Meanness

It sounds like a load of Wallmart crap, but happiness/love/positive vibes really do get reflected back at you somewhat. (I don't succeed in doing it either, but I know everyone is friendlier when I'm friendly, everyone seems happier when I'm happy, generally.)

(xxpost to OP, obv.)

Is that mean?

A friend (who is a seriously starving artist) always gives money to panhandlers. One time he was out of money and told the guy that I would help him out. Then my head exploded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/us/24land.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all&oref=partner&oref=slogin

i want to send this kid, like, a million dollars, and a promise that things get better

this kid seems like the opposite of someone who'd get beat up in high school

sadly i guess this is what wearing a DC hat in arkansas gets you?

sadly i guess this is what wearing a DC hat in arkansas gets you?

Who knows why it happens, and why it happens to a particular kid? This story makes me so sad.

i'd be pissed at his parents for keeping him in the school system to try to prove a point. maintaining moral high ground is noble but some battles just can't be won. he is close to college-age though -- hopefully in a few years he can get the fuck outta dodge and start fresh in a new place.

If he was my boy I think the temptation to go down to the school and batter one of his tormentors senseless would be too much.

^^^^^ Both of the foregoing comments are OTM.

That story gave me a cold-sweat flashback. I hope Billy can get an icepick into the lung of at least one of them someday.

That story gave me a cold-sweat flashback.

Yes. I was that kid who was targeted for no obvious reason and bullied relentlessly in middle school. It never got physical so I suppose it's not as bad but I can attest that this kind of experience will follow you for the rest of your life no matter how much better it gets. Thankfully I switched schools and the bullying stopped. His parents need to get him out of that environment. I feel so bad for him. :-(

Ugh ugh ugh although this is the wrong kind of meanness for this thread.

he's a nice-looking kid. My suggestion would be to start doing some push -ups and/or start a band ...and then sleep with his tormentors' girlfriends.

(but yeah, the parents really might consider getting him out of that school.)

also, not sure that letting what must be incredibly painful and embarrassing for him be written up in the NYT will do him any favors in the long run.

Shuddering here too, especially at the part where the kid gets beaten up by kids and then somehow gets detention for it. If it's anything like my encounters with assistant principals he was probably told that it was impossible to favour one student's word over another or told about his 'attitude'. I once told an Ass Prin that my "attitude" was that people like my mother did not pay the highest property taxes in the state in order to be verbally and physically abused by the children he was being paid from the public purse to manage, that I would not be going to detention on this or any other day and if this offended him to take it up with my mother, who was looking forward to hearing from him.

Then I got up and walked out, leaving him and the meatheads who'd been bullying me all year utterly slack-jawed. So worth it.

also, not sure that letting what must be incredibly painful and embarrassing for him be written up in the NYT will do him any favors in the long run.

seriously

the headline reads like the onion

"If he was my boy I think the temptation to go down to the school and batter one of his tormentors senseless would be too much."

I would have done that at least three incidents ago. Then I would have made some visits to some of the administrators who are allowing this stupidity to go on.

I've never heard "mean" used as a synonym for "cheap".

I understand the parents' predicament -- maybe they're trying to teach their son something valuable, maybe they can't move (or switch schools) for one reason or another -- but I hope they realize that this type of serial bullying will leave emotional scars long after the physical scars heal. Those scars will follow this poor boy around all his life, even if he's able to overcome them.

All of this deserves a thread of its own. This one was originally intended for an entirely different topic.

Well, it's my fault for not reviewing the beginning of the thread when I searched for 'meanness' , but (like ENBB) was such a target of bullying. I think that

this kid seems like the opposite of someone who'd get beat up in high school

-- J0rdan S., Monday, March 24, 2008 1:13 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Link

and

he's a nice-looking kid.

-- will, Monday, March 24, 2008 7:23 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

are interesting comments because of the assumption that the bullying is based on the kid's appearance.

the article is sorta lazy in one sense, being that there is no effort made to understand the victimized kid or any reasoning behind the bullying. i, like ENBB, was a lot like this kid... and though the violence around me was futile and unprovoked, there were certain things i could have done to mitigate it. in retrospect, in hindsight, etc....

Yeah, what struck me when I read the article was that he might VERY WELL have become unpleasant and unpopular to his classmates and all the teachers/admin. Being bullied quite frequently MAKES YOU UNPLEASANT, especially when you see that everyone who could help you either will not or does not. I know I'd have a chip on my overly defensive shoulder roughly the size of Lake Superior -- because I only got rid of the feeling of having one, myself, within the past few years. And I've been out of school for a long time.

i honestly didnt realize bullying was typically a problem that persisted into high-school, i thought guys kind of matured out of it. i def feel sorry for any girl who's ever grown up ever though, having witnessed the way they treated each other (which seemed hysterical to me at the time).

i guess in my experience the guys mostly bonded in jr high because we all hated the girls, & the girls all hated each other.

he's a nice-looking kid.

