social bullies don't behave like assholes, or don't perceive themselves as doing so.

In my experience, neither fighting back or taking it ever worked.

^Did you win?

What Pykrite said was my experience as well. It was simply fun for them. I wasn't that much different from them. There's nothing I could really change. Well I guess there was something. I was a casual atheist. Not in that I was going around telling them that their religion was stupid, but in that I simply didn't go to church. Even though I did go up until grade 5, but it simply wasn't for me. (Understatement, most of my anxiety comes from my religious upbringing. Little kids should not be reading religious texts IMO)

It was just the way things worked. People higher up felt that they had this right to enjoy themselves at the expense of those beneath them on the social totem pole. There's no changing yourself to fit in or anything like that. Once you're at the bottom, chances are you're going to stay at the bottom in that environment.

Edit: My biggest fault? I'm small. As in like 5"2, and a bit on the stubby side. That's actually what put me at the bottom of the social ladder.

edited 9th Feb '11 10:52:18 AM by Karmakin

All I got out of the deal was me getting in trouble and my bullies getting off scott free.

edited 9th Feb '11 10:51:37 AM by rmctagg09

^Do they still suspend both parties?

@Kino In my case, when I did fight back, no, I was the only one punished. That's because social bullies are actually successful (in their eyes) and as such generally have the backing of school administrations.

Edit: If there's an old style Nelson Muntz type bully that's bugging you, you can probably get some respect in their eyes by popping them in the nose. And that, a lot of the time you can get away with as they had it coming.

But the general popular attitude is that the victims of social bullying have it coming to them and deserve it, so fighting back is against the pale. (as you can see somewhat in this thread)

edited 9th Feb '11 10:55:22 AM by Karmakin

^No witnesses?

@Kino: It wasn't considered bad enough for a suspension.

Why shouldn't the people being bullied need to take a look at themselves for what could change? People who hurt others clearly have a problem, but over in the long term effects thread, some of the articles posted there suggested that kids who are the victims already had problems of their own to begin with—also, that sometimes, changing schools just leads to the kid being bullied in the new place. Being stuck in a pattern of being victimized is a red light, too—of a different kind than a pattern of victimizing, but it is an indicator that something is not working. Why not seek it out and see if it's worth ending? Maybe there's really nothing wrong, but maybe there's something.

edited 9th Feb '11 10:57:52 AM by SPACETRAVEL

Yup. There were witnesses. Said that the bullies (it was a group) didn't do a thing and I just ran up and started attacking them. (When it was something like they grabbed a textbook and were ripping pages out of it and I tackled someone to try and stop them...didn't want to work to replace it of course)

That's the problem with social bullying and why it's different than what we generally think of as bullying. We're more talking about an entire community reaction than a conflict between individuals.

@rmctagg 09: Maybe you should make it bad enough.

@Spacetravel Probably right, but that's something we need to deal with via better counciling services within schools. Those things you're talking about are real issues and you often need professional help to deal with them.

I didn't want to get suspended, even when the bastards used to chase me down into the train station or make fun of me when I was standing at the bus stop.

edited 9th Feb '11 11:01:46 AM by rmctagg09

^That's why you do it off school grounds. If you can't face them directly, divide and conquer. Let them know that there's a high price for messing with you; chances are they won't want to pay.

Eh; I just know my own situation best. I was an anxious little kid first and foremost because it was an inborn thing; the other kids just brought out further what was already there.

People act like blending in is some huge defeat.. It's just a passive part of verbal judo.

I was still myself in High School, I was just able to fake empathizing with the mainstream group of people and drift from group to group. I didn't belong to some "subculture" or minority group in High School, I had friends among all of the groups. And it's because instead of sticking out like a sore thumb, I did my best to be friendly and find common ground to relate to people on. When it came to people who screwed with me where empathy didn't help me get along with them, I'd just confront them.

Maybe because I didn't have one I just find it to be silly, but this whole "OMG I MUST REPRESENT MY SUBCULTURE IN THE WAY THAT I DRESS AND ACT!" seems foolish to me. It's like in South Park where the Goth kids all talk about how nonconformist they are, when they all dress and talk the same. Then when the Kids need another person for their dance contest, all the others say they are so nonconformist that they aren't going to do it, and one goth kid in the crowd says "I'm SO nonconformist, that I'm going to go do the dance contest so that I'm not conforming with all of you."

If you're part of a subculture, you're conforming with a group, just not the mainstream. Blending in makes life so much easier than sticking out like a sore thumb. It doesn't mean that you're giving up any little facet of your personality, all of that is still there, you just aren't doing anything that is screaming for attention.

^I had 200 kids in my first HS; we were a mixed bag. Goddamn Do DDS