Originally Posted by monstahh`

I know many people who feel the same way--including myself. I am less likely to be upset by insults on the internet, especially if the person appears to be stupid, a troll, or treats everyone like that..UNLESS they specifically target me or my friends, THEN I get pissed off more than upset.
I have less confidence in person--online, I can block or ignore most people (unless they're persistent, and then I usually seek revenge my getting them banned or suffer legal consequences (ie get police involved), and it's fine, I might still be a little bothered by someone saying something, but moreso in the way of "Why would they say that about me? What did I do to upset them?" If that makes sense.
So I do see your points--but not everyone feels the same way as we do, and can't just let most things roll...As a gaia user, and someone who lurks in /b/, I see the worst of most of it, even been the "victim" of many trolls.

Yeah, I get your points on that one. Though I can ignore them and laugh and not get bothered one bit, unless like you said, they mess with my friends. Then oh man, I like to have a ball. :D

Originally Posted by monstahh`

But, there are kids on the internet--and people seem to forget that kids feelings are still valid, even though they are immature and unable to grasp that "some people are just assholes." (This is primarily where I disagree with you, by the way, just to explain myself.) But especially if you know you're targeting a child, that's fucked up.

Do you understand where I'm coming from? :)
Children will be children, and keeping children away from the internet entirely in today's society, where we are so "wired in" all the time, is a little ridiculous. You know? I think a lot of bullying could be prevented, if parents and family took a more active role in childrens' lives--instead of just letting them be in front of the computer all day.

Yes, I completely understand what you're trying to say. Kids, teens, adults, there's a HUGE difference in how we react to things, like if we've been on the net for a longer time, we can also tell when someone is new online because of how they react to things, isn't it? And I agree! I just think, you know, when a kid is young, I mean... There are so many things they don't understand, and if assholes prey on these innocent minds, I think they should stay away. Like my bro. I only let him use Neopets, because all he does is game, win currency and buy things. Oh, and let his pets starve to death. But if I know he's online somewhere else, the first thing I do is research, and if I see the site is messy and fishy when it comes to people, tell my father so he blocks the site. Why? Because I know my brother's not old enough to understand how horrible and mean people online can be, and I'm trying to protect him because people online don't give a shit how old you are, they just want to see their e-dick grow and feed off of angry responces. Parents and supervision, I guess, like you said. (:

I kind of hate to jump in here without reading everything, but so many big posts and my brain just phazes out. I just saw a line back there of Mons's

Less about maturity, and more about confidence

This struck a chord with me with regard to cyber bullies especially. Because I've always thought that cyber bullying is so prevalent because it's so easy. So I wonder if some people end up being online bullies because in general it's going to have no effect on their real lives. Someone who's bullied themselves can turn the tables and bully someone else online. Because the anonymity gives them that confidence that they don't have in RL.

(I apologise if someone's said all this already)

I was bullied at school, because I was a whole heap of bulliable things all rolled into one convenient package! I was brainy, I was ugly, I had glasses, I had horrible teeth (they're a bit better now), I had a noticable moustache (I bleach that now =_=), my mum didn't let me shave my legs, she also made me wear her horrible ugly old shoes to school, she also used to trim my hair along the top of my glasses so I looked like Frankenstein. Then we moved to a different part of the country, so not only did I get bullied in a new school about all those things, but also because I "talked all posh".

It escalated from being called mean names and getting picked on to physical bullying in the school here. Some girl called Lynne Housam (oh yeah, I'll always remember you, girl!) Kicking me repeatedly in the shin and getting me to say words like glass and bus....

Ooh, what's this in the window *kick*, is it glass? *kick* oh no, it's glarrrse *kick* go on, say it *kick* etc... =_=

Weren't school days just awesome?

I never did anything about it. I didn't particularly react to the bullies either. But then that's just how I was. I grew up never reacting to things, never daring to because I was scared of my mum as she used to hit me, so maybe that trait stood me in good stead with regards to Lynne, because she started not bothering with me after a while, and moved onto another victim.

