I gave my opinion on Casey and the video earlier in the thread, so I'm not against what he did, or advocating anyone to take any certain forms of action... just wanted to make another comment.
One thing I've learned is how powerful the right words at the right time can actually be. As I said before, I was a smarmy young man who always had a quip or insult on the tip of my tongue and wasn't afraid to let it out. This made me many enemies but also many friends and I was often labeled a class clown or "disruptive influence" by teachers.
In high school I remember a young man in one of my classes who was over 6 feet tall and quite a bit more muscular than I. He took offense to me and began to say what physical actions he would inflict upon me outside of class. I imparted to him, quiet firmly and certainly, the fact that I knew where he lived (we rode the same bus, his stop was earlier than mine) I knew who is family members were and that I had no qualms whatsoever about harming those near and dear to him in their sleep or at times they did not suspect.
I was later called to the office by the Principal, saying I had threatened to kill the boy's family. I was not given a punishment, but the Principal had a long talk with me and warned me about making such statements again. The boy never bothered me again.
I have several stories about how my mouth has landed me into and gotten me out of trouble, has angered people or caused others to altogether avoid me. Which surprised me as I never thought words had much of an impact on people in many situations.
I became well known for the fact that bullies were much more likely to scatter when they saw me coming than when a teacher showed up to intervene.
Thank goodness for people like you.
Similar story here myself. I was bullied without mercy for years. I was a bigger kid than most, but I never fought back because the school had a zero tolerance policy. I had been taught that fighting was the WORST. You get in so much trouble for fighting and school mattered to me. I didn't want to be suspended, even though I suspected I wouldn't get in trouble with my parents for fighting back... I'd be in trouble with the school. With other adults. That was bad enough.
So I tolerated it. Early on I'd tell teachers and yard duty aids, but at best they ignored me, and at worst they'd laugh (the aids, the teachers never did that at least). I still very clearly remember being spat on in the face in front of the assistant principal. They didn't know he was there but he saw. At last! They will get in REAL trouble.
"I saw that, tell him you're sorry"
The most sarcastic "I'm Soooooorrrrry" response followed. I sat there in disbelief. How could he not realize what he just let go by with no punishment at all? How could he not realize that they were mocking him as well? I'm just a kid and I can see this, you can't?
Eventually I snapped too. My response wasn't nearly as successful as his. Unlike the video my tormentors were more than willing to fight in a pack. I took the worst of it but they didn't come out clean. That's what it took to make it stop. You have no choice in the matter, you must fight back. Adults that tell kids different are making things worse. Casey body slammed a kid a third his weight onto the cement; the results could have been disastrous. It all could have been prevented years ago if someone told Casey to stand up for himself and land a few 4th grade awkward self defense punches that don't do anything beyond a few bruises but send a message that I will not tolerate being abused.
Instead adults tell kids to bottle that up, take it all, and deal with the injustice or you'll get into trouble until it builds up and is released in a red mist of rage, shame, and frustration.
Dunheved Campus is a Year 7-10 campus which forms part of Chifley College. The school aims to provide a safe, supportive and productive learning environment to promote individual achievement and self-responsibility.
Dunheved Campus is a Year 7-10 campus which forms part of Chifley College. The school aims to provide a safe, supportive and productive learning environment to promote individual achievement and self-responsibility.... also Body Slams.
When I was little I told my mom I was getting bullied, this was like kindergarten or first grade, and she told me that if anyone ever hit me, I should "clock 'em"
She took me out to the back yard and taught me how to throw a simple punch, and that was that
Next time I got bullied, I hit the bully clean in the face and he ran and told a teacher, she called my mom and we stayed after school. She asked me if I knew what I should do when someone was bullying me, and I said yes, and she asked what that was, and I said "clock 'em!"
The teacher was super flustered and was all "no no no you need to tell a teacher" while my mom tried not to laugh
Later when we were riding home she told me she was proud of me
That's my bullying story!
Your mother is a classy lady. Next time you see her I want you to hi5 her... tell her it's from the internet
The first was late in Kindergarten, I was 5 or 6, starting first grade soon when my little brother started attending. A kid my age who I had little interaction with started picking on my brother. The first time I saw this, I ran up and stepped between the two of them. The kid tried to push me out of the way to get at my brother, so I socked him and gave him a bloody nose and told him to stay away from my brother. He ran off crying, and tried to claim that I had been bullying him. There were enough witnesses on my side, so nothing came of it. Later, my dad bought both of us ice cream.
