Cyber bullying

[Fierce_LiNk]

This argument has become ludicrous.

 

Bullying must clearly have certain defining characteristics;

 

- It must be prolonged. Walking past a random stranger and calling him a tosser isn't bullying, it's just being insulting. Walking past a random stranger and punching him isn't bullying, it's assault.

 

- It must be direct. Calling someone names, hitting them or doing other upsetting things to them. It is not holding an opinion on them or talking about them with other people. If the whole class think one kid stinks and they all discuss his stench, but are polite and friendly with him and no one ever picks on him because of it, he isn't being bullied.

 

When I was at school taking the piss was part of school life. We all used to take the piss out of everyone and anyone and people took it on the chin, it was all part of growing up.

 

Part of the problem now is no one can deal with anything. We have become so soft that anything and everything is a reason for some kind of nervous breakdown. Toughen up is the answer to a lot of these things.

 

I remember being at school one Friday and had a big spot on my nose, one kid shouted out 'I thought Red Nose day was next Friday'. Everyone laughed, I got the piss taken out of me for a day, but it was all part of growing up. It wasn't bullying, it was just what kids do.

 

Of course real bullying should be tackled, but this nonsense that we should included anything and everything in the scope of bullying and totally try to sanitise the school and playground in an effort to wrap kids in cotton wool will do more harm than good in the long.

 

I agree with most of what you say.

To toughen up almost sounds like it needs to be a physical thing, when in fact you can toughen up mentally and not let things affect you so much. Joking between friends is important and one way of forming bonds with people is to take the piss out of them. It's almost a very British way of enjoying time with your friends. But, there also needs to be a line there, and it's ever so slight. Overstepping that line can often be seen as "having something" against one person. Imagine if you were in a group and all of the comments were being aimed in your direction and you were the constant butt of all jokes, it would depend on the nature of the jokes and the words being said, because sometimes little things can be said which could go just that little bit too far.

 

The thing that I've always seen with the "best" bullies is that they are very, very snide and sneaky about the whole thing. It will often be a hundred little things rather than one big issue and very often it will be playing on somebody's emotions rather than actual physical violence. I've always found that more damaging.

[Zechs Merquise]

I agree with most of what you say.

To toughen up almost sounds like it needs to be a physical thing, when in fact you can toughen up mentally and not let things affect you so much. Joking between friends is important and one way of forming bonds with people is to take the piss out of them. It's almost a very British way of enjoying time with your friends. But, there also needs to be a line there, and it's ever so slight. Overstepping that line can often be seen as "having something" against one person. Imagine if you were in a group and all of the comments were being aimed in your direction and you were the constant butt of all jokes, it would depend on the nature of the jokes and the words being said, because sometimes little things can be said which could go just that little bit too far.

 

Toughening up isn't really about the physical, it is about the mental and the emotional. Toughening up is about being able to brush small things off and get on with life. Toughening up is realising that sometimes people won't like you, sometimes you'll fall down and others will laugh, sometimes you won't come out on top and sometimes you'll meet people in life who will try to drag you down.

 

All of the above are realities of life that you will come up against sooner or later. By wrapping kids in cotton wool you stop them from developing and when they do come up against these realities it's far more damaging for them to discover them later in life. All of the above are natural parts of growing up.

 

I'm sure the same people in this thread who don't advocate 'toughening up' also don't like sports days or competitive games in schools because by their very nature these events create winners and losers and losers often feel 'bad' about losing.

 

Which leads to things like this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2397108/He-hogs-contest--Library-director-demands-9-year-old-king-reading-club-dethroned.html

 

Let's ban the winners because it's not fair on the losers - what a joke!

[Sheikah]

No one is saying toughening up mentally is not good to help you deal with the general cretins in life - it certainly is.

 

What I'm saying is that it's just not the best advice you can give to someone being bullied physically/mentally at school on a constant basis. Toughening up is basically a coping / damage limitation measure to deal with an asshole. Most people here suggest socking them, but I suggest getting support. Either way, I think I prefer both them options to just toughening up and not trying to let it get to me.

[Mr-Paul]

I've just skimmed over the last page or so, but I can't believe that so many people condone beating up bullies. Sure, if they hit you, hit them back. But hitting them in response to verbal abuse? There's better ways to deal with it, by resorting to violence you're stooping down to their level.

 

I agree to beat bullies you have to toughen up, but in a different way - by ignoring them. By not letting them get to you. By knowing you are better than them. They want a response. If they don't get a response, they will give up eventually. I know this is hard when bullying is prolonged - this is where the support comes in. If family/teachers/role models give a bullied child support, they can help the kid find the strength to get through it. A bully can be punished by teachers if they are causing real distress. The main thing is, the child needs to feel not alone.

 

Bullying is a part of growing up, it happens to everyone. The problem with the internet and social networking, and cyberbullying, is that it is disconnected from the support networks that children need to get through bullying. Parents don't know it's happening. The problem is, teens will always want to use these sites, so unless they are moderated more strictly, cyber-bullying is bound to continue.

