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This documentary sucks. I'm not sure why I torture myself by watching things that piss me off. Bullying isn't as big a deal as this film pretends.

Anyone else see this? Opinions?

Didn't see the documentary, but bullying is a HUGE deal. Almost everyone has been a victim, a bully, or a bystander. However, after the dozens of trainings I've gone to about this topic, I would say that we are using the wrong tactics to eliminate bullying. Usually they tell us how recognize the signs but by then it's too late. We really need to start with the emphasis of a child's worth and stop bullies from feeling like they need power over another person by emphasizing their own self worth. However, as adults, bullying would have to stop at home and in the workplace if we ever want kids to learn not to bully. Eh, just some of my thoughts.

How can one eliminate a concept based on human nature? I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that. Even if you emphasise a kid's self-worth, there will still be those that see themselves as higher up and more powerful than others.

Bullying might be a big deal, but here's a personal experience; I place a piece of bread in an acquaintance's chair, their friends report it as bullying and the school starts to make a big deal out of it. Over a piece of bread. The Bully film is utterly ridiculous, and the whole campaign is usually out of touch with reality.

Zero-tolerance policies are bull, don't get me wrong, but I'd rather have too little tolerance than too much.

Dizzy wrote:Zero-tolerance policies are bull, don't get me wrong, but I'd rather have too little tolerance than too much.

You made a gun sign with your fingers! Suspension!

As a former bullying victim, I'm a tad upset.

Were you pissed at the documentary because of the bullying it depicted, or because it "overexaggerated" the bullying problem?

Scorpio wrote:You made a gun sign with your fingers! Suspension!

http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/11/steyn ... ion-audio/

Kargath wrote:http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/11/steyn ... ion-audio/

And just when I thought they couldn't getting stupider.

I REALLY HATE POKEMON! wrote:This documentary sucks. I'm not sure why I torture myself by watching things that piss me off. Bullying isn't as big a deal as this film pretends.

Anyone else see this? Opinions?

I was bullied from the ages of 4 - 14~15ish. It still has lasting effects and consequences to this day. People have DIED because of people bullying them, that's a pretty big deal man.

Tell you what people trying to push me around did, and this includes the adults in my life, was turn me into one cold, hate-filled man. Height of my graduation, if you told me the school blew up with 90% of the kids in it, I wouldn't have given a single damn and I might've been able to crack a smile.

Part of that attitude came from the school freaking out that I drew a picture of a goddamn gun, and tried to make me out as some kind of potential attacker. Treating kids like **** just because you're afraid of pictures of weapons is definitely a kind of bullying.

And in regards to that article Kargath, linked, what works for a competing society in a time of war isn't necessarily good by any objective means. The pop tart story is worse than mine, though, and isn't just stupid - it's paranoia and sociopathy parading around as reasonable psychology.

I REALLY HATE POKEMON! wrote:This documentary sucks. I'm not sure why I torture myself by watching things that piss me off. Bullying isn't as big a deal as this film pretends.

Anyone else see this? Opinions?

Gotta say, this reeks of defensiveness. When students are going to the lengths of committing suicide because they have been bullied, sometimes for being gay, or for being raped, I would say, yeah, it's a ****ing problem. Your post worries me, son.

I'd say it's pretty important. Like the others above me said, people are committing suicide because of this crap. Physical bullying, cyberbullying, whatever it is, it is all horrible, and it needed to be addressed. I see kids in my grade and the ones above bullied constantly, and frankly, this movie helped.

So... um... has anyone else besides IRHP actually watched this movie yet?

King Bomby wrote:So... um... has anyone else besides IRHP actually watched this movie yet?

I did actually catch a few minutes of it while talking to one of my older teachers from years ago. Seemed like it was addressing the right things.

