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CptJake wrote:

Chowderhead wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Thanks for insulting Dan Savage. Every once in a while I start thinking you have some reasonable opinions, then you post something truly mindless and evil.

Hey! Rule one, buddy!

Don't make me sick the Mods on you!

Err... Jake? Why did you quote me out of the blue?

Some people struggle with the quote tags. It makes me deeply unhappy.

Joey wrote:Some people struggle with the quote tags. It makes me deeply unhappy.

Nope, I had just edited away the content of my post to avoid the wrath of the MODs.

Hmmm. Well, I was bullied when I was a kid, and regularly stood up to the bullies, and it didn't stop. It never stopped. I was a physically weak and sickly, clumsy kid. Eventually, I developed a fairly barbed tongue, but to be honest, that didn't stop them. What stopped them was that we all grew up, I left and went to college, and never saw any of those pricks again. I'm sure they continue to bully the weaker members of their social circles now, some of them, though others may have grown out of it.

Redbeard is right when he says that bullying is a natural human phenomenon, and that a lot of bullied people make themselves a target due to standing out.

In my case, my dad was the strictest local policeman around ,and my brother was a double hard bastard who solved his issues by braining the other party when he had to. I was skinny, short and clumsy, so if someone wanted to get back at my brother or father, riling some of the kids my age up to attack me was a pretty good way to do it. My brother was too well brought up to hammer someone younger than him. Add to that that I was academic in a vocational school, had nerdy interests in a primarily rural environment, and that I reacted with obvious stiffness and suppressed emotion when bullied...well it was fething inevitable that they went for me. I must have been so amusing to them. And I never told on them either, believing I had to deal with it myself.

Did it make me stronger? Hmmm. Probably. But I was already fairly mentally independent. Some kids aren't so lucky. In my current job I see a lot of emotionally vulnerable, shy and awkward girls being bullied to the point where they end up leaving school. Their education suffers, their health suffers. Calling them weak and despising them is wrong- there isn't anything wrong with being sensitive or shy. They need to be protected, and zero tolerance on bullying is the way to do it. As a teacher though, it's maddening trying to deal with it. Other teachers can be very indifferent, or even find the bullied party repellent for the same reasons the bullies do. That is extremely common. They say "Oh he/she brings it on themselves" and do nothing, like that's an excuse. I won't go into details about individual cases, but I've seen kids with disabilities physically attacked and had that response. The other issue is that I have so little time, and less contact time, and I'm trying to do an entirely different job while controlling the bullying. And the bullied kids often won't tell me anything when I ask them. The bullies themselves are often charmers, or well versed in claiming that their upbringing or their own problems "made them do it". They pretty often get a sympathetic ear.

I do take it extremely seriously though, and I have to say it's one of the aspects of my job that has the strongest emotional effect on me. I feel terrible reading posts by currently bullied kids on dakka, especially how powerless they feel and how they feel authority can't help them. The sad truth is, you are pretty much spot on.

The good news is, it gets better as you get older, and you get happier the more you let it go. College is awesome

Edit: And on Dan Savage, I get that his overall message is good, and my girlfriend loves him, but I don't like his style, his narrow vision, or his methods. While the Santorum thing was funny, it just reduced Savage to Santorum's level and made what should be a reasonable discussion a mud slinging match.

CptJake wrote:

Joey wrote:Some people struggle with the quote tags. It makes me deeply unhappy.

Nope, I had just edited away the content of my post to avoid the wrath of the MODs.

They can see editted posts.

Yeah, but they're not into editing thought crime. Yet.

Joey wrote:

CptJake wrote:

Joey wrote:Some people struggle with the quote tags. It makes me deeply unhappy.

Nope, I had just edited away the content of my post to avoid the wrath of the MODs.

They can see editted posts.

Yep, but if they are not public they don't annoy everyone. Or at least they shouldn't.

Dunno man I've been banned for editted posts before.

Joey wrote:
If you leave his face a bloody, messy pulp, he won't ever feth with you again.
Just saying.

Strong e-thugging, I'm sure you have bullies quaking in their boots haha
I'm all for retaliation against people that bully you but this is ridiculous

We need a new bad ass meme. Someone make it happen!

Frazzled wrote:We need a new bad ass meme. Someone make it happen!

HAIL FRAZZLED. HAIL.