 

Solution? Only allow Facebook etc. to under 16s with parental consent? At the moment anyone can sign up even if they are too young. I don't know how they could really regulate it, though.

[Ville]

Yeah, parents need to do their part too. One time my cousin and this new kid from the city had just tried pulling some stupid prank on me or whatever, and my mom got the info somehow. Out the door, found the kids, and raged them to the ground. "This kind of shit might fly in the city, but NOT IN FUCKING HERE!"

 

Very effective, and funny too.

[Blade]

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me!

 

Im telling ya smacking the person who is calling you names would stop the name calling.

[Beast]

Toughen up is a brilliant piece of advice. All my life growing up I've had people try and bully me, mainly because I'm half Iranian. Bullying was something that my dad knew I may go through, so he made sure I was toughened up. He taught me to fight, sent me to martial arts classes and gave me a piece of advice "If someone tries to bully you, beat them up and beat them up well. Theyll never try bullying you ever again".

 

When people tried to bully me, I beat the shit out of them. Lo and behold, after that there was one less person that tried bullying me. I was never a victim of bullying because I was toughened up! People saying its bad advice don't have a clue. It stops the bullying.

 

That's another funny one, people say violence doesn't solve anything. Well I'll tell you what; it does solve some things. It stopped me from being bullied.

 

 

(By the way, I'm not some thug, I just stand up for myself. I try to talk my ways out of fights if it looks like things might kick off but if anyone tried to bully, I'd defend myself from the bullying and put an immediate end to it.)

 

I think it is good advice to an extent. It's basically the same advice I had but there have been times when it's been the worst advice but I can only ever tell you my experiences because everybody's experience is different...

 

All that will do these days is probaby get you and them expelled and/or potential assault charge. Most of the time it isn't just one bully anyway, it's a group. Bad advice...

 

Don't think I haven't been in fights against groups. I have, plenty. I just gave a better account of myself in the fight than they gave. Never bullied again. Good advice.

 

Teachers have threatened expulsion, never happened because of a meeting my dad had with the school.

He'd said to the headmaster, deputy head and my form teacher at the time that they cannot blame me. He's told me to beat up people that try bullying me, because if I just tell the teachers the bullying would carry on both inside and outside of school. He then guaranteed them that now, after having beaten them up, that I'd not be bullied again and that there'd not be an ongoing issue for them to deal with. Their reply was "could you please tell him to not do it inside school?". You know what? My dad was right, bullying didn't occur anywhere near as much.

 

I've faced a potential assault charge and it got laughed off because I was the victim so charges never came about. I was jumped by 7 lads after a night out because I was "a foreign cunt". I ended up putting one of them in a coma for 6 days after he suffered a brain haemorrhage.

A couple days after the fight I had CID knock on my door and take me to the local police station where I went through questioning on video. After the questioning Detective Inspector Andrew Reynolds said this to me "Off the record, in my eyes justice has been done. We've told them that of they try to press charges that we'd press charges upon them of both assault and affray and because you're the victim, you'd get off and they'd get punished. They probably won't be starting fights anytime soon."

 

It's good advice, people should toughen up.

 

Through this quote, I'll tell you why it's bad advice. This has worked for you because you are fit and strong enough to handle a group but some people do not have the same mentality or the same instinct, I guess (can't think of a better word).

 

At most, I've had fights on four people at once with no help or back-up but the thing about groups is that, if you make one wrong move, they could pin you down to the ground whilst the others beat you up. You can counter this by saying to make sure that you don't end up in that situation or something of the like but not everybody will be able to do that and it's something you have to understand.

 

I've also had more or the less the same experience as you when it came to the headmaster. There was this one particular fight that I'll never forget because it was the second time I had put somebody in hospital. This isn't me saying "Oh, I'm so tough I can land someone in hospital" or something because it is something I do regret in a way but I don't in another. There was this guy in my year called Richard who was always this biggish kid who was 'goth' but mean to everybody and used his strength to pick on people. He used to go around happyslapping everybody and there have been loads of times that he got me and I just took it (it was at the point in my life where I got tired of fighting). Anyway, one day, he did it again, called me 'fatty faggot' (through a time people thought I was gay because I had a girl for a best friend and because of my voice) and I told him I'd get him later on in the day but he wouldn't know it. It was in-between lessons 3 and 4 and I ran over to him and gave him the hardest slap I could across his head. He fell down to the floor and I told him if he ever did it again, I'd 'fuck him up'. So I walked away to Science and five minutes into the lesson, he bursts in and runs towards me with a wooden plank that he must have got from Woodwork. So I grabbed the stool next to me and went for him. He threw the plank at me and I whacked him with the stool, he fell down to the floor and I basically jumped on him and kept on hitting him round the head. My science teacher and the teaching assistant tried to get me off of him but I shoved them away, told them to fuck off and carried on. My headmaster got called in and he was a huge dude. He basically picked me up off of him, I carried on cursing, telling him to put me down but he carried me out of the room and down the corridor. He put me down and shouted at me to get to his office. I obeyed him anyway and waited there for what was one of the longest times of my life. So he told me to go into his office and told me to explain everything to him and to miss nothing out so I did. He then told me he knew what it was like and he knew I was a good kid and he could relate to me because he was overweight himself. He then told me nothing would happen to me and he would get suspended. I didn't think it was justice because he'd just be sent home and would do nothing but watch TV and eat so he gave him three months detention after school for an hour a day and if he didn't show, he'd be kicked out of the school. There was a catch, I had to apologise to him. I found him in the nurse's office where she called the ambulance because he needed stitches and his eyesight checked because he couldn't see in one eye. He was scared of me and I said, in the presence of the headmaster, that I was there to apologise. Anyway, I shook his hand, pulled him close to me and whispered "Picasso couldn't do a better job on your face" and then smiled and walked away. Apparently, he needs to wear glasses now but everything else is fine. He's in prison for assaulting someone so yeah, not much of a life now, I expect.