The 2nd time was in middle school, I was in 7th grade at the time and had been bumped up into an 8th grade math class. There were two friends in there who I quickly surpassed grade-wise, they didn't take kindly to this. So they started verbally harassing me, I told them to piss off. This continued, slowly escalating into physical bullying, with the teacher turning a blind eye to what was going on in her class. A few weeks later the two sat behind me at an assembly and quickly went into their usual shit, as well as flicking at my hair/ears. The same math teacher was sitting nearby and, despite telling me to stand up during the national anthem, didn't say anything. Finally, I snapped, abruptly stood up, spun around, and smashed my fist into one guy's solar plexus. The other guy was too stunned to react while the very same math teacher dragged me away.
There was drama, threats of suspension, but in the end there wasn't any official punishment. They did finally leave me alone though.
One time in the 2nd grade a 3rd grader who lived 2 doors down from me strangled me on the school playground while his friend held me down. A friend ran and got a teacher, I don't remember him getting in much, if any trouble.
I got into a few fights with one kid in 6th grade, once he dared me to push him at the local roller ring and I mailboxed him over a table by the Nathan's and I wasn't allowed to skate for 15 minutes so I played Outrun and the Simpsons arcade game until my sentence was over.
I got into a few fights in high school but they were pretty dumb, once I got jumped, I was never really bullied.
Once I beat up a weird kid cuz he was throwing bottle caps at me in the locker room for no reason.
And once I droppkicked a 7th grader (I was in 11th) because well, he was a dick. He was probably the closest thing to an actual bully I've ever encountered, he was just the prickiest prick you could ever imagine, all year ALL YEAR and one day I dropkicked his ass, then I went for icees and I got suspended for 3 days but some big game had just come out for the 360 and my parents knew the kid who was a cockass so I just chilled and played vidya games.
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
Kids shouldn't be afraid to fight back. I think the kid in that video was worried about getting in trouble so he didn't fight back until he snapped.
I will straight up teach my kids that it is ok to defend yourself. If the school suspends them for fighting because they were protecting themselves I will take them out for ice cream every day of their suspension.
I mean I have no problems with kids standing up for themselves. The issue is is that kids are stupid. They still aren't socially nuanced enough to know The correct way to stand up for yourself in the correct situation.
I mean I have an issue with the videos circulation as it doesn't show context and it only shows one type of retaliation. And I'm not saying that you'll do this but what would happen if someone just teaches a kid violence to deals with bullies? What's to stop them to applying this technique to verbal confrontation or just to get his own way? Or if he does get into a fight to take it too far?
I mean my overall point is that much like life dealing with bullies requires a lot of different skill not just a sweet suplex.
Alright. I tell this story regularly so I apologize if you've heard this before.
I was a nice kid and just wanted people to like me so for most of my young life I never started shit with anyone. I got a reputation for being kind of a wimp and a pushover because I'd pretend to ignore the taunting or brush off bullies with a mumbled "cut it out..." until I was 14 years old. I grew a lot during middle school and by this point I was over 6 feet tall and 200 pounds.
My friends went to another high school. All of them. It was a small-ish circle and now I had no moral support on my side and I was slowly losing my mind. I had also just moved from the house I'd lived in my entire life to a new home across town in the same neighborhood as many of the kids I hated. My school didn't care about the bullying and I didn't complain because I was just trying to keep my head down.
Eventually, during a day where our English teacher was out and we were provided with a substitute, things reached the boiling-point. The football clique started throwing small pieces of chalk at me from the back of the room. I tried to get the sub's attention but saw that she was deliberately ignoring what was going on. I snapped. I caught a piece of chalk as it bounced off my desk, turned around and hummed it back at them as hard as I could. It missed but hit the blackboard on the back wall hard enough to make a loud, echoing "BANG!"
Obviously this caught the attention of the substitute but I ignored her pleas to settle down.
I knocked my desk over on its side as I stood up and marched over to where the ring-leader was sitting with his pals all around him. He looked so tiny to me right then, like I could squash him. I'm pretty sure he was a running-back or something and definitely didn't have a lot of build on him. I said "I'm not going to do anything here, because I'm not getting in trouble, but when we get off the bus today I'm putting you down."
