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Post by Jake on Jun 7, 2010 14:46:10 GMT -5
I think people troll or "cyberbully" because it makes them feel powerful. I think there's a big difference between "trolling" and "cyberbullying". But in short, of course cyberbullying is bad and significant. It's not a good idea to solve it by "getting off the interwebz" just like moving house wouldn't be suitable for normal bullying. It's just as serious and significant as cyberbullying. A girl from a school which my school play in sports matches threw herself off a bridge because of cyberbullying. Is that your philosophy for normal bullying? If people spread rumours about someone and make her lose all her friends and confidence then they should just "grow a pair and get out the school"? Sorry, but your philosophy is ridiculous.
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Post by jeradjones on Jun 7, 2010 16:11:18 GMT -5
I think people troll or "cyberbully" because it makes them feel powerful. I think there's a big difference between "trolling" and "cyberbullying". But in short, of course cyberbullying is bad and significant. It's not a good idea to solve it by "getting off the interwebz" just like moving house wouldn't be suitable for normal bullying. It's just as serious and significant as cyberbullying. A girl from a school which my school play in sports matches threw herself off a bridge because of cyberbullying. Is that your philosophy for normal bullying? If people spread rumours about someone and make her lose all her friends and confidence then they should just "grow a pair and get out the school"? Sorry, but your philosophy is ridiculous. I don't mind getting harassed. I just look at the bully and realize their life must really suck. Most of the time it's just ignorant rednecks making remarks about my race anyways, and I don't care about that crap.
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Post by RandiKthxxx on Jun 7, 2010 16:39:39 GMT -5
Yeah but everyone isn't as mentally strong as you are, especially girls (sorry ladies). I read somewhere that starting around age 12, a lot of girls' self-esteem goes downhill (mine did for some time). Words hurt so much because they can't be taken back. Wounds heal, but words never go away. And once you put it on the Internet, it's there forever.
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Post by KipEnyan on Jun 7, 2010 19:15:42 GMT -5
Is that your philosophy for normal bullying? If people spread rumours about someone and make her lose all her friends and confidence then they should just "grow a pair and get out the school"? Sorry, but your philosophy is ridiculous. My philosophy is not ridiculous. Like I said before, cyberbullying is different because you can just ignore/block the person in 238047234 different ways with all the modern capabilities of internet social networking. And in the scheme of spreading rumors and the like, they shouldn't even grow a pair or get out, they should just grow a pair. It sounds callous, but there is really no reason to let stupid rumors and the like hold any significance on your life. If you lose all of your friends due to them hearing asshole rumors about you, then you have the SHITTIEST friends on the planet, and would do well to find some better ones anyways. The problem there is not the so-called "bullies" or the rumors they generate, the problem is the people who would consider themselves friends of the "rumor victim" in question that don't stick up for them and try to objectively find the truth of the matter from the source.
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Post by swan on Jun 7, 2010 19:51:18 GMT -5
I agree with you in principle but I don't think most young teens are capable of such an objective response. I mean most teens are probably still developing their "teflon armour" during the time when most cyber bullying (and bullying in general) occurs and don't know how to simply dismiss it. It's a more involved process then simply "growing a pair." And you can rationalize it all you want but losing all your friends is never a good feeling.
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Post by KipEnyan on Jun 7, 2010 20:14:25 GMT -5
Like I said, any friends that you could lose that easily aren't friends worth having. Regardless of the feeling, you're better off anyways. In this case, the bully is doing you a favor.
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Post by swan on Jun 7, 2010 20:38:18 GMT -5
Oh I definitely agree that in the long run you're better off, but in the moment I don't think you're gonna be able to simply disregard the feelings and acknowledge that you're better off without your former "friends", especially if you're a young teenager.
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Post by KipEnyan on Jun 8, 2010 17:09:40 GMT -5
Well I think you're just as likely to be able to teach a kid that their so-called friends are actually pieces of SHIRT as you are to teach a bully that being a douche bag isn't actually the coolest thing in the world, as he/she might believe.
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Post by swan on Jun 8, 2010 17:19:34 GMT -5
I imagine both would be fairly difficult.
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Post by KipEnyan on Jun 8, 2010 18:07:36 GMT -5
Indeed, so who's to say which approach is better? I like mine because instead of getting rid of one bully, in which case another bully could very well rise up to fill the void, you make bullies have no control over a person's life, which nullifies all bullies, past/present/future.
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Post by jeradjones on Jun 8, 2010 19:21:00 GMT -5
I get rid of bullies by telling them to fuc* off.
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Post by swan on Jun 8, 2010 19:24:06 GMT -5
KipEnyan, Yes I agree that your approach is better since, assuming that both approaches ultimately create the same outcome, your approach is about making the person stronger. (and just so it doesn't sound like I'm contradicting what I said earlier, I never meant to imply that this approach was ineffective, just that it is a more "involved" process and doesn't happen overnight.)
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Post by jeradjones on Jun 8, 2010 20:12:57 GMT -5
I was just kidding by the way. I usually just ignore it.
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Post by swan on Jun 8, 2010 21:14:33 GMT -5
My last post was directed at KipEnyan btw.