Redbeard wrote:You have choices. Whining about how this is unfair is not one of them - well, you can do it, but it won't help.

It might help. It likely won't have the same success rate as simply fitting in, but then trying to fit in doesn't necessarily work either. Conversely, actively attempting to stand out, and then embarrassing people that make certain assumptions about you due to your appearance or demeanor, can also be quite effective at securing social advancement. Its really just a matter of learning to use your personal qualities effectively.

Redbeard wrote:

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Oh, and the first comment? Why should my personal taste for enjoyment make me a subject for bullying? You are a wargamer, me and you are in the same boat buddy,

Not even close, "buddy". Wargaming, while geeky, is decidedly a male-oriented hobby (Have I just summoned Melissia?). Out of the hundreds of people who played in the 40k events at Adepticon, I think there were three women, total. I don't know about the Warmachine or Fantasy games, but the point is obvious. Among the people I game with are soldiers, firefighters, cops, construction workers and football players. I may get called out as a geek because I'm a wargamer, but these days, being a geek generally means you'll make a good living.

My Little Ponies, whatever you think of them, are aimed at a target demographic of pre-teen girls. Why should your personal taste make you a subject for bullying? Because you have chosen a taste that is decidedly feminine and girly. And while in your utopian dreamland were no one is judged for anything, in the real world where the rest of us live, you will be judged for this choice, and there will be consequences, and whining about those consequences is just as bad as making the choice. If you want to be thought of as a man, do manly things. If you want to be thought of as a pre-teen girl, do pre-teen girly things.

Oh, so a guy being girly is wrong? Why is that? It is because you think women are inferior to men? therefore men shoulld not be down on a womens level?

@dogma - Yup, never underestimate the power of peacocking. I wore nail-varnish fairly frequently in secondary school (back when this was very uncommon) - a lot of lads found it weird, a lot of chicks found it fascinating. Case in point, I lost my v-plates before the age of 16.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Oh, so a guy being girly is wrong? Why is that? It is because you think women are inferior to men? therefore men shoulld not be down on a womens level?

See, gak like this is your problem, dude. Whether being 'girly' is right or wrong is completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter what you think, it matters what the mob thinks, and high-school kids are most definitely a mob. That's just the practicality of the situation you find yourself in.

You know what the norms are, and you're choosing to outwardly go against them. That's your choice. The consequences are directly linked to that choice, sadly. I went against the norms in my school and managed to ride it out, using a combination of not taking myself and my choices very seriously (it's high-school, nothing you do matters - I realised that early, to my benefit), making the most of my social life outside of school ( I was out playing gigs, smoking pot and shagging girls when most of the 'cool' kids at my school were being tucked up in bed at 10pm every night), and making it explicitly clear that I was prepared to physically defend myself, should someone cross the line. They rarely did.

daedalus wrote:

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Oh, and the first comment? Why should my personal taste for enjoyment make me a subject for bullying? You are a wargamer, me and you are in the same boat buddy,

I don't think proudly associating yourself with children's shows that are intended for little girls is really doing yourself any favors as far as minimizing the bullying. Your Lisa Frank stationary probably isn't helping matters much either.

Most of the people I knew in middle/high school were ambivalent toward my playing of M:TG, D&D, or any other nerd games I did back then. Hell, I brought a fething chess board with me to school and would play on the lunch table. Most of the time I got picked on because I didn't have many friends, because I liked to be alone. The Boy Scouts was actually also somehow a trigger as well. I still can't figure that out.

"Yeah, I go camping, setting fires, and shooting guns."

"Pfft, sissy!"

"?"

Admittedly, my school wasn't exactly home to the best and the brightest. :/

I can only imagine what would have happened if I was parading around colorful anthropomorphic animals as the bestest thing in my life.

Also, as an afterthought, perhaps it's not just your personal taste, but that perhaps it's taken to an extreme? You've obviously quite... proud... of it. Perhaps you're coming off a little too strongly and people are reacting inappropriately as a result?

Its not that, Its more along the lines of why people think its wrong. Because its girly its inehrantly wrong for men to watch? If this was transformers no one would care.

If my aunt had bollocks, she'd be my uncle...

Oh, FYI im in College. Im speaking in past tense.