After school I gave him a short speech about how I asked him to stop and how I had warned him multiple times to leave me alone so what was about to happen was his fault. As I dropped my backpack I pointed at his two friends, one looked concerned while the other looked amused as I told them not to touch my shit while I was taking care of their friend. The rest of the fight was about 2 minutes long and consisted of the other kid's head becoming a punching bag for 9 years of continuous verbal and physical abuse. He tried hitting me back, pushing me, he even tried to spear me once during the fight which was cute because I easily out-weighed him. he actually threw his backpack at me towards the end like it was some kind of flail since he'd run out of options and I just kept slowly walking towards him as I pummeled him over and over again and eventually he just fell on his back.
His concerned friend ran in-between us as I was telling him to stand back up. His friend Mike actually calmly diffused the situation and made his pal on the ground apologize to me and all three promised to never pick on me again.
I walked home feeling kinda sick, having never fought before and not having taken any damage. I went to my room and broke down in there for a good 15 minutes or so. I was convinced they'd come back at me the following Monday (this was on a Friday) to exact revenge but that never happened. My bully didn't appear in school until the following Wednesday and by then the entire school knew what happened. Mike had told everyone that I was off-limits now if they wanted to avoid having their heads caved-in.
People asked me for days if the stories were true and my response was always "Ask someone else who was there, I'm biased."
I got almost zero shit for the other year and a half I stayed at that school. It's one of the turning points in my life. Before that I was a pathetic doormat.
My bully and I later made amends when we both worked the same summer job. For the months in-between he was visibly afraid of me. He would literally flinch whenever I looked at him or said anything in his vicinity and if he was talking when I said anything, he'd shut up immediately. I finally had to tell him that everything between us was settled out on that street-corner and I wasn't harboring any more violence towards him.
We were never friends but I think we both learned a lot from each-other.
In Ontario, at least, what Casey did would be considered reasonable self-defense from an assault if they were both adults.
But since they're children it's different, some people think, I guess.
I don't.
Self-defense is self-defense.
It's because it's a school. Me and about 10 kids had to go to the principal to stop them suspending my friend for a week when some kid attacked him and he just took him to the floor and held him there. If he's have done anything but sit there he would have been expelled.
This, this a thousand times this. I had this exact same thing happen to me. I'll repost from the Gizmodo article on the video.
I was bullied a lot as a kid, all the way through high school. Foreign kid with ADHD, bully dream come true. But as soon as I got to college it all stopped. I never started a fight, but I sure as hell ended every one that I was in, never lost a single (fair) one. Even put one of those bullies in the hospital once, but they never learned, cause I maybe actually fought once every few years. Lot of time to forget the beating doled out on the last guy that decided to go from smacking me around and making my life a living hell to throwing a punch and seriously hurting me.
Anyway this video is so cathartic cause I know exactly what that kid was going through, and I say kudos to him. I once had a puke come up behind me and slam my face into a locker and then start pummeling me after that cowardly sneak attack. Since this was high school, I knew that if I fought back I'd be in just as much trouble as he was. So as soon as I was able to gather my senses from the initial attack I grabbed him in the headlock and took him down the ground pinning him. I made sure that I didn't even fight back in self defense (besides a single jab to stun him mid punch so that I could stop him long enough to grab him) I just subdued him. I ended up getting in just as much trouble as he did, same suspension, same fine, same community service, same going to court, etc. The moment I touched him I was apparently just as guilty as he was. The judge who is the biggest most jaded waste of life I'd ever met, said that my only option was to run away. I asked how I was supposed to run away from a blindsiding sneak attack, and I was told that at that point all I could legally do is just block every single blow until the fight is over. My mother said, "My son didn't do anything wrong, he didn't instigate the fight, and he did nothing more than defend his safety and wellbeing. If he didn't do what he did he might have been more seriously hurt if not dead. I'm going to pay his fine for him." and the judge seriously said, "No you are not I can do whatever I want and I'm not going to accept your money, I'm taking it from him." The American school system is so broken it is not even funny.
I have so many bullying stories I could write a book. I think I might post more as the thread progresses.
If he'd received brain damage I still wouldn't feel bad for him, and this line of thinking is massively stupid. What if he'd caused some serious ocular/jaw damage to Casey while he was repeatedly punching him in the face?
Really? Wow fuck you. You wouldn't feel bad for a twelve year old kid being brain-damaged for the rest of his life because of doing something stupid and cruel to another kid?
