Canadian teen in viral anti-bullying video commits suicide

Most communities hold a candlelight vigil, and cyberbullying declines or a whole, but te bullying continues in a few weeks.

 

I wouldn't say this girl suffered from bullying. This was cyberstalking and blackmail and sexual harrassment, far above the level of what I would consider just bullying. Trying to call it bullying, to me, is a misnomer, the same way calling a beating that results in a death an "assault" rather than homicide just doesn't fit.

Here's the thing. Bullying has become such a catch-all term that it's lost a lot of its inherent meaning, at least to me. Kids being mean to each other (or adults being mean to each other) is not always bullying in my mind. Someone not being invited to all the popular kid's parties is not necessarily bullying. Adults making catty comments about someone online isn't necessarily bullying. Receiving a letter from a viewer calling you fat isn't bullying.

Bullying is, in my mind, repeated aggressive or cruel behavior meant to hurt someone else. It usually involves a power trip for the person doing the bullying. But a lot of what people call bullying these days is not intentional or even repeated. Whenever a kid (or adult) gets his feelings hurt, someone wants to call it bullying. And that doesn't help anything because there's a huge difference in someone being aggressively mean to a target in search of a power trip and an off-handed remark or social slight hurting someone's feelings.

Look, I was picked on mercilessly as a kid. In retrospect, some of it (though not a lot) was bullying, but a lot of it was I was a damn strange kid who just didn't fit in, which meant I was excluded socially and heard a lot of off-handed remarks that stung. Plus I'm a girl, and as has been mentioned on this thread, girls are ridiculously mean to each other starting in late elementary school through early high school (when they are still just as catty but much more subtle about it).

Changing the definition of bullying to "any time someone gets their feelings hurt" and trying to lump everything into that category does no one any good because you deal with all the situations differently. You arrest people who stalk and sexually harass. You punish and try to work with kids who get power trips from aggressive and mean behavior. And when you've got people who just repeatedly get their feelings hurt, you both work with them to address any underlying issues (in my case, undiagnosed Aspergers Syndrome that lead to crippling social awkwardness) and with the people who are being perceived as mean so they can understand how what they say/do has a larger effect than they might realize. Yes, being off-handedly picked on and an outcast absolutely hurts and can make you miserable - I wouldn't go back to being a middle schooler if you paid me a million dollars - but it's a very different issue at its core than straight-up bullying.

So to get back to your point, a lot of what people call bullying is just kids being kids (or adults being adults). Real bullying obviously needs to be addressed, and people who do what this guy did to this poor girl need to be arrested and jailed. But someone getting their feelings hurt or even being a social outcast is not the same as being legitimately bullied.

 

The cyber stalking and criminal actions of the pervert who has been outed are different issues than the bullying. It has been a big national story on the news up here.

One of the news oulets had a story where 2 classmates recalled how Amanda was surrounded by a group of people and beat up as well as the constant derogatory comments directed to her. Supposedly this all happened on school property and her father found her crying in the field when he came looking for her.

The flashing of the camera and the resulting cyberstalking seem to be a reason that some bullies piled on.