Bullying is a problem, and the world is full of bullies. Still, it seems to me that these schools are willing to jump on an incident as bullying only when it would not require too much work to do anything. Putting some bread down on a seat is easy to respond to with a ridiculous solution, someone getting beaten up every day is just too much to bother with. They just consider it a fight whether you are just standing there getting pummeled or not. So it is not bullying, just a fight. They ignore a lot of things, really. They only punish the ones that are "different" or the ones that are not doing anything serious or intentional

I remember this one guy in the band at high school who was a jerk to everyone. He pissed me off so bad on my first day that I finally came up behind him, put my jacket around his face, and shoved him into a stack of chairs. Somehow I did not get in trouble for that, a bunch of people saw it but no teacher was in there. Of course, no one had cared about the stuff he did all day, and I was not the only one that got that treatment. He had given me **** all day, tripped me for no reason, then shoved me into a bunch of cases. He got mad and shoved me down after he got up, but he quit after that. Same thing in gradeschool, I knocked a few guys down after they had spent a few minutes jumping on me, and I got in trouble for shoving them off me. And that other guy in high school that annoyed me enough that I went over to his stuff and kicked it across the room. And that time I got into a shouting match with a teacher that got so loud that classes were stopped to see what was going on. Actually, this sort of thing happened a lot. People stopped messing with me when they realized that my temper might overcome my restraint. I am not sure if that is the approach everyone here would recommend, but appearing weak makes you an easy target for bullies. Most of them don't have the guts to keep on if they are alone, and they don't like it when the target bites back.

The unrealistic approach constantly preached to kids now is that you cannot do anything to defend yourself, and always rely on authority figures to do something about it. They usually don't care about what happens unless it affects their image or parents complain. If you are not willing to do anything for yourself you are going to be a target. And as for all this committing suicide, that is a concern. Why anyone would want to kill themselves over school bullying is beyond me. It may be bad, but it is only a few years of school, and you can try to get out of that.

ZeldaGirl wrote:Gotta say, this reeks of defensiveness. When students are going to the lengths of committing suicide because they have been bullied, sometimes for being gay, or for being raped, I would say, yeah, it's a ****ing problem. Your post worries me, son.

Defensiveness?

That was a big thing that got me going, the suicide stuff. Look, I remember a case where a kid killed himself because a teacher took his Pokemon cards. Now, yeah, Pokemon cards are pretty sweet but c'mon. I am against suicide of all kinds but at least have a reason. Bullying and TCGs don't qualify. These people are already troubled, the teachers/bullies are usually not at fault. Obviously there are extreme cases of bullying, like the gay guy who was tied nude to a pole, but that film depicted zero reasons to self-terminate. They would have done it later after getting fired or breaking up or whatever. It's stressful situations they can't handle.

The world worries me, er, daughter...? My sister was pretty badly bullied, but she pulled through like normal people. Some people in that film tried saying the bullying was akin to "murder." This world, trust me, that's where your worries should lie.

I REALLY HATE POKEMON! wrote:I am against suicide of all kinds but at least have a reason. Bullying and TCGs don't qualify. These people are already troubled, the teachers/bullies are usually not at fault.

"If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem." ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Take one step back and remove yourself from the conversation before you make your next post. While I think there's something of a sensible point here--that there's probably never a really good justification for killing yourself--I think you're painting with too broad of a brush. Because I think, if we were to have the literal yet morbid access to interview ever person who committed suicide just before killing him or herself, that each person would have what they felt to be a legitimately good reason for doing so. I would dare say that the number of people who wouldn't to be in the extreme minority. We might not agree with said reasons, but that doesn't rob them of their power over these individuals. Nor does it make their deaths merely statistics that we can safely ignore because they are in the minority because they just happen to be a minority amongst the crowd of the bullied.

According to this, suicide rates have just jumped up to kill more Americans than car crashes. Now, stop and think...

We take vehicular safety very importantly. We have seat belt laws, air bag laws, safety laws, a zillion traffic laws, yadda yadda yadda in a hope that that will keep people from dying in their vehicles.

