# What gives with "bully culture"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 13, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762 "2017-02-13T16:44:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/41 "2017-02-15T19:09:07Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > Also, as I understand it, the bully basically poisons your (assuming “you” are the bullied) entire social circle. During teen years that can be devastating. Do you really want to unfriend all your friends and everyone you know, and if you’re a teen who lives with parents, are you at liberty to move to a new school or community and start over? In addition, for teens today the online social world is as important as the physical one (whether that’s good or not is another discussion). To cut one’s self off from social media is to miss out on so much of teen life. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/42 "2017-02-15T20:03:59Z")
I was bullied pretty severely through grade school and junior high. I was poor (never had nice trendy clothes or supplies), small, and bookish. I remember three separate times that I fought back physically to the best of my ability, and was pummeled bloody and crying as a result. The only thing that truly ended it was graduating. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/43 "2017-02-15T20:25:23Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > Is bullying worse now than it used to be? Are we less tough now than we used to be? No, like other posters, I’m pretty sure there’s _less_ bullying than there used to be. It’s just taken much more seriously. As for standing for oneself and fighting back : unless you can seriously kick ass (in which case you probably won’t be bullied in the first place), it wouldn’t help. It would only be helpful on marginal cases where it was more in fact “testing” than “bullying”. Make a stand when you’re seriously bullied would just result in 3-4 guys beating the crap out of you and keep bullying you afterward, posibly even moreso (as opposed to the one-on-one honorable fight that will put an end to the issue regardless of whom “wins” it in the “testing” situation I was talking about). Besides, standing for yourself requires that you have a lot of fortitude when faced with adversity and intimidation, and you can’t expect that from everybody, let alone by kids being bullied, who are likely in this situation precisely because they lack this strength and self-confidence. And of course, violence, even in retaliation, is mostly unacceptable too nowadays, and kids aren’t told anymore by their peers, let alone by their fathers, that there are situations when you’re socially expected to fight (I remember for instance that while other insults were acceptable, you _had_ to fight someone who would call you “son of a bitch” when I was a kid. No way out of that, apart I guess from starting to be bullied). ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/44 "2017-02-15T20:41:50Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > As I understand it: even if the target of the bullying isn’t “friended” with the bullies on Facebook, that certainly doesn’t mean that the bullies are precluded from talking with everyone else about the target on Facebook. And, if the target is friended with someone who is friended with the bully, they might still see it. I see. Yep, it looks like [Facebook can’t manage to implement “block” correctly](https://www.facebook.com/help/131930530214371?helpref=faq_content). ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/45 "2017-02-17T00:03:21Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > My nephew somehow got the guy on the ground and then kicked the door of a locker repeatedly in the face of the kid, breaking his front teeth out. > > … > > I just got lucky and when they were screwing with me in the weight room I broke the lead bully’s nose with a 2.5 pound weight across the face. Jeezum, there’s self-defense and then there’s this. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/46 "2017-02-17T01:13:58Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > In addition, for teens today the online social world is as important as the physical one (whether that’s good or not is another discussion). To cut one’s self off from social media is to miss out on so much of teen life. The plus side is that my daughter has social media friends from all over the world that share her interests. Tumblr seems to be especially good for that. So although she’s been ostracized from her local high school, she is still getting positive feedback from peers in other areas. But social media is a hazardous place for a young woman. In addition to peer bullies, a young woman has to put up with creepers, MRAs, people who dismiss her out of sexism, stalkers on Twitter, etc. ---