Don't get it wrong though, I completely understand why Casey did what he did and it was as Rank said, a justified and effective way to respond to the bullying.
But
You full-grown men need to stop entangling your nerd revenge fantasies with schoolyard fights and perpetuating the idea that violence is the only way to respond to violence. So what happens if the person being bullied is physically weaker than his bully and has no way to overcome him with his bare hands? Would you suggest he took a bat and cracked his head open?
Ugh I'm not even sure where I'm going with this RAMBLE RAMBLE
Kids shouldn't be afraid to fight back. I think the kid in that video was worried about getting in trouble so he didn't fight back until he snapped.
I will straight up teach my kids that it is ok to defend yourself. If the school suspends them for fighting because they were protecting themselves I will take them out for ice cream every day of their suspension.
I mean I have no problems with kids standing up for themselves. The issue is is that kids are stupid. They still aren't socially nuanced enough to know The correct way to stand up for yourself in the correct situation.
I mean I have an issue with the videos circulation as it doesn't show context and it only shows one type of retaliation. And I'm not saying that you'll do this but what would happen if someone just teaches a kid violence to deals with bullies? What's to stop them to applying this technique to verbal confrontation or just to get his own way? Or if he does get into a fight to take it too far?
I mean my overall point is that much like life dealing with bullies requires a lot of different skill not just a sweet suplex.
I dunno, suplex seems just about right.
My parents always told me if someone hit me than I should hit them harder so they would be less inclined to hit me again. Best advice they ever gave me.
my dad told me that if i thought i was maybe gonna get into some shit later, lay primitive weaponry hidden in strategic locations the entire path back home.
Rock over here.
Big stick here.
Fishing rod fashioned into a whipping switch there.
Yeah really unless you are really good with comebacks or something the ability to physically stand up for yourself is pretty fucking necessary if you don't want to get bullied.
I think I was a bully when I was younger, I wasn't top of the food chain though so it just seemed like a give and take sort of thing. Plus children are full of hormones; teen years are a cesspit of emotions, no way you can expect them to make the correct decision, especially when you actively avoid teaching them the correct decision.
Schools really need to dump all of the rules about fighting in school, they're worthless, write up some guidelines and general standards for teachers to follow. Nothing says We're worthless Like the teachers who say "Just fight back" or "I can't force other students to like you".
A group of students decided to beat on my brother in school, a teacher saw the fight happening, tried to break it up, grabbed a hold of my brother, he pushed her away, she filed a report and had him suspended.
Yeah, useless schools and teachers are the real issue. I went to a damn good highschool, teachers would ignore rules because they knew to be reasonable human beings, or proactively go speak with students when there was a potential problem brewing.
I almost knocked a teacher out with a poorly thrown 2 liter water bottle (to a thirsty friend on the other side of a basketball court), luckily I missed his head by about 6 inches, instead of immediate punishment he had a chat with me, asked me if I was aiming for his head, I apologised and told him I had a really awful overarm throw, he laughed and told me not to throw heavy objects like that again if I was such a poor aim.
Man I wish I had a cool story where I suddenly grew taller and stronger than my bullies. Instead I was stuck at being 5'10" and thin. The only time I could ever retaliate was when my jackass friend wouldn't stop stabbing me with his pen. Literally stabbing me, and all I could do was blow up at him and walk out. I never hung out with him after that, and all my other friends stuck with him.
In high school I was bullied constantly by a guy who was at least a foot taller than me. I couldn't do anything to him if I had wanted to. I had science class with him and he'd be constantly taken outside to talk about why he did so poorly. Something about his parents. I just felt sorry for him.
I've found that with bullies that the best revenge is living well. One that bothered me in grade school was killed in a car accident when we were in highschool, one died of colon cancer in his early twenties, one attempted suicide and failed at that like everything else in life, and other people that were dicks but not really full on bullies have multiple duis, failed marriages, and shitty jobs.
I've found that with bullies that the best revenge is living well. One that bothered me in grade school was killed in a car accident when we were in highschool, one died of colon cancer in his early twenties, one attempted suicide and failed at that like everything else in life, and other people that were dicks but not really full on bullies have multiple duis, failed marriages, and shitty jobs.
I like to think I'm decently strong and I also tend to jump to violence pretty quickly. So by the fourth day of my freshman year of High School when I got suspended for fighting I was pretty much left alone. At least physically.
There were a few exceptions but I'm not sorry for any fight I've ever been in.