If that is the case, then how is it that you can look at a statistic and almost just sweep it under the rug, saying, "Well, those people were weak? They don't seem important." Granted, I'm summarizing, and I may be a little too overzealous in my summary, but that's in essence what it sounds like you're saying. Yeah, it may be 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people, but those people matter because people SHOULD matter.

Bullying isn't something that will likely ever be stopped. However, there are things that can be done about it.

The best analogy I've ever heard, and this is about rape culture but I think it applies just as well here, is that most people are opposed to rape culture and the objectification of women everything in that vein. However, those who aren't fighting against it are just swept along in the direction of society's currents as if they were on a moving walkway. And that moving walkway is one that moves in the direction of ho-hum-whatever to not take action against it... which indirectly makes everyone complicit in the acceptance of that into our culture. The only means by which one isn't swept along to that ends is to fight back and push your way past others to fight against it.

I can't help but feel that's relevant here too. I feel it is every person's responsibility to be (1) aware of how significant the effect bullying can be over someone and (2) to actively pour love into anyone we find that is facing those sorts of circumstances so that they might never feel truly isolated by the society at large. And without a proper understanding of the former and how deeply it can affect people, one will never realize just how important the second can be.

right irhp i'm trying my best to be civil here, a lot of people DO pull through bullying but not everyone is the same, we're all made up of different dosages of different chemicals, we all react to different things in entirely opposite ways.

i had a friend who earlier on this year committed suicide due to a lot of reasons, one of them was due to PTSD related symptoms brought on through bullying in his youth. PTSD symptoms have shown in victims of bullying, and PTSD can often lead to suicidal tendencies. it's not funny to see a friends mental state deteriorate like that, it really isn't, it's so heartbreaking.

also irhp, if you're implying that someone who commits suicide due to bullying would do it in other scenarios, that's real messed up dude. i've lost jobs, i've lost people i've loved, hell, when me and my other half (who was also living with me) separated, i was DEVASTATED. but in my whole life, the one thing that's made me remotely contemplate thoughts that dark was the fear of waking up, going to school, and being subjected to total humiliation, without relent, every single day. it's not something i wish to be subjected onto anyone, not even you.

please put some consideration towards how others react to different scenarios, normally I would just call you an idiot and be done with it, but this is a real issue which strike very close to home, so i implore you to just think about it a little, think about all the lives which are lost each week to children being horrible. the statistics are horrible, people are losing sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, lovers, friends, family... it's not something to just brush under the carpet.

Anyone seen the movie yet?

^^^ Well, if I thought that there was a good reason for suicide, I may be dead. But in my opinion, there isn't, least of all TCGs and bullying. Obviously everyone is different and is affected differently, but that isn't going to change what I believe to be the truth.

^^ Well, I'd rather you just called me an idiot than tell me that you want to. As far as there being one side that's civil between the two, I can't tell. Also, the "even you" comment does not seem all too civil. But whatever.

Anyway, there is nothing messed up about logical conclusion I come to. I mentioned the kid who hung himself over the PKMN TCG. Well, say he never had them taken. Do you really think it was the cards? Think he would be alive today without treatment? Odds are heavily against that. Clearly there was a mental issue and he simply latched onto them. It's a complex issue but don't sit there and imply that I'm an idiot while you tell me that these reasons are the sole purpose of their deaths. They're a catalyst for the action, normal bullying should not qualify for a reason for suicide in my opinion, so if you don't like that then you can call me stupid or be an adult and agree that we have differing opinions.

For the record, I knew a woman who killed herself. I can safely tell you that she had mental problems beyond what her "reasons" were. My grandma attempted suicide, got damn close. She is one of the most ill people I ever met, so I can tell you now that her reasons were delusions. She's an extreme example though...Anyway, suicide is no stranger to my life. Hell, I don't really want to live sometimes, although it's less like being suicidal and just not wanting to exist...My point is, I don't agree with suicide and especially not with most "reasons." I believe there to be other issues involved.