As with most media, enjoying something, even if it outside cultural norms is fine. The problem is when you plaster a massive picture of Twilight Sparkle in your signature, use her for your avatar, and practically scream I AM A BRONY every post.

You are begging for attention like that...

Mannahnin wrote:Thanks for insulting Dan Savage. Every once in a while I start thinking you have some reasonable opinions, then you post something truly mindless and evil.

Yet everytime I call him on his constant BS my posts "mysteriously" dissapear...

So which mod is his roommate anyways?

CT GAMER wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Thanks for insulting Dan Savage. Every once in a while I start thinking you have some reasonable opinions, then you post something truly mindless and evil.

Yet everytime I call him on his constant BS my posts "mysteriously" dissapear...

So which mod is his roommate anyways?

Chowderhead wrote:

Frazzled wrote:We need a new bad ass meme. Someone make it happen!

HAIL FRAZZLED. HAIL.

Yes!

Amaya wrote:As with most media, enjoying something, even if it outside cultural norms is fine. The problem is when you plaster a massive picture of Twilight Sparkle in your signature, use her for your avatar, and practically scream I AM A BRONY every post.

You are begging for attention like that...

So he kept his mod powers without the title being public?

I wouldnt be shocked, though I just assumed he had naked pictures of one of them, or they owe him money or something since someone seems intent on being his guardian angel...

Amaya wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Thanks for insulting Dan Savage. Every once in a while I start thinking you have some reasonable opinions, then you post something truly mindless and evil.

Yet everytime I call him on his constant BS my posts "mysteriously" dissapear...

So which mod is his roommate anyways?

Spoiler:

Frazzled has hidden powers!

No Mod. Maybe he just needs to be more polite like Mannster. You'll get invited to go shooting, despite being wrong.

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Its not that, Its more along the lines of why people think its wrong. Because its girly its inehrantly wrong for men to watch? If this was transformers no one would care.

Actually, I'd ridicule you further for Transformers. Liking post-Bay Transformers is like beating a dead pony. At this point the only cool Transformers are the ones just beyond your substations.

daedalus wrote:

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Its not that, Its more along the lines of why people think its wrong. Because its girly its inehrantly wrong for men to watch? If this was transformers no one would care.

Actually, I'd ridicule you further for Transformers. Liking post-Bay Transformers is like beating a dead pony. At this point the only cool Transformers are the ones just beyond your substations.

I grew up watching Transformers and Beast Wars.

They were never cool, people need to get over the nostalgia.

Amaya wrote:

daedalus wrote:

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Its not that, Its more along the lines of why people think its wrong. Because its girly its inehrantly wrong for men to watch? If this was transformers no one would care.

Actually, I'd ridicule you further for Transformers. Liking post-Bay Transformers is like beating a dead pony. At this point the only cool Transformers are the ones just beyond your substations.

I grew up watching Transformers and Beast Wars.

They were never cool, people need to get over the nostalgia.

Beast Wars wasn't THAT bad. I mean, sure it was Reboot quality graphics, but no one else had tried to do that since reboot. It deserved honorable mention.

And I mean, I still maintain that the coolest transformers are the ones outside your houses.

It wasn't that bad, but just like Thundercats and GI Joe (amongst other things), it's a wildly overrated children's show that people are nostalgic and obsessive over.

Amaya wrote:It wasn't that bad, but just like Thundercats and GI Joe (amongst other things), it's a wildly overrated children's show that people are nostalgic and obsessive over.

I wouldn't say Transformers if wildly overrated when the 3 part cartoon premiere is more enjoyable to watch than the hundred and fifty million dollar premiere to the film franchise. I mean seriously, can you watch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transformers:_The_Movie and wish that it was more like any of the live action movies?


;

Yes that was absolutely excellent.

"Coronation Starscream? This is bad comedy."

Bromsy wrote:

Amaya wrote:It wasn't that bad, but just like Thundercats and GI Joe (amongst other things), it's a wildly overrated children's show that people are nostalgic and obsessive over.

I wouldn't say Transformers if wildly overrated when the 3 part cartoon premiere is more enjoyable to watch than the hundred and fifty million dollar premiere to the film franchise. I mean seriously, can you watch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transformers:_The_Movie and wish that it was more like any of the live action movies?


;

That doesn't mean the cartoon is good, that just means the movies are really bad.