I'll say that it's the internet that has taught me to speak my mind to be honest. Because that ingrained habit of not showing a reaction to anything was with me right up until I started using the net in my late 20s. As any female online knows, you have to start learning how to deal with creepers and perverts pretty quickly, and that liberated me really.

I wonder if the next batch of kids will learn anything from bullying, I mean, whether the face of bullying is changing because it has another medium now. GAH, I can't find the words that I want : / I suppose that, like everything, some will cope and learn better from finding out about stuff at an earlier age in a "safe"environment and so on, and at the other end of the spectrum there will always be the ones who kill themselves because of what's been done to them.

So maybe, while the methods may change, the end result generally remains the same :/ Humans are horrible *shrugs*

I meant from the victim's end, being able to stand up to bulling, and how much of the bullying you "take in" if you are less confident, you are more likely to believe everything someone says.

Does that make sense?

But bullies themselves probably bully because they are immature, and part of it is they lack self-esteem--I know, I was a bully in high school. People finally stopped picking on me in middle school when I downed a girl for fucking with me--and then in high school I was angry and resentful and all sorts of "I hate myself" and I started to be the bully.
I've grown out of those feelings (mostly) but I still find that the bullying habits stick around with you--you have to consciously make an effort to change, even long after the feelings of low self-esteem and you're "grown up" a lot.
Plus, I'm sure there are people who have all sorts of other reasons--but one thing that I find is consistent, is how victims react. If they have low self-esteem, the bullying affects them more--if they don't, they care much less what others think of them.
And people who have been bullied, are much more likely to become bullies themselves, too.

I've never really had esteem issues so I wasn't as much bothered by it until the bullying got physical. I spent a lot of time in high school being ready to throw down at any moment.

Can't say I've ever been the bully. I step on toes every now and then but I rarely target specific people. I do find that I'm always tempted to take someone's ego down a notch if they're being snotty but usually I refrain. I'm an adult now an I'm not as touchy as I used to be and my expectations of people are considerably lower than they once were. I'm not surprised by them anymore and bullying is just something that I've come to expect. Even adults behave spitefully to one another or ostracize each other, I tend to just stay out of it all. I see it now more as part of a pattern that humans fall into that, while sad, is sort of just the way things are.

People tried to constantly bully me in elementary school, but I continually ignored them. I always found something better to do somewhere else. Also no one dared to physically hurt me since I bruised easily. It's not good when theres physical evidence and your mom works as a teachers assistant at your school.

Yeah, that got me bullied a bit, as well as the fact I wore glasses, didn't shave my legs until grade 7, didn't wear make-up until grade 8, I was pudgy, un-athletic, brainy, and quirky.
But I had soo much self-confidence that I never let it bother me. And come high school I found out that every person that tried to bully me, got kicked out of their high school for bullying. ^.^

My younger sister use to get bullied really badly because of her red hair. Boys use to throw paper at her and put gum in her hair, girls use to call her names. She had a really tough time and when she approached the school they didn't want to know. Teachers didn't seem to care or understand the seriousness of bullying.
Luckily there was some form of karmic justice, when I my sister hit sixteen she shot up and became super pretty, the type of pretty that doesn't need any make up at all, really naturally beautiful. She was seriously stunning and all the boys that had been nasty to her suddenly wanted to be her friend and go out with her, and my sister got the satisfaction of telling them to piss off.

I wonder if it was that mental wall that I had around myself that stopped me from being permanently affected by bullying. As I just basically shrugged it off and got on with being me. I used to get picked on for being fat in primary school D: I was skinny! I never understood that, but, the one girl who was my friend was fat...so I was fat by association? O.o GAWD kids are weird and mean! :lol:

Me and her were only friends because we were both kids that no-one else liked xD Wow, when you look back on your school years, they were pretty damn FULL of nasty crap, weren't they?

