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Suicide is scary just for the act and what is needed to do it:
"Murder" of self.

If the person feels that plain miserable that they are willing to end it, what is the worth of other people's lives to them?

I agree there must be more to it than the bullying because if someone gets into a bad enough place: why are there not a whole bunch of "bullies" killed by their victims? They become too afraid of "what if I fail?

Cyber bullying can allow some ability to hide who you are so the threat of repercussions is that much less so you could feel less inhibited and flame away. Seems in most of these cases the people were known to the victim so I really am confused on why they get away with these things.

 Avatar 720 wrote:

Dakkadakka manages it (mostly), so what is going on here that doesn't happen elsewhere?

Perhaps that we aren't actually a social network site, or a site where people can be easily identified?

I don't doubt that it happens on sites that aren't social networking ones, or sites where someone has displayed their true self, but we haven't experienced cyber bullying (that we know about; once again, if anyone IS being bullied by another user on this site, please don't suffer in silence) because we don't make it clear who we are.

If someone who was being cyber bullied elsewhere was revealed to have an account here, then bullies may very well come here to torment them, but Dakka is nowhere near the first port of call for such miscreants, and as such avoids most of the trouble by combining that fact with us being a closer community than most.

I think it helps that we have a good moderating team as well.

Watch it, you're skirting on bane territory with remarks like that.

I had a bully in high school who harassed me from 6th to 8th grade and I did/said nothing because I was afraid to get in trouble. I had another bully in college (yes, it happens) and he pushed me too far and I picked him up and smashed him on the floor onto his kneecaps. He ended up in the hospital and on crutches for a week and I didn't get in an ounce of trouble. He was 130 lbs at most, I was 165 and pissed. Rage is a nice strength enhancer.

Remember folks, bullying doesn't only come from big, tough thugs. Little guys can do it too, they're just not physically violent about it.

Also, I don't condone my own actions: I should have been expelled for it, and I'm lucky I wasn't. I informed the Resident Director that I needed to be moved or I'd injure him worse, she already hated him (he had a bad rep) and he didn't press charges. I got off lucky.

I expect disbelief or "cool story, bro". Neither response changes facts.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Its almost like kids never committed suicide before the internet.

Yes indeed. All advances ever are crap because cavemen.

My point is rather than I'm confused as to while internet bullying has received such an enthusiastic opposition while other kinds of bullying get ignored. I've seen people be rampantly paranoid about the internet while not paying attention to their kid getting harassed by the local douche group at the street corner ever weekday morning.

Bullying isn't new and neither are kids committing suicide because of bullying. People who didn't grow up with the internet then throw up their arms and cry foul because to them it is bizarre but they happily turn blind eyes to bullying on public streets and in schools because to them such things are normal. I don't see people getting this kind of reaction because they bullied someone who killed themselves in real life (hell that sort of thing never even gets into the news much these days), but be sure no one kills themselves because you were terrible to them on the internet, that's where your really screwed.

EDIT: This is not to say one form of bullying is better or worse or that because one gets less attention the other should get less. Rather I'm confused by the double standard, where somehow being vicious to someone across a computer screen creates a more powerful reaction in people than the everyday viciousness that happens in person everywhere.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Its almost like kids never committed suicide before the internet.

Yes indeed. All advances ever are crap because cavemen.

My point is rather than I'm confused as to while internet bullying has received such an enthusiastic opposition while other kinds of bullying get ignored. I've seen people be rampantly paranoid about the internet while not paying attention to their kid getting harassed by the local douche group at the street corner ever weekday morning.

If you put "cyber-" in front of something, it becomes a new, terrifying, and important issue.

I'm hardly impartial to the issue so it wouldn't shock me if I just have a bad perception of it, but from my own view I see cyber bullying getting much more attention and focus from people than good old fashion bullying. I.E. "Cyber-bullying is terrible! Criminalize it! Arrest those people! But don't worry little Johnny. Those boys who pick on you at school will go away. You'll grow out of it."

 daedalus wrote:
If you put "cyber-" in front of something, it becomes a new, terrifying, and important issue.

Cyber-flooding
Cyber-terrorism
Cyber-suicide
Cyber-racism
Cyber-bully
Cyber-moderator
Cyber-Daedalus

Yup, your statement appears to have merit.
I am terrified already with what little I listed.

 daedalus wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Its almost like kids never committed suicide before the internet.

Yes indeed. All advances ever are crap because cavemen.

My point is rather than I'm confused as to while internet bullying has received such an enthusiastic opposition while other kinds of bullying get ignored. I've seen people be rampantly paranoid about the internet while not paying attention to their kid getting harassed by the local douche group at the street corner ever weekday morning.

If you put "cyber-" in front of something, it becomes a new, terrifying, and important issue.

Cyber-sex
Cyber-bullying
Cyber-kidnapping
Cyber-Cyber
Cyber-murder...

@LordofHats:

For what it's worth, I agree.

