Blog 4
Done Reading? Bullying Needs to Die
i remember just half a year ago on tiktok, people were saying that we should ‘bring back bullying.’ on one hand im very thankful that so many people responded by sharing their own negative experiences with bullying in an attempt to curb the trend… but on the other hand, i dont think these people realize that bullying never actually left, ESPECIALLY on larger platforms online. people just realized that they could word it in a certain way, and then immediately rebrand it as humor or “ragebait” if it doesnt land the way they wanted. better yet, if they know it isnt gonna go well regardless, they just say it from a burner or throwaway. this pattern has gotten so frequent that i coined a term for it (“empty account theory”). so for this blog, i wanted to talk about the phenomenon of bullying. im sure we're all familiar with what bullying is, so im not gonna go through the trouble of explaining it. what confuses me is the fact that some people are desparate to "bring it back" by any means necessary. people have been traumatized by and even have lost others to bullying, and people act like it's a good thing that happens. i remember that when people started explaining that bullying is in fact wrong and hurts people, people started pretending that they were only going to target "bad people" (bigots, predators, pedophiles, etc.). as much as i do think that people like that should be held accountable... the fact is, the people saying that will just start moving the goalpost of what they consider to be a "bad person" to justify their poor treatment of that person. additionally, bullying has rarely ever been targeted towards people who are actually bad people- it's almost always targeted at marginalized groups. thats another thing about bullying- it's almost always shown to be done for mundane reasons, like "i dont like your jacket" or "your hair looks weird." im not saying that nobody ever gets bullied for those things, but people are far less likely to go after mundane stuff like that. the only times ive ever seen anyone make fun of people for mundane things (ie. having glasses/braces, hair, clothes) is when its a friend or family member joking around.
lastly there's the phenomenon of cyberbullying. before you comment: this is a "cyberbullying is a real issue" type page, so if you disagree and are planning to be a little shit about it maybe leave. people want any excuse to attack entire strangers online and it's genuinely so sad. even when their behavior drives people to take extreme measures (sometimes suicide), theyll find whatever reason they can to blame the victims of it instead of taking responsibility. the worst part of it all is that all of the "advice" they'll give to deny cyberbullying exists could easily fix the problem. instead of insisting people are responsible for blocking out hateful commenters, dont leave hate comments. instead of saying that they're too sensitive to be on the internet, look at the people who cant handle seeing people they might not like or agree with online.
all in all, i feel like bullying is just self projection to a certain degree. it's a lot easier for people to take their own underlying issues out on others than actually confront them head on. to conclude: bullying