I've found that with bullies that the best revenge is living well. One that bothered me in grade school was killed in a car accident when we were in highschool, one died of colon cancer in his early twenties, one attempted suicide and failed at that like everything else in life, and other people that were dicks but not really full on bullies have multiple duis, failed marriages, and shitty jobs.
So, uh, these are things you take pleasure in? :?
People before were saying that they would have been fine if Casey's bully landed on his head and got brain damage. I'm all for bullies getting their comeuppance, but I do think there's a limit.
PunkBoy on
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You know who I disliked even more than bullies? The other nerdy kids who would allow themselves to become horrible, little, twisted shits due to bullying. You know the type, I'm sure. They feel like they have it tough so they constantly try to climb the totem pole by finding someone else to put down or act like a dick to in hopes that it will elevate their status. They can't fight back against their tormentors so they take it out on someone else in the hopes that it'll make them feel better.
I tried banding together with my fellow outcasts and these types always made it hard to defend my own kind.
i wasn't super popular but everyone knew who i was and seemed to be cool with me
so uh
yep
hi5.
I got pushed around a bit by the top dog bullies, but they did it to everyone at one time or another. I never really felt targeted.
One time a particularly stupid bully from my class asked me at the beginning of our second year of high school if I wanted to be "freshied" Hopefully we're all familiar with that term, but just in case it's basically where you do something horrible to a freshman in the first week of school, because starting high school isn't bad enough, there should also be low-level torture involved.
Any way, I pointed out to him that a) I wasn't a freshman, b) he should know that because we are in the same class, and c) why would anyone respond positively to a question like that? That's about the closest I ever came to standing up to bullying, which makes me pretty lucky, I'd say.
I might have told it here before but my favorite story involving bullying was when I was in middle school in Utah and this little kid who kept getting picked on made a deal with the bully that they would settle it through a round of the Pokemon card game and if the kid won then the bully would leave him alone
You know who I disliked even more than bullies? The other nerdy kids who would allow themselves to become horrible, little, twisted shits due to bullying. You know the type, I'm sure.
Kids shouldn't be afraid to fight back. I think the kid in that video was worried about getting in trouble so he didn't fight back until he snapped.
I will straight up teach my kids that it is ok to defend yourself. If the school suspends them for fighting because they were protecting themselves I will take them out for ice cream every day of their suspension.
I mean I have no problems with kids standing up for themselves. The issue is is that kids are stupid. They still aren't socially nuanced enough to know The correct way to stand up for yourself in the correct situation.
I mean I have an issue with the videos circulation as it doesn't show context and it only shows one type of retaliation. And I'm not saying that you'll do this but what would happen if someone just teaches a kid violence to deals with bullies? What's to stop them to applying this technique to verbal confrontation or just to get his own way? Or if he does get into a fight to take it too far?
I mean my overall point is that much like life dealing with bullies requires a lot of different skill not just a sweet suplex.
If an internet video is the only way for a kid to learn how to deal with something, the problem runs just a little bit deeper I think.
You're right. Why care when some repulsive dweeb turns traitor and victimizes some innocent kid because another dude called him a fag? Whatever makes him feel better about himself!
You know who I disliked even more than bullies? The other nerdy kids who would allow themselves to become horrible, little, twisted shits due to bullying. You know the type, I'm sure.
Yeah fuck victims, what's their deal anyway???
So is bullying okay if their parents are shitty? They're victims too! And is being a shitty parent fine if their boss is an asshole? Victim!
At some point, people have to be held accountable for their own behavior.
You know who I disliked even more than bullies? The other nerdy kids who would allow themselves to become horrible, little, twisted shits due to bullying. You know the type, I'm sure.
Yeah fuck victims, what's their deal anyway???
So is bullying okay if their parents are shitty? They're victims too! And is being a shitty parent fine if their boss is an asshole? Victim!
At some point, people have to be held accountable for their own behavior.
That's fine but I'm not going to hate the guy down the chain more.
You're right. Why care when some repulsive dweeb turns traitor and victimizes some innocent kid because another dude called him a fag? Whatever makes him feel better about himself!
Some innocent kid unless he allows himself to be hurt, you mean? Then he's even worse than all of them.
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As an adult, I simply cannot overlook bullying behavior. Or, really, any kind of overtly disrespectful behavior.
Considering how bullying and disrespectful supposedly "grown up" people can be, well! Exciting times!
