Bullying

As promised last time, I’ll write about bullies today! Warning: I will use “strong” vocabulary…

Bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively dominate others. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception, by the bully or by others, of an imbalance of social or physical power, which distinguishes bullying from conflict. Behaviors used to assert such domination can include verbal harassment or threat, physical assault or coercion, and such acts may be directed repeatedly towards particular targets. Rationalizations for such behavior sometimes include differences of social class, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, behavior, body language, personality, reputation, lineage, strength, size or ability. If bullying is done by a group, it is called mobbing.

Bullies:

Bullies, we all know they exist; some of us maybe even had them or still have them. But anyone ever though who are they? I mean who those bullies really are and what they want? Why did they pick you as their victim and not someone else? I’m sure those thoughts rushed through your head countless of times.

Well, first of all, bullies are people, humans, just like you and me. They are not better or worse, they are exactly like we are, simply people, acting by human nature.

But then again, why do they bully. Well, they bully to feel powerful, to feel like they achieved something like they overpowered someone. They do it to show off in front of others, in front of people they know, to secure their “position” as a strong individual or as a group (with a leader who usually starts the bullying). They bully to show “who’s the boss” either in school, class, hallway, some group, any other place, or to a random newbie, who just happens to be there.

No matter if it’s bullying at school, bullying at I-don’t-know-what-place or cyber bullying, bullies will always brag about what they did and they will expect to get praised for it. And that’s usually their weak spot, you just have to know how to use it, but no, being an asshole towards a bully won’t work, so just don’t do that, you’ll end up in a shower of curses and name calling, along with ‘force feeding’ you stuff that will hurt you.  Want to know how to peacefully get away from bullies? I’ll tell you that, but first, let’s clear out the victim part.

Victims:

Bullies randomly chose their victims that seem easy enough to overpower. (Get ready for the harsh truth now.) Meaning that yes, it is kind of your fault that people are picking on you, but NO, it’s not because you’re ugly or unwanted or whatever. That seriously is bullshit that bullies say because simply they just need to say something that hurts and that get to you. So whatever they say either if you think it’s true or not and even if it is true, they are just using it to manipulate you, so it’s easy to knock you down. Why it is “your fault” is because you’re making yourself a target, subconsciously.

So what can put you on the bullying list:

• You seem to be insecure and your insecurity is visible on like a mile away
• You’re new and don’t have your group of friends
• You’re a loner, seriously if you are a loner, then at least make yourself invisible, being alone just makes you pop out in the crowd
• You can be easily labeled as one of the ‘unwanted’ or ‘un-cool’ labels in school, plus you don’t have any ‘useful’ friends.
• You’re loud and annoying constantly reminding people about yourself, yet, in reality, you’re seriously insecure about yourself (Yes people notice.)
• You’re keeping up the tough act, while you know that you couldn’t actually do anything when you’d be needed to act. (Also noticeable…People might not know what it is, but they sure know that they can abuse it.)

If you don’t want to become a potential target and victim of bullying, I’d suggest you that you keep it real. Hang out with your friends and try to not let people’s comment’s get to you if someone does get mean, just smile and simply say “Thank you!”. Because the more of an asshole you get the more of an ego boost they have.

Of course, there are factors that you can’t change. After all, some people bully others simply because of their race, sexuality, skin color, beliefs, or your disability. If this is the case for you, well it’s not your fault. The person is honestly just being an idiot.

Alright now on to the bullying… Let’s put it into three categories: School bullying, work bullying, and cyber bullying.

1.School Bullying

If anyone ever said to you that you should tell a teacher, principal or parents about your bullying, well it doesn’t help and it never will… However, you need to tell those people because they need to know about the bullying, so they can act accordingly…

There’s actually little or close to nothing that they can do. It’s simply because they have no power over those people. Ever experienced a teacher getting aimlessly teased by his/her students? It would happen the same if a teacher or any of the above would try to stop bullying. They might stop it for a day or  two, but after that, the bullying would get worse with the insight of the ‘mistake’ of bringing a teacher in the matter.

Since we all know that bullying is to show power and dominance also to tell people “this is my school doesn’t mess with me”, the easiest way to stop it, is for students to get involved. Meaning the victim alone to stand up, backed up by friends and other schoolmates. Bullying can easily get out of the ‘school system’ if students simply work against it… But of course, no one ever thinks of that because most people are hardwired to think only for their own good.

2. Work bullying

In this case, It’s good to tell your boss/superior (report the bully), because they are responsible for your wellbeing.  If you don’t want to directly frame the person or make them lose their job, you can always put in a complaint that will (or should) kick start some action. If nothing else works, consult with human resources.

3. Cyberbullying

In cyber bullying the matter is easy. BLOCK/IGNORE THE SUCKER! Ok, at first, you can have someone to reason with him/her, for example, a friend, or some other random stranger on the internet who just so happened to get involved. If that won’t work then there is no reason for you to not block or ignore that person. You have all the rights to do so, you have the right to feel good on the site you’re on. If you don’t have the opportunity to block that person, for I don’t know what reason, delete the account and make a new one. It’s simple as that. Don’t want to lose your friends? Find them after you make a new account, tell them that you’ll make a new account, your health and happiness is more important than the blippin’ account. Get it over with!

Now of course bullying is wrong. But it’s also a part of who we are as people. Even monkeys bully each other… And other animals do it too. But yeah, we are the “advanced” species, we could have already evolved past this. However, we haven’t, because those who bully go along with their primal instinct to “protect their habitat”. It’s not always to protect it from you, but with showing how “tough” they are, the chances of other people messing with them is lowered.

Also no matter how many anti-bullying websites or protests or whatever, people are doing, are made. We can’t just eliminate bullying, without changing the whole mentality of entire human race. And so far, we kinda suck at doing that…

For more info check out
– www.stopbullying.gov
– http://www.bullying.co.uk/