**Author:** ![edwardcoast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cab0a1/32.png) [@edwardcoast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwardcoast)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/47 "2017-02-17T15:27:39Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > I was raised to stand up for myself, too, and wouldn’t hesitate to drop my books and go at it if I was physically assaulted. However, I was not exactly physically fit and had the crap beaten out of me constantly. And guess what? Bullies don’t leave you alone just because they already beat you up before. > > That’s boy bullying, of course. For girl bullying – the kind where they go behind your back and gossip you bit by bit – getting physical does nothing at all. Too many bully-type parents, have this fantasy the solution is to have their children waste time in those martial arts classes to “stand up for themselves”, but don’t realize that the bullies are already taking those classes and because of their lower IQ, spend all their free time training. The solution is to not treat young people different than adults. If you are 35 years of age working as an accountant in an office and someone bullies you, management doesn’t tell you to take martial arts classes, they fire the bully, because it is costing them time and money being wasted on the bully. The same action needs to be done in schools, because bullies are wasting time and money, and costing enjoyment of others. They are the problem and need to be dealt with very seriously, not tell others to join the “arms” race of martial arts classes. The other fantasy is that once you confront a bully, they are going to fold and while they might solve it for some, it just leads to an escalation. Look at Trump, he is a bully and doesn’t back down because he’s sick, and this starts out as children. It needs to be corrected early for these sick children who are ruining life for others. Adults in the work place don’t tolerate physical fights and bullying, so neither should the schools. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/48 "2017-02-17T16:19:31Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > I don’t know anything about female bullying, never considered it to be a thing. What? It’s very much a thing. If anything, I’ve read that it can be \*more \*insidious and long-term harmful than male bullying. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/49 "2017-02-17T16:24:08Z")
> [@edwardcoast](#): > > Too many bully-type parents, have this fantasy the solution is to have their children waste time in those martial arts classes to “stand up for themselves”, but don’t realize that the bullies are already taking those classes and because of their lower IQ, spend all their free time training. The solution is to not treat young people different than adults. If you are 35 years of age working as an accountant in an office and someone bullies you, management doesn’t tell you to take martial arts classes, they fire the bully, because it is costing them time and money being wasted on the bully. The same action needs to be done in schools, because bullies are wasting time and money, and costing enjoyment of others. They are the problem and need to be dealt with very seriously, not tell others to join the “arms” race of martial arts classes. > > The other fantasy is that once you confront a bully, they are going to fold and while they might solve it for some, it just leads to an escalation. Look at Trump, he is a bully and doesn’t back down because he’s sick, and this starts out as children. It needs to be corrected early for these sick children who are ruining life for others. > > Adults in the work place don’t tolerate physical fights and bullying, so neither should the schools. This. I would like to add: 1. Many bullies are quite clever. Some will deliberately poke, tickle and aggravate a victim until the victim finally lashes out in a visible way which the teacher can see - at which point the bully will immediately play victim and let the teacher discipline the “victim.” (Teachers who would fall for this tactic are horrible, too, IMHO.) 2. Some bullying “victims” are not victims, they are the bullies. I recall someone posting about how there was a boy who would irritate, attack or provoke and wreak havoc on other kids, yet, when the kids retaliated or ostracized him, would then claim that he was a “bullying victim.” ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/50 "2017-02-17T16:44:32Z")
Punching bullies worked for me, but maybe I just had cowardly bullies. I understand it doesn’t work for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/51 "2017-02-18T04:54:38Z")
> [@edwardcoast](#): > > Too many bully-type parents, have this fantasy the solution is to have their children waste time in those martial arts classes to “stand up for themselves”, but don’t realize that the bullies are already taking those classes and because of their lower IQ, spend all their free time training. The solution is to not treat young people different than adults. If you are 35 years of age working as an accountant in an office and someone bullies you, management doesn’t tell you to take martial arts classes, they fire the bully, because it is costing them time and money being wasted on the bully. The same action needs to be done in schools, because bullies are wasting time and money, and costing enjoyment of others. They are the problem and need to be dealt with very seriously, not tell others to join the “arms” race of martial arts classes. I disagree. For some kids, martial arts is absolutely a good solution. It’s not a one size fits all, and doesn’t help everyone, but for a significant segment it helps. When I taught the beginner class at the local Y (I was a brown belt and supervised by my sensei), every single new class had at least one kid that was there because of bullying. Usually, they and/or with their parents would single me out after class and bring it up. It was heart breaking but also uplifting because it’s one of the great things about martial arts. I would always take the child aside, and explain that I understood what they were going through. That martial arts was not the easy answer, but if they were willing to work at martial arts for long enough, it would probably help their situation. In the short term, if the bullies knew they were taking martial arts, it might even make the bullying worst. However, if they worked at martial arts long enough, by the time they were confident they could deal with the bully directly, then they probably wouldn’t need to. By that time, what ever unconscious clues made them a target would probably have disappeared on their own. And, IMHO, there were a non insignificant group of kids (including me) where martial arts helped with the bullying they suffered. Not saying it’s a panacea for all kids, but it certainly helped some. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/52 "2017-02-18T11:07:03Z")