One thing I've learned is how powerful the right words at the right time can actually be. As I said before, I was a smarmy young man who always had a quip or insult on the tip of my tongue and wasn't afraid to let it out. This made me many enemies but also many friends and I was often labeled a class clown or "disruptive influence" by teachers.
In high school I remember a young man in one of my classes who was over 6 feet tall and quite a bit more muscular than I. He took offense to me and began to say what physical actions he would inflict upon me outside of class. I imparted to him, quiet firmly and certainly, the fact that I knew where he lived (we rode the same bus, his stop was earlier than mine) I knew who is family members were and that I had no qualms whatsoever about harming those near and dear to him in their sleep or at times they did not suspect.
I was later called to the office by the Principal, saying I had threatened to kill the boy's family. I was not given a punishment, but the Principal had a long talk with me and warned me about making such statements again. The boy never bothered me again.
I have several stories about how my mouth has landed me into and gotten me out of trouble, has angered people or caused others to altogether avoid me. Which surprised me as I never thought words had much of an impact on people in many situations.
Thank goodness for people like you.
Similar story here myself. I was bullied without mercy for years. I was a bigger kid than most, but I never fought back because the school had a zero tolerance policy. I had been taught that fighting was the WORST. You get in so much trouble for fighting and school mattered to me. I didn't want to be suspended, even though I suspected I wouldn't get in trouble with my parents for fighting back... I'd be in trouble with the school. With other adults. That was bad enough.
So I tolerated it. Early on I'd tell teachers and yard duty aids, but at best they ignored me, and at worst they'd laugh (the aids, the teachers never did that at least). I still very clearly remember being spat on in the face in front of the assistant principal. They didn't know he was there but he saw. At last! They will get in REAL trouble.
"I saw that, tell him you're sorry"
The most sarcastic "I'm Soooooorrrrry" response followed. I sat there in disbelief. How could he not realize what he just let go by with no punishment at all? How could he not realize that they were mocking him as well? I'm just a kid and I can see this, you can't?
Eventually I snapped too. My response wasn't nearly as successful as his. Unlike the video my tormentors were more than willing to fight in a pack. I took the worst of it but they didn't come out clean. That's what it took to make it stop. You have no choice in the matter, you must fight back. Adults that tell kids different are making things worse. Casey body slammed a kid a third his weight onto the cement; the results could have been disastrous. It all could have been prevented years ago if someone told Casey to stand up for himself and land a few 4th grade awkward self defense punches that don't do anything beyond a few bruises but send a message that I will not tolerate being abused.
Instead adults tell kids to bottle that up, take it all, and deal with the injustice or you'll get into trouble until it builds up and is released in a red mist of rage, shame, and frustration.
Sure does!
Your mother is a classy lady. Next time you see her I want you to hi5 her... tell her it's from the internet
The first was late in Kindergarten, I was 5 or 6, starting first grade soon when my little brother started attending. A kid my age who I had little interaction with started picking on my brother. The first time I saw this, I ran up and stepped between the two of them. The kid tried to push me out of the way to get at my brother, so I socked him and gave him a bloody nose and told him to stay away from my brother. He ran off crying, and tried to claim that I had been bullying him. There were enough witnesses on my side, so nothing came of it. Later, my dad bought both of us ice cream.
The 2nd time was in middle school, I was in 7th grade at the time and had been bumped up into an 8th grade math class. There were two friends in there who I quickly surpassed grade-wise, they didn't take kindly to this. So they started verbally harassing me, I told them to piss off. This continued, slowly escalating into physical bullying, with the teacher turning a blind eye to what was going on in her class. A few weeks later the two sat behind me at an assembly and quickly went into their usual shit, as well as flicking at my hair/ears. The same math teacher was sitting nearby and, despite telling me to stand up during the national anthem, didn't say anything. Finally, I snapped, abruptly stood up, spun around, and smashed my fist into one guy's solar plexus. The other guy was too stunned to react while the very same math teacher dragged me away.
There was drama, threats of suspension, but in the end there wasn't any official punishment. They did finally leave me alone though.
I got into a few fights with one kid in 6th grade, once he dared me to push him at the local roller ring and I mailboxed him over a table by the Nathan's and I wasn't allowed to skate for 15 minutes so I played Outrun and the Simpsons arcade game until my sentence was over.
I got into a few fights in high school but they were pretty dumb, once I got jumped, I was never really bullied.