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Post by mynameisnotimporta on Jun 9, 2010 19:42:54 GMT -5
I think that formspring is a site that needs to be changed. There needs to be a disclaimer or something saying that people are only saying stuff to you on this website is because they are too afraid to say it to your face.
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Post by KipEnyan on Jun 9, 2010 20:20:02 GMT -5
Well, I mean, isn't that generally assumed in any anonymous contact? Anonymity is just a guise to protect you from shame and fear.
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Post by Jake on Jun 10, 2010 12:13:08 GMT -5
My philosophy is not ridiculous. Like I said before, cyberbullying is different because you can just ignore/block the person in 238047234 different ways with all the modern capabilities of internet social networking. And in the scheme of spreading rumors and the like, they shouldn't even grow a pair or get out, they should just grow a pair. It sounds callous, but there is really no reason to let stupid rumors and the like hold any significance on your life. If you lose all of your friends due to them hearing asshole rumors about you, then you have the SHITTIEST friends on the planet, and would do well to find some better ones anyways. The problem there is not the so-called "bullies" or the rumors they generate, the problem is the people who would consider themselves friends of the "rumor victim" in question that don't stick up for them and try to objectively find the truth of the matter from the source. Two days ago in fact, a girl two years ago was sent mean messages by a few girls in my year. She didn't block all of them but I think did as you said and blocked one of them. That definitely didn't help her situation when she went back into school. Getting off facebook sounds like a bad way- the bullies win. And in this case it wasn't harmless rumours, it was the feeling of lots of being hating you. And to be honest, i don't care whether they were my friends in the first place or not - if people go against me then that's not making me happy at all. I don't take back what I said about your philosophy being ridiculous. You seem to either confuse it with trolling or just not understand it at all.
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Post by KipEnyan on Jun 10, 2010 14:47:02 GMT -5
Two days ago in fact, a girl two years ago was sent mean messages by a few girls in my year. She didn't block all of them but I think did as you said and blocked one of them. That definitely didn't help her situation when she went back into school. Getting off facebook sounds like a bad way- the bullies win. And in this case it wasn't harmless rumours, it was the feeling of lots of being hating you. And to be honest, i don't care whether they were my friends in the first place or not - if people go against me then that's not making me happy at all. I don't take back what I said about your philosophy being ridiculous. You seem to either confuse it with trolling or just not understand it at all. You, my friend, seem to be the one not understanding at all. This -- "Getting off facebook sounds like a bad way- the bullies win." -- I find to be particularly ignorant as to what I was saying. I didn't say become a social recluse to avoid criticism. I said just block/ignore the people who are picking on you. Nowhere did I say to "get off facebook". And even so, I don't think refusing to fight the bullies makes the bullies win. On the contrary, I believe that by cutting them off from their so-called "victims", their victims win. And as to "the feeling of lots of being hating you", I don't know what kind of zombie town you live in, but I've never seen an entire population of people turned viciously on someone based on a rumor. I've seen rumors spread to the detriment of the person being talked about, but if that person makes any concerted effort to dispel the rumors, problem solved.
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Post by Jake on Jun 12, 2010 19:43:59 GMT -5
You, my friend, seem to be the one not understanding at all. This -- "Getting off facebook sounds like a bad way- the bullies win." -- I find to be particularly ignorant as to what I was saying. I didn't say become a social recluse to avoid criticism. I said just block/ignore the people who are picking on you. Nowhere did I say to "get off facebook". And even so, I don't think refusing to fight the bullies makes the bullies win. On the contrary, I believe that by cutting them off from their so-called "victims", their victims win. And as to "the feeling of lots of being hating you", I don't know what kind of zombie town you live in, but I've never seen an entire population of people turned viciously on someone based on a rumor. I've seen rumors spread to the detriment of the person being talked about, but if that person makes any concerted effort to dispel the rumors, problem solved. I'm sorry about misunderstanding the part which I did. While blocking the people would be an effective way of stopping the cyberbullying, it's not quite that simple on the whole. And while it wasn't the "entire population", the zombie town I live in is the UK equivalent of high school - and when there's a boarding house full of girls...you can imagine what that's like. And in this situation (although obviously this isn't going to apply to all cases) the rumours were in fact true, just the reactions were completely over the top and seemed to disregard the apologies made by the person involved. However, to return to your original philosophy of: "Unless you're in any kind of real danger, either grow a pair or get off the intrawebz." - do you still feel this philosophy applies or would you alter it a bit?
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Post by cmc413 (aka Chrissy) on Jun 12, 2010 20:18:09 GMT -5
Luckily I've never had any personal experiences with cyberbullying, but I think that there are certain types of cyberbullying that are more serious than others. Of course, if you've being threatened or if the bullying is being continued IRL it's serious. I've heard of the cases where people commit suicide, and the pattern I see is that it's one person or group of people that continuously harass one person which leads to death. It's not like one random person decided to post a nasty rumor on Formspring or Facebook. If someone is getting seriously upset over these types of comments, they should block those people or talk to someone else. Then again, I'm lucky enough that I haven't experienced this, so I might not know the best way to help.
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