Girls being bullied is for sure a thing. I was bullied by two girls, one of whom got a few other guys and girls to ‘help her out’. She was a pathological liar who was being abused at home, and (therefore?) she was very good at pinpointing exactly my insecurities and anxieties. My other bully also had mental issues and an inferiority complex – she bullied physicallly and then branched out into psychological territory. She’s not unstable any more. I tried very hard to take the ‘high road’ approach of not-responding, which is what I was taught. I was lucky to have friends and activities and my love of reading to distract and occupy me. But all my non-responsiveness did was enable my parents and the school to look away. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/53 "2017-02-18T16:54:05Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > My seventeen year old daughter is currently being girl bullied - enough that I’m thinking about pulling her from school. > > She is tweeted about and snapchatted about behind her back. Anyone seen talking to her is ostracized and told they can’t. She is called a liar and a slut (she’s asexual, the slut thing is so weird to me). Text messages show up on her phone from numbers she doesn’t recognize telling her she is worthless, no one likes her, and she should just kill herself. There is nothing physical about it, but it is so emotionally draining. Plus, she has my own depression and anxiety - so she is a huge target. > > She enjoys drama, but the theatre kids are lead by one of her primary bullies. The administration told her that she should stop doing drama - because removing herself from the situation was the only way they knew how to deal with it. They aren’t willing to do anything about the texts or snapchats. (Good advice, allow herself to get bullied out of the one thing she enjoys). > > She has good friends - but none that go to her school. At school, her only friends are her teachers - whose advice to her is “high school sucks for a lot of people.” > > And the text and social media thing is one thing that has changed - a lot. When I was bullied, my home was a safe place. I could not answer the phone. It isn’t when you are connected to the world through a cell phone. I am really sorry to hear this–and appalled at the school’s reaction. You may have already tried this, but have you tried going to the teachers that sponsor whatever activities the girls are in? Go sad and sick with worry, not angry: what you need them to do is to agree to rein these girls in, not defend them. Sponsors generally want their kids to be decent human beings, and they have a LOT more buttons to push than administrators: administrators can suspend and assign detention and that’s about it. Coaches/sponsors can make you run laps, bench you, take your assignments away from you, and, worst of all, disapprove of you and make you feel like shit in a way that a pencil-neck administrator you barely know cannot. Don’t assume the administration or counselors are talking to each other, let alone to teachers or sponsors. And don’t assume the kids are telling the teachers: teachers miss a LOT. I’m pretty good at this, and I have missed some huge things over the years, or vastly underestimated the scale of them. I’ve been profoundly grateful, more than once, to parents who brought them to my attention. This is a good time of year for this because the girls are starting to think about trying out/applying to be team captains/yearbook editor/dance team officers right now. And this is exactly the sort of thing that disqualifies you for those things. Take whatever screenshots and documentation you have. ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/54 "2017-02-18T19:07:41Z")
We see it more, everything is recorded. I don’t know if the amount of bullying has increased, like I said we just see it more. What may have changed is the level of violence. When I was in grade school in the 70s there were fists. Now, knives and weapons are sometimes involved. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/55 "2017-02-18T21:17:36Z")