-- will, Monday, March 24, 2008 7:23 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

are interesting comments because of the assumption that the bullying is based on the kid's appearance.

well I don't really want to suggest that "conventionally attractive" kids normally don't catch hell from bullies. i would imagine that a lot of the time looks are immaterial. I just meant that unless he's an unbearable ass or smells like cabbage or something he'll probably do a-ok in the romance dept as he matures, becomes more sure-footed socially, etc... of course this may offer little solace now.

Being bullied has more to do with your attitude and how you carry yourself than it does with your appearance, I think. Kids can sense vulnerability, fear, weakness, shyness, and many of them will seize on those qualities to raise their own standing vis-à-vis the bullied kid, or to further push down their own (less obvious but still present) fears and insecurities, or for any other number of reasons. You see this behavior forming as early as children begin to socialize.

I speak from experience on this. I was able to rise above it and do fine, but I had very hard times in school up to college (when, thankfully, for reasons never fully clear to me, it all changed somehow). In some ways, the episodes made me a better person: More sensitive to other people's vulnerabilities and concerns, and more reflective and introspective. In other ways, as I said upthread, it left scars that won't ever fully heal.

And mind you, this kid's going through far worse than I ever did. I can only imagine how bad it will be for him.

bullies seem to get weeded out by the time college rolls around, ime

ugh, that's terrible. And then on the other hand.. I found myself asking.. why don't they teach the kid to fight? I had a pretty rough time in school myself but by the end of middle school at least the popular crowd & other kids didn't bother me too much because by then I had a really sarcastic sense of humor + foul mouth. would hit people if it got to that point. of course, I also had the good sense to get my parents to take me out of the private school after 8th grade, the students were just awful.

I would kind of like to bully the writer of that article.

Who knows? Maybe he's scared. Maybe he's not, but maybe he's afraid that he'll ruin his future and/or things will escalate and somebody will get seriously hurt if he fights back. It's hard to put a kid in the position of having to make that choice. Maybe the abuse is often nonviolent, just belittling and humiliating him in ways that don't invite a fight (obv., tho, this kid's been physically beaten up a lot).

(xp)

Yeah.. no, I know, if he sees it that way. I don't recall having thought out stuff that much when I was younger, I would just lose my temper sometimes.

It's no real pleasure in life.

I would kind of like to bully the writer of that article.

-- HI DERE, Monday, March 24, 2008 4:09 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah, no kidding.

I think Laurel (?) was onto something above, with the idea that bullying usually starts as random teasing, but feeds off of different/insufficient/weird response pattern from the bullied person.

In most cases, as I see it, a unique response provokes more bullying: it nets repeatable rewards for the aggressor, e.g. the victim crying, pointedly ignoring, becoming reactionary prideful of the thing that is being teased†, supplicating, ass-kissing, you name it... the gamut of possible bizarre reactions runs from outright purple fury all the way to stockholm syndrome.

Over time the victim tends to become identified by any sort of outburst and their slightly (or significantly) off-kilter behavior. The standard line –– non-action, rising above, ignoring –– is utter bullshit as a mitigating tactic, because it infallibly initiates a challenge. A kind of "I'm better than you are, and you can't get me" situation. In my experience the victim is wholly neutered: (s)he can not rise above the situation by avoiding it, nor can (s)he try for parity or direct confrontation for certainty of worsening relations. Double-bind.

† becoming "more" of whatever it is that is is being attacked, to demonstrate one's apparent security and surety of its rightness.

Moreover, especially as regards adolescent boys, there is a tremendous shame attached to all of this.

There will always exist a sense that "if I were [fitter/more handsome/smarter/more socially apt/straighter/more talented/funnier/cool] this would not be happening" that is bolstered in its soul-sucking strength by the fact of the bullying. A self-enforcing negative feedback loop, if that makes any sense.

And if the victim owns up to the obvious emotional shittiness, I think in some way he feels a capitulation to the claims of sissiness/anti-masculinity that are always –at least– peripheral in this kind of cruelty. Sadness at being an outsider is very much a 'wussy' feeling; inability to efficiently stand up for one's own self decidedly feeds the 'faggy' self-label.

Remy, so much of what you've said on this thread is completely otm. Esp this:

In most cases, as I see it, a unique response provokes more bullying: it nets repeatable rewards for the aggressor, e.g. the victim crying, pointedly ignoring, becoming reactionary prideful of the thing that is being teased†, supplicating, ass-kissing, you name it...

I know in my case I was never very good at hiding the fact that it bothered me and, in retrospect, I think that totally fueled the abuse.

You know what's strange is that I sometimes get the sense that even the ones doing the bullying don't actually know why they're targeting a specific kid at the time - it's just done because everyone else is doing it.

