Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Words...

'nother subquestion.. where do you draw the lines between banter, teasing and bullying?

i honestly thought this was already a known 'fact' that verbal abuse was more long term harmful than any physical act.

and isn't it "..Names will never hurt me" ?

xpost yep, I thought it was dominant theory too.

...pre-ban ILX would be "CHALLOPS" all over this. (btw did Noodle_Vague get banned too?)

I have never heard that 'fact' before so it's news to me. I was always taught the sticks and stones thing, and very glad to see it disputed.

The difference between banter and bullying is easy - that banter is when both parties understand the nature of the exchange and agree to its content/nature, and bullying is entirely one-sided and totally unwanted on one end.

It's the line between teasing and bullying that's the nebulous one for me. Because I would say that the difference should be teasing is lighthearted and bullying is done with specific harm in mind. But what is lighthearted teasing in one situation would be interpreted as bullying in a different one.

It's like... how to tell the differnce between flirting and hitting on and sexual harrassment. Sexual harrassment is when power becomes involved. Or coersion on power-based lines rather.

I'm just thinking out loud, really, but it's topical lately I guess.

I don't know what challops means.

Obviously such ILX slang is aimed at group cohesion but I spent so much time off it that I no longer get much of the slang.

How long has this been the dominant theory? Because it really is new to me.

Yeah I thought this had long since passed into bullying debate orthodoxy. Verbal bullying has been regarded as as bad or worse than physical bullying for as long as I can remember. Unless we're to think that, say, workplace bullying always involves physical violence.

It's a bit of a non-story really, like when they wheel out some scientist who has managed to sensationally prove that people are more likely to get into fights when drunk.

Challops is 'challenging opinions', usually used sarcastically.

On topic, I too thought it was fairly well known - even if not in academic research, I think most people feel this fairly instinctively. However, this does not and will not translate into people thinking more before they act harmfully to others. People be bastards.

xpost

for instance : http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/41/13/28
and elsewhere I'm sure.

Oh well. I guess I have been living under a rock for the past few decades. Apologies for starting the thread, then. Oh well. :-( Never mind.

there's so man 'fine lines' in life, but we all want to try and put a 'right' vs 'wrong' category on everything.

i blame the digital era and those cursed zeros and ones!

many

where do you draw the lines between banter, teasing and bullying?

think the difficulty of drawing these lines, which are in constant state of flux depending in whatever the social dynamic is, probably really contributes to the harm verbal bullying can do. if you get punched, you know you're the victim of physical violence; but if you feel hurt by something someone's said to you, you end up questioning your own reaction first and stewing over whether you "should" feel hurt, especially if it's incremental.

(btw did Noodle_Vague get banned too?)

let's hope!

...especially when people are telling you that you're being all "butthurt" for feeling bullied in the first place.

The difference between banter and bullying is easy - that banter is when both parties understand the nature of the exchange and agree to its content/nature, and bullying is entirely one-sided and totally unwanted on one end.

i dont think its quite as easy as this; i think its pretty rare in any situation for both parties of an exchange to understand the nature of that exchange in the same way, or for that matter to agree to its nature... not that there isnt a difference or a distinction btw the two, just that, as always, one person's banter is another person's bullying, and the line can get crossed for one person or both within a conversation several times

haha well, i don't think getting meta would be a good way for this thread to go, but (gets a bit meta) i always wondered why people were so quick to excuse themselves by saying "hey that's just what bros do" - duh, of course gentle and not-so-gentle ribbing is a fine and worthy part of a friendship, but when did those people get the idea that we had that kind of relationship? occasional ill-tempered internet interactions do not a friendship make, and ribbing outside of that is just rude and unacceptable.

xp

nb while i can't speak for anyone else, i've never felt bullied on ilx. weirded out by being targeted, yes, but not bullied

the difference is that you can control to some extent how damaging verbal abuse is to you

No, I think that's part of the connotation if not the denotation of banter - that it is a mutual proccess. i.e. it's only banter if *both* people know it's in fun.

It's not just a gradation, but about intention.

There's a kind of power dynamic involved in bullying that there isn't in banter or even teasing. That the purpose of bullying is to assert dominance over the other party without the other party's consent.

in those terms, sure, banter can have a power struggle aspect, but it's a game that both parties are playing.

Teasing is non-consensual on one side, but there's no attempt to assert dominance.

I think that's something that Lex has put his finger on that's important about these kinds of interactions on ILX - that it's the assumption of an intimacy that doesn't exist as much as the action. I will accept a lot more ribbing and teasing from someone with whom I do have a friendship because I know there is no power dynamic aspect to it. With an effective stranger on the internet, there is no intimacy, the motives are unclear, and lines get crossed.

