That's... awful. Purely awful. Bullying is certainly nothing to joke about. Neither is suicide. D:

And then there's of course the ignorance surrounding the whole thing. How many times do people say "It was just a joke"?! As if that made it better. "I find it funny so it can't be bad, riiight?" It's unbelieveable.

... wargh.

After having been bullied most of my childhood, I honestly can't stand people like that. It is unbelievable,

That's the trouble with a lot of bullying campaigns. They don't actually get a message across. The way I've truly understood bullying is by experiencing harassment, though that shouldn't be the way kids are educated on the subject.

From personal experience, I can say that little is usually done to help the victims. People are always telling kids to let parents and/or teachers know that they're being bullied, but as a child any time I did that it made things worse, especially as my school's policy on bullying was to let the bully know exactly who told on them, and tell them never to bully again, sometimes even rewarding them.

- Austin Powers

Anyways, sorry to hear that. That guy sounds like a #####.

Seeing as driving someone to suicide can be (at least IMO I'm not sure how the legalities work) considered an accomplice to murder... yeah.

It's times like this I hulk out. Speaking so casually of something like that... yeah.

Sorry Nukaya, didn't realise that word wasn't allowed. I'll try to avoid it in future.

- Austin Powers

I think the best thing to do in situations like that is to confront the person. Bullies tend to get taken aback when people stand up to them. Don't take any more of it and let him know you won't take any more of it.

Wow, I can't believe that. Terrible.

I went through some terrible bullying when I was in middle school, both physical and social. On the physical side, I was beat up until I was bloody. On the social side, I made into an outcast in every single way and not only mocked, but turned over to the principle for things that I didn't do. None of these things drove me to suicide - that thought has never tempted me - but since it was coming from everybody what it did do was make me an angry person. That ended up hurting me even more.

I've grown past that now. The main thing I regret is my own behavior, which was weak. I could have held myself better. I could have been a sturdier person, but I wasn't.

Now personally, I'm not out to solve the bullying problems of this world. Those will never come to an end. When I become a parent, my focus will instead be on teaching my kids how to hold strong against anything. I don't really know how; I just want to be a good father that way.

As for the different types of bullying, I've grown tired of being judgmental on bullies. It's what red-blooded teenagers do. Eventually they grow out of it, and I hope that their aggressiveness translates into a healthier outlet that leads them to success. In that sense, maybe I'm like the bully in this passage, because if it isn't causing long-term damage, if all it amounts to is just being tough on other people, then I don't think much of it. It's just a thing. It happens.

What I don't like is cold-blooded bullying. This is the type that genuinely is cruel. Whether it comes from discrimination (I'm being bullied right now by a few political radicals who use intimidation tactics on me) or a genuine desire to damage a person, this is not something I support. The absolute worst, however, is when someone takes a very intellectual approach to bullying through sly means of slander to degrade another individual. That's bullying with an agenda. If this bully you mention genuinely desired to do as much damage to you as he could get away with and degrade your sense of self worth (I'm thinking of a certain famous BZPer who liked doing this to me), then we have a problem.

Now to completely turn the tables, I would like to say that I sympathize with bullies. I've been bullied, and with that I relate, but that was never something that ruined my life. What ruined me was when, in my weakness, I learned to deal with these problems by becoming a bully myself. That created more problems than it solved. Bullies - or should that word not apply in certain cases, aggressive people in general - are special people who need love and care just as much as anyone else. Through the complex lens that I have developed over my nineteen years of life, this situation isn't simple at all. The person you mentioned, whether he is red-blooded or cold-blooded (and, for the sake of all parties, I hope he's red-blooded), needs someone to talk to him to help him sort through his shortcomings.

My advice: see him first as a human being. I know what he said angers you, and we've now seen that it angers many people. Yet, don't treat him like a sick and perverse person. First turn the other cheek, then reach out to him. He needs someone like you who can calmly discuss the impact his behavior has on other people and the feelings you have on the matter. Don't accuse him of anything, though. Keep it at a mature discussion as much as possible. I say this not as idealistic advice because this is something I have had to do. In fact, I just had to do this today. So meanwhile, I hope you two reconcile.

I wouldn't say I was bullied in high school, but I was one of the social outcasts because I didn't follow the social conforms held in society today. I didn't dress like the popular people(I wore what I wanted, even if they thought it silly) and I dislike makeup. I do wear it occasionally, but I believe God intended for us to be the way we are and there is no use hiding it. The only interaction I would get with popular people was when they wanted help on their homework that they waited til the last second to complete or if we played Jeopardy in our science class. As for the person above me mentioned, you should definitely "turn the other cheek" and look at it from their angle. There may be a deeper reason as to why they bully. They could've been bullied themselves or there could be a social or family issue that lead them to inflicting pain on others.