Part of the thing is, if I was 15 years younger and afraid of bullies, I wouldn't be afraid of the ones who were calling me names online. I'd be afraid of the ones who are intending on beating the gak out of me halfway between school and home as I walk home. That's one of the reasons why I have a hard time taking the online nonsense seriously, because it's not real. You can escape the nasty words being said about you by turning off the power switch. You can't escape the people calling you names and threatening you in the locker room or on the bus.

"Cyber" bullying is a good target for attention though, because people can become self-righteous about it and throw a massive fit about it, and then make it the responsibility of Facebook et. al. to actually worry about fixing yet another societal issue through a show of legislature and technology.

Meanwhile, Jimmy is still coming home with a bloody nose and black eye, but fixing that requires confrontation, vigilance, and effort of parents and state employees, not technology.

I feel cynical.

Cyber-chicken wings
Cyber-beer
Cyber-basketball
Cyber-hugging
Cyber-marijuana
Cyber-maple syrup
Cyber-dog
Cyber-shampoo
Cyber-guitar

Am I doing it right?

And now I want chicken wings.

Damn you, milkdog.

I could use a cyber-drink...

Look, it's awesome that many people here were both bullied and proved to be paragons of inner strength, but minimizing the suffering of others is undignified. Doubly so from those who admit to having been bullied themselves.

Maybe they get it online and offline alike.

Maybe they have issues of their own and the bullying is simply the final straw.

Maybe any of a million possible reasons, extenuating circumstances or explanations.

Not all suffering is equal. Not all people withstand hardship (even the exact same hardship) identically. Some of the things you (some posters in this thread disbelieving 'cyber-bullying' can be harmful) suffered through the years might have been a cake walk for some of these kids. Some of the things they've suffered through the years might've put you or me on the same path.

Some posts here have an insidious undercurrent of victim blaming, very similar to an well documented issue with rape victims; people believe that they are good, intelligent, aware and otherwise capable, and that they will outwit, outrun or outfight an assailant, thus someone who was victimized must have been deficient in some manner.

This kind of ostracism isn't helpful. In fact, it's often harmful, as it build an unwritten code that only the weak are victimized, and thus those being victimized, in an effort to avoid appearing weak or admitting weakness don't speak up.

There's no simple solution, but surely a community that has its share of bullied members (past and present alike, given the demographics I'm sure there's some dakka members being bullied now, if not literally this second) can reflect that perhaps some empathy is in order. That it should not surprise anyone that those who feel threatened and powerless in real life might engage in an escapist hobby, and further recognize that, whether they're vocal in this thread or simply watching, a little solidarity between dakka'ites (dakkadians? Dakkii? Daks?) could go a long way.

I mean, it's not likely we're changing someone's life here.

But it's not impossible either.

 daedalus wrote:
You can escape the nasty words being said about you by turning off the power switch.

Actually, no, you can't. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they're not there to be seen by everyone you know. That's the big problem with cyber-bullying. Traditional bullying is usually targetted: it's face-to-face, and rarely goes beyond a small circle of people. Cyber-bullying has no limit to where it can reach and how many people can get involved. Again, it's one thing for a bully to get an embarrassing picture of you and post on the bulletin board at school to be seen only by your classmates. It's another for the picture to be shared online to not only your classmates, but to everyone in town, your friends, your family, and to be saved in the Internet forever for all to see in the years to come. Cyber-bullying does not go away, it is shared, saved, and archived for eternity.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
You can escape the nasty words being said about you by turning off the power switch.

Actually, no, you can't. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they're not there to be seen by everyone you know. That's the big problem with cyber-bullying. Traditional bullying is usually targetted: it's face-to-face, and rarely goes beyond a small circle of people. Cyber-bullying has no limit to where it can reach and how many people can get involved. Again, it's one thing for a bully to get an embarrassing picture of you and post on the bulletin board at school to be seen only by your classmates. It's another for the picture to be shared online to not only your classmates, but to everyone in town, your friends, your family, and to be saved in the Internet forever for all to see in the years to come. Cyber-bullying does not go away, it is shared, saved, and archived for eternity.

That sounds like a pretty nasty fear. I agree that sounds pretty terrifying. I've been concerned about the "right to be forgotten" before and made a case for it, but usually it gets met with "if there's a picture of you doing something embarrassing, perhaps you shouldn't have been doing it to begin with".

Part of the strategy to abuse someone is to ostracize them, remove them from support groups, do not let them have friends to show them the way out.

To use a social network to ridicule someone is insidious because the person no longer feel connected to their peers and avoid the very sources of help available to them.

To separate the prey from the herd is just good sense, since a bully would not want to take on a unified front of friends and publicly be beaten up (online or in real life).

It is the nasty private communication while publicly pointing out the victim's flaws "to help them" that is truly evil.

Bah... just say, "Zero feths Given" and move on.

I hope I'm not too late to the party, I just found this thread. I do most my work as a substitute in one of the worse schools in Montréal, and I've been there for four years now. I'm going to fire off a few random thoughts and maybe I did miss a few posts, I'm sorry.

First off, suicide or death shouldn't ever be taken lightly, because we share a bond as human beings that weakens as we give reasons. Each situation is unique and thinking that someone committed suicide because they are weak is rarely the right answer, and rarely leads to solutions.

