Calling someone a jerk, even for no good reason, is not necessarily bullying. Bullying involves an imbalance of power and one person expressing their opinion, even rudely, has no inherent power over the other. In this case, the power comes from assembling a mass of people to chime in with insults, taking advantage of people’s desire for social acceptance and providing them admission to the group for the cheap cost of insulting the target.
Telling someone they are annoying you is not bullying. Meanly telling someone to quit annoying you is being a jerk, but not necessarily bullying. Getting others to join you or joining others in criticizing the harmless action with the intention of “making” them stop or feel bad is bullying.
I care about people imposing real harm to others, which doxxing can lead to.
I don’t want laws or rules about hurting people’s feelings. It disempowers victims and implies that your feelings are up for manipulation by others. Calling something “bullying” seems to often be a call to action for someone “in charge” to step in and force the bully to stop–there is a big difference between “you shouldn’t bully” (which I wholeheartedly agree with) and “you should be stopped from bullying by authorities.” You should be stopped from causing harm, but we already have plenty of rules and laws about that: throwing in some mushy term like “bullying” smacks of an attempt at thought control and suppression of free speech.
By the way, I’ve now modified the settings on Chrome’s “Word Replacer II” plug-in so that now, whenever Snowboarder Bo posts “Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there” my browser displays “Hi! I’m Snowboarder Bo and I’m an irritating little tit!”
As far as I’m concerned, he can post it as much as he likes
The part about your wife might have been a “joke.” Otherwise, you were definitely exhibiting advanced redass. WRT your jokes, you do realize that you are the only person in this thread who has managed to be less amusing than Bo himself? You’re like a bot that just shits variations on the terms “hilarious” and “comedy gold.” You’re worse than a troll. You’re just a bore.
That depends on what the irritating thing is. Someone shrieking relentlessly on an airplane, or your carpoolmate smelling like the day-old vomit covering his shirt is something you should have some say in because there is no easy way to go about your own business as if it isn’t happening. We can’t easily turn off our ears or noses. A co-worker wearing a shirt in a color you hate or your neighbor planting ugly flowers in their own yard however has nothing to do with you–even if the whole office agrees that the shirt is ugly or the whole neighborhood agrees that the flowers suck, you have no right to insist anyone stop. You can ask nicely and try to make a compelling case or bargain somehow–buy him a new shirt you like better to replace it, for example–but you don’t get to dictate stuff like other people’s harmless jokes. Getting over yourselves is the easiest plan of action–it’s free and you don’t have to convince anyone else to change.
So Person C joining in, and a few more then chiming in too:
Persons D through H: “Yup, that guy who won’t take off his hat is being annoying. A real doofus.”
would, in your opinion, be bullying?
As for your shirt at work analogy. Indeed if in an office setting someone wore a T-shirt that said “Fuck this Shit.” … which was irritating to multiple co-workers, does not justify co-workers telling him to wear something more appropriate and attempting verbally to insist that he do so?
But more analogously, what if a co-worker every so often for no apparent reason, in meetings and conversations, just said “Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there.” When asked why he just said “I find it funny to do that.” A co-worker told him that it isn’t, that it is distracting, and that he should stop. He replies: “No.” His co-worker tells him he is being a jerk and a bunch of other co-workers agree: “Man, you are being really weird, not funny, and a jerk. It gets in the way of the conversations we are having. You should cut it out.” He answers “Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there.” “Asshat.” another co-worker states, rolling her eyes. Another co-worker chimes in “It is hysterical to see people bothered like this! Keep it up!”
This is going to seem like a totally irrelevant post at first, but bear with me. I’m a former USAF OR nurse, I’ve been to Afghanistan twice, and I’ve got a pretty rip-roarin’ case of the PTSDs. I’m really not very far from suicide at any given time, but sometimes my fingernail grip on the edge slips a little more than others. Now is one of those times, I’ve just started a new job, and you’d think that would be a good thing, and it is, but it’s also just the sort of thing that increases my anxiety enough that I have to pull out some pretty rigid coping mechanisms.
One of those mechanisms is micro-focusing on the day to day things that make me want to keep going, if only for another hour or so. It can be a lot of things, things that are pleasant, things that are funny or absurd, things that give me just that little extra bit of perspective.
I came home today, opened the boards, read this thread, and well…I say this without a single hint of sarcasm. Totally and utterly sincerely…this thread, and every single person posting in it, are part of the reason I’ll stay alive tonight. Thanks, guys.
I think its hilarious actually. He has posted more times in this thread than any other person, 29 times as of this minute, and yet has had about two replies in total. He’s happily posting away to himself and doesn’t seem to care that nobody is interacting with him. I wish I could have as much fun on my own in a thread.
No, that’s just a second person announcing their unsolicited opinion.
They could potentially have interest in him not wearing a shirt that would offend clients, as if he represents the company poorly, he may bring them all down with him. If it’s just them offended, I have no sympathy.
Sounds like a weak attempt at bullying, yes. If their goal was to stop him, wouldn’t they have chosen something more effective, rather than something guaranteed to dig his heels in further and forcing him to do it more to save face? Therefore either they are idiots who thought this obviously terrible strategy would work, OR their goal was not actually to put a stop to something they find unpleasant, but rather to humiliate, mock, and gang up on him, aka bully behavior.