I think.

Yep, by definition banter is a two-part exchange - one cannot banter with a brick wall. I think, however, it *always* has a power struggle aspect, but sometimes it is rather a pastiche of the power struggle (quickfire barbs in screwball comedies are my archetype here).

Teasing is tricky because people use it to mean two different things (or often a bit of both together): its definition incorporates both light-hearted mockery and out-and-out bullying.

I still thing a random act of physical violence from a stranger is possibly more damaging than a random act of verbal abuse from a stranger.

i have to tell you, though, i never doubted the pain of words. ever.

the sticks and stones expression is sort of BS.

It's not just a gradation, but about intention.

There's a kind of power dynamic involved in bullying that there isn't in banter or even teasing. That the purpose of bullying is to assert dominance over the other party without the other party's consent.

in those terms, sure, banter can have a power struggle aspect, but it's a game that both parties are playing.

have you really never been in a conversation where 'lighthearted banter' turned quickly into 'bullying' when one person didnt know when to stop or cut it out?

Sticks and Stones is not a statement of fact, its a mental crutch to help people reduce the damage of verbal abuse.

And yes actual grievances are often sublimated into banter and when one party goes too far then it's a problem.

Usually bullying is when one person wants to assert dominance over another loosely/unrelated person for whatever reason (approval of peers, insecurity etc). Banter that goes too far generally means both parties have an emotional investment in the relationship and an axe to grind.

Well, we're very clearly not talking about random strangers, are we?

We're talking about people we have to interact with on a regular basis.

you were talking about random strangers:

With an effective stranger on the internet, there is no intimacy, the motives are unclear, and lines get crossed.

I think.

-- Masonic Boom, Friday, August 29, 2008 1:39 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

xp intentions aren't always conscious... I do reckon a lot of bullying is only in the eye of the perceiver, ie the bully really does think "this is just a bit of harmless banter", and its only on reflection that they realise they were subconciously asserting dominance over the other party.

(by the way, this doesn't mean the bullee is wrong for being butthurt, just that the bully is guilty only of misinterpreting the situation rather than being out-and-out evil selfish bastard)

Also bullying is often a manifestation of (overcompensating for) shyness. I know because I do this in meetings at work, and its wrong ... but again not deliberately malicious.

i guess i define it differently than you guys--but frankly the different kinds of verbal abuse/emotional pain aren't really relevant to this study which seems to say that any kind of pain or abuse is still vivid, no matter the intent of the injuring party

Also there's a big difference between verbal sparring between roughly equivalent peers (ie you lovely lot on ILX); and continued verbal abuse by Parents/Guardians on children or domestic verbal abuse which is backed up by the threat of physical abuse.

oh grammar be the death of me. you get what I mean, though?

Yes then verbal abuse is probably more damaging, in a controlled environment where you know who the other party is an act of physical violence means you won, you can see it as a kind of victory, generally that person has now overstepped the rules in a clear and punishable way, it changes the context of the act and therefore the psychological impact.

Effective stranger means there's no intimacy. It doesn't mean that it's not someone you don't see on a regular basis.

I don't know anything about the personal lives of the people in my office (apart from Chattering Woman who rather forces it on me) however, because I have to interact with them on a daily basis which makes them NOT random strangers. But they are effectively strangers to me on an emotional level. Do you understand the difference?

Ditto for people on the interweb. There's usually the same bunch of screen names hanging around ILX every day. I know approximately who they are, I see them most days.

It's very hard for a totally random stranger to bully, tease or banter because it generally requires repeated contact for these interactions to take place.

However it's the (overwhelming majority of life) of the non-intimate non-stranger where these misunderstandings of intention etc. are bound to lie.

If a total stranger walked up to me and punched me, it would be a different interaction that if my neighbour walked up to me and punched me, yes?

i guess if the physical interaction isn't all one sided it could be referred to as a release of the anger/pressure, rather than having to listen to someones abusive mouth and walking away with feelings of unresolvement and thoughts of "man, wish i'd punched that twit in the face"

(not a response to the prev post btw, just a general observation)

xxp That's related to the point I was trying to make above - that the severity of bullying really relates to trust. ie if a child trusts its parents 100%, and that trust is broken by bullying abuse, its going to have a significant effect on that child's psychological development. Whereas I don't know anyone on ILX well enough to trust you ( although you all seem nice natch) , so if I were to be flamed out after this post I'd be a little annoyed, but hardly scarred.

although it'd bother me more on ILX than, say, 4chan or in youtube comments...

i think anybody that's ever been 'physically bullied' will be glad to know that there's no harmful emotional damage attached.

Well, speaking purely from personal experience (your mileage may vary)...

