People demonize the weak because they don’t want to be them, be associated with them, empathize with them, experience in any way the hopeless circles they travel in.
My guess is that middle and high school children are so remarkably cruel because they are at a stage of life with a typically high level of uncertainty and fear. Real empathy is something only the brave can stand to experience.
When people say, “oh, he only does that for attention”, I can only think, “then why don’t you give just him some, since he doesn’t know how to ask directly?”
I’m not brave. But I know what it looks like, and it doesn’t look like contempt for the weak.