When I first joined myspace I was contacted by a handful of people from my middle school at least three of whom independently offered unsolicted apologies for the way they had treated me. It was so strange but in a way it validated my memories of the experience since they remembered it too even all this time later.

a girl at my middle school mocked one of her friends for finding one of my jokes funny. "Yeah, because Curt1s Stephens is sooooooo funny! Moron."

nb that girl was very OTM

Re ENBB's post: Oddly enough I was recently contacted re: my 20th high school reunion by someone offering up something similar (he'd started throwing around attitude back in sixth grade, at least in my direction). I'd received a similar apology from someone else at my tenth. Really, I had no great traumas in high school -- certainly nothing like this guy -- and mostly I have okay enough memories rather than burdens to carry; I am grateful for that. But I'm quite content to let high school and everything before it, a very occasional reunion aside, recede farther and farther away from my direct experience in any sense.

An apology would be... interesting. My biggest bully died a few years ago, drug-related. There was a middle-school band of others that became "cool" in high school and felt the need to let me know that things were all in fun ... mostly ... sometime during our senior year.

I got that from a few people after a reunion drink over the New Year. None of them were the main offenders, though - strangely most of the girls that went after me in the sense that we'd now call stalking (and deal with as such) left school before or around 16, often to have children of their own. How did they have time to hassle me and have sex with unsuitable boys met at the Roller Garden?

You're also right in that there's no winning with the ignore option, or the retaliation option. Finally it becomes easier to retaliate, with the proviso that it took the form of something that when overheard by an adult in authority, would incite a laff-riot for reasons that could not be explained to the victim ("uh, Mr. Johnson, she told me I was in my latency phase, what's that?"). I did have a lot of reasons to feel insecure at that time in my life but it got better (as I say a lot) after the punk girls in my HS decided to 'adopt' me.

Today I passed a girl, maybe 11 years old, who was selling lemon bars and lemonade for a diabetes foundation. I replied "Sorry, but if I eat any more sugar today I'm going to GET diabetes." My wife said this was extremely mean. I was really just trying to be friendly/jokey, but I guess maybe I overestimated an eleven-year-old's capacity for sarcasm.

it's not that mean. your wife is probably pissed at you for something else and is using the little girl as a catalyist.

LOL MR QUE OTM - i admit to having pulled this trick in the past.

larrydavid.jpeg

In the Larry David version it would turn out that the girl's mom died from diabetes.

I would have lolled.

My wife actually called out "Sorry, he didn't mean it" to the girl. It was rather embarrassing!

Jeez. My wife would definitely have had a problem with me making that joke, but I she'd wait until we were alone before laying into me </marriedman>

an 11 year old girl cut in front of me at the grocery store a few weeks ago and gave me an unpleasant triumphant smirk and i was impressed with how larry david she was, she had the exact kind of belligerent charmless face of a little girl he would have a fight with, i should have pulled her thin hair.

We were walking down the road a few weekends back and this small knot of young girls (maybe 8-10 years old?) were playing double-jump rope, really deftly, chattering amongst themselves, in the driveway of a block of flats. I was smiling to myself at the sight til this yuppie woman from the house next door emerged from her gate - looked at me and grimaced in this "I know right?" way and then proceeded to sharply tell the little girls off, saying "you cannot do that here, you are making far too much noise!"

Fuck me, I really hope at the very least she was the mother of one of the girls and had told them not to play there, and wasnt just a stranger/neighbour because what a miserly stingy woman. It was a sunny Sunday aftrnoon and they were happy and doing something healthy. And she goes and tells them off. Stupid sourfaced cow.

That she'd also looked at me with this face as if I'd also think it was terrible really ticked me off. It was all I could do to go back and snap at her "you must have had such a terribly boring childhood".

A few minutes after the lemonade girl we saw these skater kids, and one was filming the other doing some kind of not-all-that-impressive skid trick on a sloped street, and I kind of made a jokey cool guy hand gesture at the kid and said "I'm gonna look for that on youtube." I guess my wife isn't as defensive of skater kids as diabetes lemonade girls.

hurting you always struck me as a really mean and awful human so this seems pretty in character for you

i'm kidding btw, i don't want to over-estimate your ability to pick up on internet sarcasm

ha, I actually have really terrible internet sarcasmdar, but I would have gotten that one, I think.

Trayce, she sounds awful. I mean, I hate kids with a passion, don't think they should be in pubs/restaurants/anywhere in my vicinity usually, but I have absolutely no problem with them playing football/cricket/jump-rope outside my front door. It's, well, it's pretty much what they're supposed to be doing.

Yeah exactly, and I'm with you - I can find kids annoying sometimes and I'm not a kid person but playing jumprope and footy and running around - hell, kids don't do *enough* of that anymore, how dare anyone tell them off for having FUN. I despair of humans.

Hurting, if you do that kind of thing on a regular basis, you should start a thread because that skater kid comment is priceless and I would love to hear more!

Nah. I was just in a friendly mood.