Once I beat up a weird kid cuz he was throwing bottle caps at me in the locker room for no reason.
And once I droppkicked a 7th grader (I was in 11th) because well, he was a dick. He was probably the closest thing to an actual bully I've ever encountered, he was just the prickiest prick you could ever imagine, all year ALL YEAR and one day I dropkicked his ass, then I went for icees and I got suspended for 3 days but some big game had just come out for the 360 and my parents knew the kid who was a cockass so I just chilled and played vidya games.
I mean I have no problems with kids standing up for themselves. The issue is is that kids are stupid. They still aren't socially nuanced enough to know The correct way to stand up for yourself in the correct situation.
I mean I have an issue with the videos circulation as it doesn't show context and it only shows one type of retaliation. And I'm not saying that you'll do this but what would happen if someone just teaches a kid violence to deals with bullies? What's to stop them to applying this technique to verbal confrontation or just to get his own way? Or if he does get into a fight to take it too far?
I mean my overall point is that much like life dealing with bullies requires a lot of different skill not just a sweet suplex.
Satans..... hints.....
Alright. I tell this story regularly so I apologize if you've heard this before.
I was a nice kid and just wanted people to like me so for most of my young life I never started shit with anyone. I got a reputation for being kind of a wimp and a pushover because I'd pretend to ignore the taunting or brush off bullies with a mumbled "cut it out..." until I was 14 years old. I grew a lot during middle school and by this point I was over 6 feet tall and 200 pounds.
My friends went to another high school. All of them. It was a small-ish circle and now I had no moral support on my side and I was slowly losing my mind. I had also just moved from the house I'd lived in my entire life to a new home across town in the same neighborhood as many of the kids I hated. My school didn't care about the bullying and I didn't complain because I was just trying to keep my head down.
Eventually, during a day where our English teacher was out and we were provided with a substitute, things reached the boiling-point. The football clique started throwing small pieces of chalk at me from the back of the room. I tried to get the sub's attention but saw that she was deliberately ignoring what was going on. I snapped. I caught a piece of chalk as it bounced off my desk, turned around and hummed it back at them as hard as I could. It missed but hit the blackboard on the back wall hard enough to make a loud, echoing "BANG!"
Obviously this caught the attention of the substitute but I ignored her pleas to settle down.
I knocked my desk over on its side as I stood up and marched over to where the ring-leader was sitting with his pals all around him. He looked so tiny to me right then, like I could squash him. I'm pretty sure he was a running-back or something and definitely didn't have a lot of build on him. I said "I'm not going to do anything here, because I'm not getting in trouble, but when we get off the bus today I'm putting you down."
After school I gave him a short speech about how I asked him to stop and how I had warned him multiple times to leave me alone so what was about to happen was his fault. As I dropped my backpack I pointed at his two friends, one looked concerned while the other looked amused as I told them not to touch my shit while I was taking care of their friend. The rest of the fight was about 2 minutes long and consisted of the other kid's head becoming a punching bag for 9 years of continuous verbal and physical abuse. He tried hitting me back, pushing me, he even tried to spear me once during the fight which was cute because I easily out-weighed him. he actually threw his backpack at me towards the end like it was some kind of flail since he'd run out of options and I just kept slowly walking towards him as I pummeled him over and over again and eventually he just fell on his back.
His concerned friend ran in-between us as I was telling him to stand back up. His friend Mike actually calmly diffused the situation and made his pal on the ground apologize to me and all three promised to never pick on me again.
I walked home feeling kinda sick, having never fought before and not having taken any damage. I went to my room and broke down in there for a good 15 minutes or so. I was convinced they'd come back at me the following Monday (this was on a Friday) to exact revenge but that never happened. My bully didn't appear in school until the following Wednesday and by then the entire school knew what happened. Mike had told everyone that I was off-limits now if they wanted to avoid having their heads caved-in.
People asked me for days if the stories were true and my response was always "Ask someone else who was there, I'm biased."
I got almost zero shit for the other year and a half I stayed at that school. It's one of the turning points in my life. Before that I was a pathetic doormat.
My bully and I later made amends when we both worked the same summer job. For the months in-between he was visibly afraid of me. He would literally flinch whenever I looked at him or said anything in his vicinity and if he was talking when I said anything, he'd shut up immediately. I finally had to tell him that everything between us was settled out on that street-corner and I wasn't harboring any more violence towards him.