Things that happen on ILX, for example, bother me in direct relation to how much else I have going on in my life. Things are unlikely to bother me that much when ILX is just a bunch of people that entertain me during dull moments in the office, but disappear when I turn the screen off. Things are more likely to bother me 1) the more boundaries blur and people I know from the internets start turning up in my real social life or 2) when I have no other social life *except* ILX.

Situation 2 is obviously not very healthy for anyone. Because that also results in situations where people grow likely to use ILX as a punching bag to take out their frustrations, and are as likely to become bullies as be bullied.

If that seems a bit meta, well, you can take out ILX and substitute anything like "the office" or "the club" or "the Party" or other aspects of life where humans gather on a regular basis.

I'm really trying to avoid any more personal situations because, well, ILX isn't the place for that. But it helps me to understand situations I have been in. (It's been very difficult to be told "abused? You weren't abused! You weren't being beaten! STFU and don't be a sissy" when you've been in situations of sustained verbal and emotional abuse. This does enable me to turn around and go "well, actually..." and kind of deal with things better.)

I think a key to how much this affects a person is the amount of emotional investment they have in the person who is doing the bantering/teasing/bullying (delete as applicable), or the gallery that person is playing to. Doesn't matter what the emotion is really. The internet blurs these lines enormously because half the time it's just some screen name stranger who have no connection with whatsoever and it just bounces off, whereas a near identical flaming from someone you like/hate/respect can have a totally different effect.

I really need to sort out that "Matt DC OTM" shortcut key sooner rather than later.

And sometimes it can be the other way around.

if someone you knew said something dicey, you would know they were just teasing, and the correct response would be to toss something back.

And yeah, that gallery effect has a great deal to do with it as well. That Person A is picking on Person B not just as a power display over Person B, but also to impress/amuse/curry favour with a social group. The size (and anonymity/lack of redress) of the peanut gallery on the internet exacerbates this behaviour.

mmm peanuts mmm curry...

...sorry, what?

oh yeah, matt and ailsa and kate OTM.

Can't be! I'm never OTM!

I'm ILX's token mad bitter old woman! :-P

I think a key to how much this affects a person is the amount of emotional investment they have in the person who is doing the bantering/teasing/bullying (delete as applicable),

There's a lot to this -- my lowest point ever on ILX, and one of my lowest points ever, was when I got totally raked over the coals by someone who was, up to that point, my favorite ILXor. I doubt that person ever realized how devastating it was.

Kate Masonic OTM

xp

Sometimes people are RUDE JERKS. (summary)

Oh Rock, that would suck.

We're not disputing that, Abbot. We're disputing why, in some cases, people being RUDE JERKS may *bother* us more than others. (And it's not always a question of thickness of skin, it is situational.)

As with Rock Hardy's experience, the more you regard** the person, the worse the hurt. It is a directly proportional ratio.

**I chose this word carefully. For example, your boss is a person you must regard, whether or not you like them.

Yes, but you can still get upset when 100% strangers in the street shout/spit/calmly come up and tell you you're a piece of shit who shouldn't be allowed to exist. The first few times you (eventually) manage to think "well, that person is a dick, I'm glad I have better things to do", but when it was happening reasonably frequently and in different places and situations too I got pretty down about how completely unacceptable I must be since that was beginning to seem like the default reaction of Other People on the first occasion of seeing me from tens of metres away.

(Though yeah, I would be heartbroken if anyone I liked did likewise in a non-bantery manner, and when people even vaguely in my friend group have been catty to me I have immediately had to go from thinking they were pretty OK to deciding I'd always thought they were terrible people, to save myself from valuing their opinion, and been alarmed that actual friends whose opinions I still valued didn't see a problem with them)

where do you draw the lines between banter, teasing and bullying?

Yes, but that's not a clearcut thing either. Mood and environment are at constant interplay.

Feelings of being down/isolated can be caused or exacerbated by external influences like being harrassed or bullied.

True enough. Honestly, though, I've never felt bullied by anyone I cared about, except to the extent that:

A) I'd earned it (royally), or
B) As an indication that it was time for me to change my game up.

It would be a really great world if everyone got to exist/grow up in an environment where they were never "bullied" except for those reasons (which, frankly, sounds like just punnishment, not bullying.)

Unfortunately, I didn't grow up in that world.

Who did?

Contenderizer, apparently.

Nah, me neither. I guess I misspoke. Absorbed a fair share of bullying as a kid, but in my adult life, it hasn't been an issue. I'm 40ish, see, so the insults and slights of childhood don't loom large.

Sorry yr. going through shit. :(

Oh, I'm not going through shit right now! I'm pretty happy at the moment.

It's during those calm, happy moments that it's sometimes good to step back and work out what exactly made the rough times so rough.