The anti-bully movement.Follow

I've now tried posting a response 6 times but after 90 seconds of typing, Zam eats my goddam post. I'm being bullied here!!!

I give up =(

I was bullied as a kid through elementary and middle school. The turning point for me was Christmas in 7th grade, when my mother found a great deal on a Charlotte Hornet's Starter jacket. When I showed up in January wearing that silly, expensive, and oh so very fashionable thing, the bullying slowed down a lot. It was gone by 8th grade.

The low point was 6th grade when someone stuck gum in my hair.

In the end, I turned out okay. If anything, I developed a rather stoic personality as a result of it all.

Edited, Apr 28th 2013 10:11pm by Catwho

It's happened twice when trying to post this. Im on my new surface using i.e. Basically the screen "blinks" and everything I type is gone. I have to start again.

Sick thinks that it might be because one of the advertisements refreshing and something in my surface doen't like that. Ive used i.e. before with no issues. This is the first night I've ever seen this issue. tried typing on three other forums with no problems. Only Zam...

Edited, Apr 28th 2013 11:22pm by DSD

I don't know how it is that I keep forgetting that about you, only to be reminded when it comes up again later.

I've been made fun of a lot, but never bullied. I have had about two people try, but it didn't last very long. Both times ended with the other person being embarrassed.


To answer the OP question, I would consider the scene "bullying" without knowing any more information. Chances are, if she is being shunned at the table, she's probably being shunned else where and being made fun of. If those assumptions are false and there are just "special" seats, then I wouldn't consider it bullying. In my high school, people had self assigned seats. It wasn't about "being cool", but "this is my seat" and/or "wtf are you?"

I don't remember ever being bullied. May have happened in the earliest years I suppose. There are benefits to being big, athletic and somewhat sociable.

My wife was bullied a lot so its been an eye opener for me to watch out for with my own kids as its something I never would've considered much having not been on the receiving end growing up.

I wasn't really bullied (there was one notable occasion when some kids from a different school followed me and my brother home taunting us, but we reported them and that was that).

People mostly left me to my own devices, for better or worse. I had a small group of friends that I stuck to, and a few others I could pal around with, but that was the long and short of my social interaction. No parties or anything - I doubt I was thought of enough to warrant the invite.

I was athletic, though. Best basketball player in the school. I think that might have been what kept me from being actively bullied.

When I went to college, I made a concerted effort to reinvent myself...get more social, be more confident. I just faked it until it became who I was.

Edited, Apr 29th 2013 8:24am by Eske

I had some guy in freshman year of HS try and push me around. In a fashion worthy of an after-school special, I befriended some huge senior dude in my Intro Computers class named Chunk or Meatslab or something who made it clear that his tutor in all things MS/DOS wasn't to be messed with.

Somewhere during the year, someone spread a rumor (?) that the bully guy had shit his pants during gym class so that took the wind out of his sails for the rest of the duration of high school. Once again, a learning opportunity for all involved.

Aside from that, I don't remember any bullying. A bunch of the usual jostling about among young males and a share of fights but if there was an active campaign from anyone to keep me down, they weren't very good at it.

When I was a kid I was bullied a few times. We never had any major awareness of bullying back then, and I just dealt with it. Now, as a mom with two elementary school kids, the awareness has skyrocketed. I'm hearing on about a monthly basis about things the kids learn in school about anti-bully stuff. Xavier especially, is very aware of what bullying looks like and what to do if he or a friend is being bullied. That said, I can honestly say that the school does such a good job of informing the kids and giving them the tools to deal with bullies, that there haven't been any problems. It seems that everyone generally gets along.

I have no idea if this is why, but I would wonder if over the past couple of decades the negative long term effects of bullying has been recorded more so that people can see what happens as a result of major bullying: suicides, drug usage, etc. Also, with the new ability to "cyber bully" since the net was not nearly as available when I was growing up as it is today. Maybe with it being more visible, parents and shools are working harder t both teach anti-bullying messages, and to open up a conversation about it. If it's out in he open, kids may feel more ease in talking to an adult to ask for help.

As for the example used in OP, like others said, without any more information, I would put that under the branch of bullying. Most likely it's not a one time situation they are implying. Girls can be subtle bitches, and their type of bullying can be a lot more subtle than a guy flushing a geek down the toilet. Constant snubbing is the females way of bullying.

Bullying is when there is consistent abuse and an imbalance of power. Just being mean to someone or getting in a fight is not bullying. Bullying is a problem, but saying that every time someone is mean they are a bully isn't helpful.

Bullying is being exaggerated a lot lately. When I was in school, being "bullied" meant someone was relentlessly harassing you every day-- beating you to a bloody pulp, stealing your stuff, stalking. When I was in first grade, there were two fifth-graders, identical twin brothers, who bullied me at the vehicle pickup line every day after school. One day, they picked me up by my ankles and dumped me head-first into one of those garbage cans on legs that you can't tip over. The next day, there was only one of them there. I picked up the biggest rock I could fit in my hand and lobbed it at his face. He cried like a little ***** in front of everyone. Since then, I was never bullied by anyone.

As far as I recall, I was never bullied. Closest that it came to that was me mouthing off to a sixth grader on the bus ride home when I was in third grade and getting cuffed across the back of my head. Went home in tears, my dad went and talked to his dad, and there were no more issues.

I heard he later died in Iraq

Other than that there was some teasing here and there (I was chubby in elementary school, but I was also smarter and taller than most of my classmates), but never approaching "bully" level.

Though I don't remember doing so, apparently I bullied a younger girl when I was in elementary school. Just insults and generally being mean. We later became friends in high school, when I protected her from people who would make fun of her, including many of my group of friends. She was a bit stuck-up, since she skipped a grade and thought she knew more than everyone else, but didn't deserve the abuse. She thanked me for standing up for her years later, but also reminded me that I had been a bully just a few years before then. Guess it's a net wash, in the end.

Time to put on my other hat.

I am asking the programmers to gather together the information from the poster making threats. I will be issuing a subpoena to AOL to get your name and address and then I will be taking this matter to the FBI. Threatening bodily injury to another person over interstate wires is a federal offense. I especially take offense when that person happens to be one of our administrators. I will leave this matter to the authorities. You are also forever banned from this site. If you show up again, I will file civil charges against you for harassment, and in addition to the jail time you face, I will take your house and assets (or if you are a minor, the house and assets of your parents).

I am also closing this thread. This has gone far enough.

Jeffrey G. Moyer, esquire
Attorney at Law.