Bullying: teachers preach against it, adults notice it, students endure it. Bullying may as well be a meaningless cliché. It is a term so overused that no one tends to care about or know the baggage it entails. Bullying is so much more than just the daily confiscating of someone’s lunch money or unfortunate adjectives being spat in someone’s face. Bullying has evolved and escalated to a repetitive activity that can take place within any environment without a trace of detection. If proof is found, which can happen, there is really no punishment that can be bestowed upon the bully when taking into consideration the specific circumstances, which is a main reason as to why bullying is something that has been around for centuries and will only progress from here.
Cyberbullying is, by definition, the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature, but modern bullying is so, so much more than that. Bullying has advanced to a point where it is now lethal, indirect, public, and sometimes even anonymous.
People of both genders are often times reassured that bullying is just a pathetic act triggered by jealousy.
“That sounds great and all and it an easy way to label it,” an anonymous source said, “but that doesn’t make sitting in a class full of people that hate you any easier. It doesn’t make losing friends any easier. It doesn’t make spending your lunches in the library instead of the cafeteria any easier. It doesn’t make your accomplishments and hard work being shamed any easier. But thank God somebody envies you.”
Jealousy is something that, whether or not someone is willing to admit, everyone feels at some point in their life. It’s just human nature, and that is not something to be ashamed of, but the way that most people go about handling their jealousy is what is wrong about it. People need to be taught to accept and embrace their jealous tendencies rather than viewing it as a sin and negatively projecting their jealousy at an innocent person.
“I would be lying if I claimed to have never felt the cold shame of rejection or endured attacks from those who are verbally confident behind the screen of a type of technology, and for the longest time, I neglected to reply with any sort of response at all, refusing to give them what they wanted most of all, a reaction.” said anonymous. “I thought that I was being the bigger person and that the bullying would soon cease to exist out of my lack of participation, but I was incredibly incorrect. The bullying continued, and even increased. By not saying anything I was just making myself an easy target, rather than leaving it to dwindle to insignificance. I eventually learned that, after years of taking [verbal] hit after hit, there is a fine line between stooping to their level and standing up for yourself.”
Remember that time someone betrayed your friendship? Or when your significant other broke your heart? That hurt, didn’t it? They bullied you. If you are someone who has dealt with the hardships much like the examples I gave you, which everyone has, then you know exactly how much, for lack of a better term, it sucked. Therefore, why would you want to purposely inflict that pain onto someone else? What makes this implication of hurt justified in a social setting? There is never an excuse for bullying.
“I will not go as far as to ridicule bullies, because what moral or ethic am I then upholding in my personal sanctification of humanity if I belittle, berate, and dehumanize them as they have done to me?” anonymous said. “What I can say is this; it is never right to treat another human being with unkindness. There is never an excuse for inundated contempt of another person who feels hurt just as you do.”
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