Were you ever bullied in school?

[Primaleick]

Yeah? well soon you'll be able to get back at those bullies with the thanks of Rockstar Games "Bully" for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox:

Mixing drama and comedy into a single story, Bully follows a schoolboy named Jimmy Hopkins and his adventures in the fictitional "Bullworth Academy." Corrupt from the inside out, the school is overflowing with crooked higher-ups, wicked schoolmates, and a whole mess of bothersome bullies. Throughout this escapade, Jimmy will have to stand up to cruel classmates, pursue a love interest, put up with teachers that pick on him, and play pranks on a mess of annoying little buggers from all over the campus.
Bully (http://ps2.ign.com/articles/616/616925p1.html)

Bully comes out this October

[AgentSun]

ohhhh great...more fuel for those "video games make people kill!" fanatics.

[zahncrelnik]

I was picked on in junior high school. It went on and on, despite the teachers
intervening. I finally changed from public school to the local Lutheran school.
No one picked on anyone there, but it was the difference between a school
with 750+ students (grades 7 and 8) to a school with 152 students (grades K to 8).
There were only 15 students in my class and we were supposed to set a good
example of behavior for the younger students. So, for me, it turned out to
be a good ending.
Even going on to high school and mixing back in with the kids from the public
junior high who had picked on me -it turned out all right. Some of those who had
picked on me had even grown enough to come up to me and apologize for their
previous bad behavior.
They tell me now (a few years later) that I was well known for, in effect, blowing
off the whole mess and just getting on with life. I was not popular in high school
but, found out later, at a reunion, that I was thought of as a party-er. That was
funny to me, because I basically hung out with about 5 people all through high
school. It was just a matter of classification by distant observation. I had a car
at 16 and was frequently seen driving off school grounds during class hours -we
had closed campus -not allowed to leave school grounds at all, unless on work
program. But, apparently the fact that I broke the rules (daily) made me 'cool'.

[arthurfrdent]

but don't bullies usually feel bullied themselves? I thought it was a dren rolls downhill scenerio... I got bullied by the older ones in grade school, but by 7th I was bigger than ALL of them, they sweated all year waiting for me to retaliate. Heh, that fear was worse than any physical thing I could have done...

I'm not sure that a game about retaliation against bullies helps much, if bullies themselves play the game, then it is just more of the same... preying on the defenseless... IMHO

[zahncrelnik]

but don't bullies usually feel bullied themselves? I thought it was a dren rolls downhill scenerio... I got bullied by the older ones in grade school, but by 7th I was bigger than ALL of them, they sweated all year waiting for me to retaliate. Heh, that fear was worse than any physical thing I could have done...

I'm not sure that a game about retaliation against bullies helps much, if bullies themselves play the game, then it is just more of the same... preying on the defenseless... IMHO


Okay, you have a point. Or their biggest fear is being singled out to be bullied.

[NebariNookiee]

I was picked on pretty regularly throughout my school years until the last few weeks of my 8th grade year when I finally got fed up and punched a bully in the throat. I was never picked on again after that.

Not that I’m advocating violence, but the only way to stop being bullied is to stand up for yourself and show them you will not put up with it.

[SweetpeaAeryn]

When I was a senior in high school, the 7th graders pushed and shoved me in the halls. And then they "told" on me for being a bully because I always loudly complained about how stupid little kids didn't know how to respect the kids in high school and how when I was a kid we feared the high school kids and just plain left them alone.

And so I was called a bully...

[mama scaper]

I was bullied once when I was in high school. Senior year I switched to Ridley High School, they didn't like the fact I became the captain of that field hockey team. A girl tried to pick a fight with me, I ended up throwing her into the lockers. That was the last anyone messed with me. I made myself have a tough exterior to get through school, made some good friends in the middle of the year though. It is amazing I see these younger children playing these games. I would never have let my daughters play any of those games. I finally caved in and let them get Gamecube, at the age of 17. I believe my youngest knows better now.

[Mrelia]

When I was in kindergarten, one girl told everyone I had lice (never had 'em) and I was known as bug-head for the next three years. NONE of the other kids would play with me in K and only other "outsider" kids would have anything to do with me in 1st & 2nd. (It's a small town, almost everyone was related.) Then Mom decided to go the homeschool route.

[TheBladeRoden]

I was picked on even in private school

[Clarsax]

I was bullied pretty bad all through junior high. Even changing schools in 7th grade didn't help much. Fortunately the high school crowd where I went was mature enough to treat others with respect. I didn't get bullied again until I was a senior, and a sophmore who thought I had been saying bad things about her behind her back got five friends to gang up on me. But I was able to get out of it by talking them down.

[AgentSun]

i went to private school for about 9 years and i wasn't bullied exactly, not physically but in school, no matter what school, you always get those who make fun of others who are different. the D.C. metro area is pretty wealthy and tuition at my school was pretty high, but it didn't mean that everyone who went there had money. there were a lot of kids whose parents had loans out to pay the tuition. The problem was, you get a lot of kids who could afford nice clothes and the latest stuff mixed in with kids who came to school in ratty shoes and clothes that looked like they hadn't been washed in a few weeks. With that kind of physical difference, you got a lot of teasing. In retrospect, if some of these kids had even taken a small care to put on clean clothes or clothes that didn't look dirty, there would've been less hassle. But they didn't care. It wasn't right for other teens to pick on them like that but the picked on could've changed it.

Another big thing was focusing on a certain individual...basically, there was a kid two grades lower than I was and he was seriously a momma's boy. The senior class at the time (i had graduated the year before) made fun of him constantly. I felt bad for the kid. His mother controlled every facet of his entire life. She's not a bad mother (really nice woman, in fact) but her parenting style was very strict. He went to homecoming and yelled at people for dancing. Yep. So he was picked on, constantly.

I admit that i didn't help the situation much, as i didn't know him very well and had little ineraction with the lower-classmen. He was a sophomore when I was a senior. There were times where I really did have to laugh at some of the things that he would dom like the homecoming thing. He lacked self confidence and the teasing didn't help. But because he didn't do anything to convince people otherwise that he wasn't pathetic, they kept doing it. He got the nerve to ask one of my friends out to the prom and she said yes because she knew he wouldn't have a date otherwise. She was one year ahead of him (she was a senior, he was a junior) and her whole class targeted her for a few weeks after that. It was sort of like they were shunning her for getting involved with someone below them.

[scrape_medic]

I didn't exactly get bullied, but for a while felt picked on. I was really short when I went to senior school and pretty quiet. I got the nickname of Titch which still sticks to this day even though I am taller than my old classmates. I was always told to "speak up" which just made me feel more self conscious.

So, not really bullied....but because I was so small the Bullies felt they might have a chance with me, make a show of their strength.

There was this one big red headed mad thing from the year below, who came straight at me in an interclass clash one day. I have no idea how I did it, but she went down with a thud. All her mates backed down after that, and though I got a bit of a pasting the next day when they got me on my own, that was the very last time I got picked on.....by anybody.

I hate to see it when someone gets singled out for a "ribbing", even now thirty years later. Some bullies just never grow out of it.

[AgentSun]

same here. i got picked on occasionally but i was never physically bullied...i mean, i was a girl and bullies don't tend to bully girls. if anything, it's usually girls bullying other girls.

i was pretty self conscious as a teen but i was a pretty tough girl.