Do all of these celebrity tongue-lashings really help or will they cause more unhappy people to act out in a cry for atonement?
Will unpopular people reenact in the scene from Heathers when the unpopular kids tried to get the same lionization the popular kids received after their deaths?
"I love my dead gay son", a father would say after a Heather arranged the death of the popular quarterback and his teammate.
5 comments:
Every time I was bullied to the point I thought of killing myself, I remembered the fact that if I did, all of the same people who tortured me would be standing around crying and pretending to actually give a fuck.
Yeah that makes sense... I'd be dead in the ground while people were offering them support for losing a "friend"....
In Australia no mention of suicides is permitted in the newspaper so that copycat suicides can be prevented. Sadly it means that the general population has absolutely no idea of the frequency with which people choose to die. I know of two this year only because I was directly linked to them, one by road and one by rail, causing trauma to many people on the periphery of their lives.
@ Joanna - But EVERYONE gets teased. Not all are bullied - I think being bullied requires that one not fight back, or that one places too uch value on what another thinks.
I know women who were picked on because they were too beautiful, others because they had long hair, others because they were too smart, ...
Often, people who get bullied are most often those who chose to be the easiest victims.
@ Miss AJ - Really?
You had no stories about Heath Leger or Micheal Hutchins (of INXS)?
I think many people choose the slower suicides caused by addictions because they think they can change their minds half way down.
Yes, everyone gets teased at some point. But there is a huge difference between being teased and being bullied. Yes, kids who are more sensitive are the ones who get bullied, because the other kids sense it like a shark senses blood in the water, and they move in for the kill. And NO ONE intercedes on behalf of the victim. It is too easy to just tell a kid "you need to just toughen up" without recognizing that children's personalities vary so greatly, and some just don't have it in them to fight back. Now, do I believe that a bully should be prosecuted when a victim decides to take his own life? Not necessarily, because the decision to commit suicide is so much more complex than just a reaction to a specific incidence of bullying. However, I do think people need to change the way they teach their children to interact with others, and school officials need to intercede on behalf of bullying victims before they resort to desperate measures.
@ Joanna - I have a younger brother who was teased for having 'wolf hair'.
But when he got older all the women loved his 'good hair'.
We were often teased because we were lighter than most other kids in our neighborhood.
But the same trait also made it easier under other conditions.
I used to be teased because some said that I had big eyes or big teeth.
But when I grew into them these traits are what women often cite as my having a 'great smile' or 'dreammy eyes'.
We were often teased because we moved to a better neighborhood, becuase we played more than just football, basketball or track, becuase we spoke in SAE and not in Ebonics, whatever... .
Kids tease other kids.
Adults gossip about other adults.
Ish just happens.
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