> [@Patx2](#): > > We see it more, everything is recorded. I don’t know if the amount of bullying has increased, like I said we just see it more. What may have changed is the level of violence. When I was in grade school in the 70s there were fists. Now, knives and weapons are sometimes involved. You went to nice schools. There were knives and weapons involved when my mother went to school in the 1950s. Of course, she went to a big urban high school with a lot of working class kids. There aren’t knives and weapons involved in most schools now, but there are in a few schools. There weren’t knives and weapons involved in most schools then, but there were in a few schools. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/56 "2017-02-18T21:28:09Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I am really sorry to hear this–and appalled at the school’s reaction. You may have already tried this, but have you tried going to the teachers that sponsor whatever activities the girls are in? Go sad and sick with worry, not angry: what you need them to do is to agree to rein these girls in, not defend them. Sponsors generally want their kids to be decent human beings, and they have a LOT more buttons to push than administrators: administrators can suspend and assign detention and that’s about it. Coaches/sponsors can make you run laps, bench you, take your assignments away from you, and, worst of all, disapprove of you and make you feel like shit in a way that a pencil-neck administrator you barely know cannot. Don’t assume the administration or counselors are talking to each other, let alone to teachers or sponsors. And don’t assume the kids are telling the teachers: teachers miss a LOT. I’m pretty good at this, and I have missed some huge things over the years, or vastly underestimated the scale of them. I’ve been profoundly grateful, more than once, to parents who brought them to my attention. > > This is a good time of year for this because the girls are starting to think about trying out/applying to be team captains/yearbook editor/dance team officers right now. And this is exactly the sort of thing that disqualifies you for those things. > > Take whatever screenshots and documentation you have. I’ve been talking to them for over a year. Teachers, counselors, coaches, administrators. The Superintendent is the mother of one of the girl’s doing the bullying. She isn’t getting disqualified for anything or getting benched no matter who I talk to. And the drama coach is the biggest suck up going - he actually had to get called on it for participating in the bullying (‘well intentioned’ insistence that she have lunch with her bullies, creating cliques in casting to reinforce exclusion - he actually told the crew kids that they “weren’t part of the team” - its no wonder he’s scraping to find someone to run a spotlight now). But that is the biggest reason her Senior year in high school is likely to be at the University of Minnesota or Concordia. Less than four months left and my son will graduate and my daughter will be full time PSEO and I can tell them to formally fuck off. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/57 "2017-02-18T22:26:15Z")
> [@edwardcoast](#): > > The solution is to not treat young people different than adults. If you are 35 years of age working as an accountant in an office and someone bullies you, management doesn’t tell you to take martial arts classes, they fire the bully, because it is costing them time and money being wasted on the bully. It’s true that an employer wouldn’t deal with workplace bullying by telling the victim to take a martial arts class, but if you think they would always respond by promptly firing the perpetrator then I can only assume you’ve never actually worked in an office. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/58 "2017-02-18T22:31:52Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > It’s true that an employer wouldn’t deal with workplace bullying by telling the victim to take a martial arts class, but if you think they would always respond by promptly firing the perpetrator then I can only assume you’ve never actually worked in an office. You are correct in that there are some shitty employers out there. There is another thread around here talking about a kid who committed suicide, partly because he was being bullied by his employer. If you are talking about any sort of actual professional environment, then someone who instigates violence will be terminated very quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/59 "2017-02-18T23:12:08Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You are correct in that there are some shitty employers out there. There is another thread around here talking about a kid who committed suicide, partly because he was being bullied by his employer. > > If you are talking about any sort of actual professional environment, then someone who instigates violence will be terminated very quickly. Sometimes. I’ve spent 30 years in corporate America, much of it sitting in Women’s groups and sexual harassment policy committees. There is a hell of a lot of “we don’t want to see it, and if we don’t see it, then we can’t judge who is lying, so ‘lalalalalalalalala’ - oh look, shiny object, did you say something?” in a lot of otherwise well run companies. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762/60 "2017-02-19T01:19:02Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > If you are talking about any sort of actual professional environment, then someone who instigates violence will be terminated very quickly. “Instigating violence” is a pretty narrow definition of bullying, and I doubt that even this would be met with immediate termination unless the victim had solid evidence or the employer already wanted to fire this person. I don’t believe that most employers would be in a big hurry to axe a professional with no documented history of causing problems based solely on a single, unsubstantiated accusation by another employee. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-with-bully-culture/779762.md?page=4)