 

After that, not a lot of people bullied me as much as they used to but I did have a lot of kids try to test me and when they did, they were always in gangs. Some even had weapons but you just know when to walk away and not bother. I would never say to use violence unless you absolutely have to because you never know who has a knife or a sharp object to stab you so I'm Team Bad Advice on violence but there are times when it's needed and it can work but for me, 7/10 times it worked and I'm not a fighter but when I do, I have the mentality where I will not lose no matter how bloodied up I am.

 

Quite rare that you will be 'bullied' after you leave school though as people tend to grow up and the social hierarchy structure of school life is gone.

 

People trying to beat you up in the real world is a different matter to what we've been discussing above.

 

Also, for the record. I would never attempt to fight anyone unless as a last resort. Getting the hell out of a situation or not putting myself in situations that are more likely to lead to fighting is far preferable. You've no idea if a person willing to assault you has a weapon or friends nearby. I'm guessing if somebody was unhinged enough to start a fight with you, it's good to assume that.

 

It's not really rare at all. At my first proper job working for BHS, I was more or less bullied by the management there, as all of you know. I also had racist comments said to me at the time of the riots with an Asian lad telling me that it's "my lot" causing the trouble and that I should fuck off and leave the UK. I told him to go fuck himself and we stayed out of each other's way. Eventually, we spoke it out and told him how he should stay away from me and he explained that his family was harassed by some black gang and I said it wasn't any excuse. He couldn't apologise but he did stick up for me a few times so I softened. Bullying when you're an adult can happen as well as when you're a kid or a teenager. It doesn't stop but you can try and you can fight it back.

 

But if its not the case of smacking them back how would you deal with it?

 

Bullying does happen outside of school in the adult world. There are no teachers to go crying to then. What are you going to do if you dont sort the bullies out? Cry on the bad stuff thread?

 

Its not the case of looking for fights its just having the wilingness to stick up for yourself. Nobody else will.

 

Nobody picks on somebody who fights back.

 

Not always true but half of the time, it is. When you fight back and you win, they come back with more people, some with or without weapons and it's at that time, you can be fucked! Sometimes, you can even fight them, they tell their families and they come looking for you or can even follow you home and find out where you live, torment you in some way...lots of things can happen, really. I just fight back and fight whatever negativity whether it be verbal, physical or mental, comes my way.

 

I believe you should fight back whether it's through your voice or physically but if it's physically, you have to be careful of the consequences. Not everybody will deal with the kind hand Kav and I were dealt...

 

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me!

 

Im telling ya smacking the person who is calling you names would stop the name calling.

 

Not all of the time though. Talking through experience.

[Sheikah]

Anyway, I shook his hand, pulled him close to me and whispered "Picasso couldn't do a better job on your face" and then smiled and walked away.

 

Shii...

 

That's Assassin's Creed death cutscene talk right there. :p

[Beast]

Shii...

 

That's Assassin's Creed death cutscene talk right there. :p

 

I did feel a bit guilty though because I made his sight blurry for life but then he is in prison for battering an old man (apparently) so the guilt has faded quite a bit! :p

 

I also love how the fight was still spoken about years later. My cousin, who went to the same school as me, told me about this 'one kid who was bullied a lot and suddenly went psycho'. He told me he was sent to a mental hospital because he was so aggressively violent. He told me about the fight and where it took place and I laughed. He asked why I was laughing and I said "Ah nothing, just a joke I remembered one of the patients in the mental hospital telling me". He got confused and then I told him that I was the guy who did that. Most of the details was right except for people swapped some stuff around. Apparently, I placed a curse on him and spat in his face. I told him what really happened, lmao.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Animal

[Sheikah]

I hope you recalled the tale heroically...

 

"And then I leaned down to his bloody, mangled carcass, and whispered:

 

Che la morte ti dia la pace che cercavi. Requiescat in pace."