We were never friends but I think we both learned a lot from each-other.
This, this a thousand times this. I had this exact same thing happen to me. I'll repost from the Gizmodo article on the video.
I have so many bullying stories I could write a book. I think I might post more as the thread progresses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rIZcjfkhW0
:winky:
I dunno, suplex seems just about right.
My parents always told me if someone hit me than I should hit them harder so they would be less inclined to hit me again. Best advice they ever gave me.
Rock over here.
Big stick here.
Fishing rod fashioned into a whipping switch there.
Whatever bro
https://medium.com/@alascii
Schools really need to dump all of the rules about fighting in school, they're worthless, write up some guidelines and general standards for teachers to follow. Nothing says We're worthless Like the teachers who say "Just fight back" or "I can't force other students to like you".
A group of students decided to beat on my brother in school, a teacher saw the fight happening, tried to break it up, grabbed a hold of my brother, he pushed her away, she filed a report and had him suspended.
I told teachers, some even saw but the most I got out of it was a new plate of food to get spit on.
Then one day I ran into him in the bathroom and I held his head down into a toilet bowl of poopy water until he drowned.
I almost knocked a teacher out with a poorly thrown 2 liter water bottle (to a thirsty friend on the other side of a basketball court), luckily I missed his head by about 6 inches, instead of immediate punishment he had a chat with me, asked me if I was aiming for his head, I apologised and told him I had a really awful overarm throw, he laughed and told me not to throw heavy objects like that again if I was such a poor aim.
Just making sure, guy, you never know, I've seen a lot worse from students who aren't big fans of my pop quizzes!
haha, alright amigo you watch that throwin arm, now!
In high school I was bullied constantly by a guy who was at least a foot taller than me. I couldn't do anything to him if I had wanted to. I had science class with him and he'd be constantly taken outside to talk about why he did so poorly. Something about his parents. I just felt sorry for him.
Probably helped
So, uh, these are things you take pleasure in? :?
There were a few exceptions but I'm not sorry for any fight I've ever been in.
People before were saying that they would have been fine if Casey's bully landed on his head and got brain damage. I'm all for bullies getting their comeuppance, but I do think there's a limit.
oh wow this post took me by surprise
i was taking everything at face value until a few seconds after i read the end and then i was like "wait what did he do"
I tried banding together with my fellow outcasts and these types always made it hard to defend my own kind.
i wasn't super popular but everyone knew who i was and seemed to be cool with me
so uh
yep
hi5.
I got pushed around a bit by the top dog bullies, but they did it to everyone at one time or another. I never really felt targeted.
One time a particularly stupid bully from my class asked me at the beginning of our second year of high school if I wanted to be "freshied" Hopefully we're all familiar with that term, but just in case it's basically where you do something horrible to a freshman in the first week of school, because starting high school isn't bad enough, there should also be low-level torture involved.
Any way, I pointed out to him that a) I wasn't a freshman, b) he should know that because we are in the same class, and c) why would anyone respond positively to a question like that? That's about the closest I ever came to standing up to bullying, which makes me pretty lucky, I'd say.
And then in eighth and ninth grade for being creepy (because I was)
And then I just decided to become awesome and be the guy everybody knows and loves
But jesus that was a long unhappy road
Felt frustrated and powerless when my friends were being beaten and teachers refused to lift a hand.
Talking to bullies didn't help, talking to adults didn't help, but knocking bullies over and punching them in the face ended up working pretty well.
Honestly sometimes it's the only option left to kids, aside from accepting the abuse along with a bunch of crippling mental baggage.
Yeah fuck victims, what's their deal anyway???
If an internet video is the only way for a kid to learn how to deal with something, the problem runs just a little bit deeper I think.
You're right. Why care when some repulsive dweeb turns traitor and victimizes some innocent kid because another dude called him a fag? Whatever makes him feel better about himself!
So is bullying okay if their parents are shitty? They're victims too! And is being a shitty parent fine if their boss is an asshole? Victim!
At some point, people have to be held accountable for their own behavior.
That's fine but I'm not going to hate the guy down the chain more.
Some innocent kid unless he allows himself to be hurt, you mean? Then he's even worse than all of them.
I'm talking about the kids who perpetuated the abuse after being victims themselves and knowing full-well the kind of pain it causes.
I don't know if I wasn't clear or if you're taking my comment about victims becoming abusers a little personally.