Originally Posted by monstahh`

All my life I've been told that you should ignore the bullies.
But ignoring them never really helps, at least it never really helped me.
When I finally stood up to my tormentors, and punched one of them in the face after all the times they pushed me into the mud and kicked me...They stopped, because I was no longer that girl who was just going to cry. And being punched in the face really is no fun.

Now, I understand that sometimes ignoring a bully is the way to go, but I've found that if ignoring them doesn't stop them after the first week or so, it's not going to.

I also understand that the reason people can be bullies is because they are insecure, or even lonely. They might also just not know how to react to other people, or how to treat them.

Spoons
If you are the victim of physical (pushing, punching, kicking, ect) bullying, what should you do?
If you are the victim of mental bullying (name calling, ect) what should you do?
Is getting an adult or figure of authority the best option? And what if the "adult" refuses to do anything?
What about Cyber Bullying? Is that serious, or is it something that people are taking way too seriously? How should you handle a cyber bully?

----------

I've also seen and experienced someone getting an adult, leading to getting bullied even more...because you can't "Defend" yourself.
Because what does getting an adult really mean? That the bully is going to get a scolding, maybe? They might get in a little bit of trouble, but nothing severe enough to deter the behavior.

I also think that cyber bullying is serious. It sucks just as much as being thrown into a locker, or called fat by a really mean group of girls. It still hurts, even if you "ignore it." The only way to truly ignore it, is to not experience it at all, but you can't be deaf to certain people's words, and you can't just not see what certain people say.

The only way you could even hope to completely ignore them, and not be affected by it, is if you were very confident...unfortunately most people aren't all that confident because our society is made to make us feel bad about ourselves, and even if they are confident...if you're constantly hearing things like, "you're fat" and you might start to believe them.

1) If I were the victim of physical bully, what should I do?
well, my answer would be : I'll learn some skills (martial arts: karate, kick-boxing,etc.) to defend myself. Next time, they won't be able to bully me anymore. If it's not helping, I'll hire some bodyguard or maybe gangster to 'deal' with them.

2) if I were a victim of mental bullies, what would I do? :
hmm..quite challenging..for the first time I'll ignore the talk. Then, if they still don't want to stop, I'll ask someone to get a record of what they have done to me and hand it over to someone necessary (principal,headquarters,etc.) especially the bullies parents.
For some reason getting help from the adults really helpful.but, after that there's no guarantee that you won't be getting bullied, again.

3) cyber bully : I don't know how to deal with that but if I were ever bullied in cyber ,I'll surely hack those who did that to me.

Case close.

As a thirteen year old in the eighth grade, I have had to deal with a fair share of bullying, as well as drama. Bullying has been putting me down for a while now. In the third grade, I was not having a good year, considering that my great-grandfather with whom I was very close and my dog Jake passed away the summer before. At school I was different than the other students. I was always the "weird" one. I cried almost every day on the way home from school. I couldn't help the sadness that I was going through. My teacher did not believe me when I told her of how the other students were treating me, which was very upsetting. My parents told me to ignore the bullies, but they did not know how hard it was to ignore them. Ignoring someone does not make your problems go away. I got through the sad year of school and went on with my life, even though the pain of the bullying still lingered in the back of my mind. Sometimes I still feel that pain. I am still bullied occasionally, but I try not to let it offend me too much. When it gets too stressful to handle, and the feeling of emotional pain interferes with my schoolwork, I tell one of my parents and if they feel it is bad enough, they call the school and arrange peer mediation with the bully and I in the guidance counselor's office. Most of the time, it helps. At first the bully might seem mad that they got referred to the guidance office, but after some time, they start to quit bothering you. Getting revenge on a bully does not help. Fighting a fire with fire just causes an explosion, which is NOT what you want. Reacting with violence against a bully does not help either, and can get you into a lot of trouble. It is best to try to ignore it if it is a small issue, or if it is a larger issue, tell an adult. Most likely, they will know what to do, and they can help you. Don't forget to pray to God, for he makes all the world's problems disappear.

God Bless,

Anna

XOXO