Second, loved the Feckwad Theory image, because it does encapsulate the situation, if only very loosely. I remember having at most 30 "friends" in most of my school years, with only 3 to 5 real friends, and it's not ever far from that number, close to 20 years later. Our teenagers today have devices that connect them, potentially forever, to hundreds of individuals. That is a major audience and that many more chances that conflicts of opinion or attitude will arise.

We are at a weird point in time, because the internet is the frontier, and laws don't fit well on a frontier. It's messy, it's inconvenient, and it doesn't apply to those in power. Unless they lose a close relative. The case of miss Parsons is tragic because they did go to the police and nothing was done.

I'm generally a very gentle individual, but someone who takes liberties with another individual's well-being like such bullying cases demonstrate make me want to fly off the handle. And teaching them about it just turns it into a circus. I'm always tempted to think that it didn't happen as bad as that "back in my days" but I'm skeptical of my own recollection, and I know the fear of my father's hard slap might have had something to do with me being such a meek person growing up. But my kids get pounded on by their family quite enough that I don't quite think that it's the answer.

And when threatened with violence, or beat up, it's hard not to naturally respond and for some reason, the instigator or bully often gets off the hook more than not, at least in my school.

More to come, I'm sure.

 whembly wrote:
Bah... just say, "Zero feths Given" and move on.

So your suggestion is that we go with "kids who are killing themselves due to bullying, online and offline alike: suck it up"?

Just want to be clear here.

 Forar wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Bah... just say, "Zero feths Given" and move on.

So your suggestion is that we go with "kids who are killing themselves due to bullying, online and offline alike: suck it up"?

Just want to be clear here.

"Suck it up" is vastly different than having a "Zero feths Given" mentality.

By far, most bullies are either expression of narcissism and/or getting a response out of the target. Having a Zero feths Given mentality when dealing with bullies effectively neuters them because they don't get what the want.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Watch it, you're skirting on bane territory with remarks like that.

Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night, will become a wolf, when the wolfbane's bloom, is bright.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
You can escape the nasty words being said about you by turning off the power switch.

Actually, no, you can't. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they're not there to be seen by everyone you know. That's the big problem with cyber-bullying. Traditional bullying is usually targetted: it's face-to-face, and rarely goes beyond a small circle of people. Cyber-bullying has no limit to where it can reach and how many people can get involved. Again, it's one thing for a bully to get an embarrassing picture of you and post on the bulletin board at school to be seen only by your classmates. It's another for the picture to be shared online to not only your classmates, but to everyone in town, your friends, your family, and to be saved in the Internet forever for all to see in the years to come. Cyber-bullying does not go away, it is shared, saved, and archived for eternity.

Thatws what the axe and shovel are for.

Zero feths given is cold comfort when you're on serum because the bully couldn't stand you ignoring him and decided he would finally enforce his threats of breaking your arms.

And since he's a minor, he'll get away with a slap on the wrist. The drug dealers' enforcer in my school was wee-high and wiry, so he would constantly get away with sending other kids to the hospital on account that adults couldn't believe he was a violent individual.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Zero feths given is cold comfort when you're on serum because the bully couldn't stand you ignoring him and decided he would finally enforce his threats of breaking your arms.

And since he's a minor, he'll get away with a slap on the wrist. The drug dealers' enforcer in my school was wee-high and wiry, so he would constantly get away with sending other kids to the hospital on account that adults couldn't believe he was a violent individual.

It is cold comfort... but, it's reality.

Look, I've been bullied growing up, so I *do* have some perspective here.

The harsh reality is there are some people who are fethwads who feels necessary to bully someone. The quicker ya'll come to this realization, the quicker you can deal with it. Even in the end, there may be nothing you can do about it.... but that doesn't mean you should ever give up.

Zero feths Givens... let that sink in a bit. Its a mindset. (also great in the dating field too!)

If you kill yourself because people said mean things to you on the internet, than feth you.

I've experienced really bullying. Those people should go tell concentration camp survivors how similar their experience was to receiving dumb comments in their Youtube videos.

Anyone who commits suicide because of bullying, feth you. I went through serious gak for years, and then I read about these rich, White, entitled fethers who kill themselves because they got made fun of for a month.

Not to mention that people who get "cyberbullied" are most often willingly putting themselves into positions to be cyberbullied. If someone is writing harassing comments on your Youtube videos, than stop reviewing the comments.

Everyone gets bullied. If you commit suicide because you're too good for sth that everyone goes through, than feth you.

While these spoiled, rich, entitled, White kids are committing suicide because people said mean things to them several hundred kids just died because they don't have clean water.

I have been though gak these rich entitled kids can't imagine, and I have never, not even once thought about suicide.

And this thread is done...

 d-usa wrote:
And this thread is done...

Goodwin'ed?

Has it been Zimmerman'ed yet? (how would you do that? o.O)

I don't know, but there has to be some sort of award for that post. I broke my desk I face palmed so hard...

I'm not sure there is a face palm imaged known to man that comes close to the level of face palm needed

I have a Note, does that count?