13 ms·

The worst year of my life

239 points by Fletch137 12y ago

ishansharma 12y ago
In 2004? This kind of bullying is inhuman. I've experienced a bit of bullying (not cyber) and it really affects you a lot. I was bullied for 2-3 years and it fundamentally changed me. Before that, I was a friendly, trusting person who wasn't afraid to lead. Now, I'm more on reserved and untrusting side. I also found my sanctuary on the internet and it helped me recover a lot. Anna, you're brave and strong. Had I been subjected to this level of bullying, I'd have broken down completely.
- jerf 12y ago
  I have been told by my parents that I was a friendly, outgoing child going in to kindergarten. I sure as fuck wasn't on the way out. (I was already a nerd.) I've long since dealt with it. I don't even twinge saying that. But I am pretty firmly of the opinion that the school system tends to greatly underestimate the impact of bullying, conclude based on their actions that they are far more interested in not seeing it than in making it go away, and this has probably contributed to my current deep, deep skepticism about the schooling system as it stands today.
  - aaronem 12y ago
    Seconded in full, save that I suspect in a lot of cases it's not just "interested in not seeing it" but rather silently cheering bullies on, on the same general theory as someone might, while finding the specific methods distasteful, approve in general of the idea of cross-gender rape as a corrective for homosexuality. (If that seems like an overly strong statement to you, consider that both "corrective rape" and bullying revolve around the use of violence to enforce a social norm. Granted, the former is much worse than the latter generally manages, but I'm increasingly convinced that the difference is more of degree than of kind.) It's for reasons like this that, while pragmatically convinced it'll never actually happen, I am strongly in favor of the law treating adults who passively or actively enable bullying as it does anyone else who abets or conspires to a crime. Seeing the erstwhile principal of a school dragged off in irons, to be arraigned on suspicion of having been an accessory before and after the fact to assault and battery, seems to me just the thing to give every other responsible party, in every other school sharing the jurisdiction, powerfully to think. No, it'll never happen, but the once-bullied kid in me surely wishes it would.
    - ishansharma 12y ago
      I am strongly in favor of the law treating adults who passively or actively enable bullying as it does anyone else who abets or conspires to a crime That's a good idea. But as you said, it'll never happen. They have all the resources and power to make bullying stop, yet thye don't choose to.
      - aaronem 12y ago
        I'm not sure whom you imagine to constitute "they", but I've found from my own experience that assigning the responsibility for a problem, to some nebulous "they", tends to result in considerable underappreciation of the complexities involved.
        ishansharma 12y ago
        I was referring to the authorities. But yes, I guess I should be thinking and discussing solutions rather that assigning responsibility to "them"!
    - chilldream 12y ago
      I've lost the link, but something like that actually did happen in the US recently. It surely helped that it was so flagrant and that there was video evidence, but a teacher was arrested for encouraging a bunch of kids to beat up another kid in the halls.
      - aaronem 12y ago
        I can't find the story either, but that sounds like an excellent start to me.
    - mattgreenrocks 12y ago
      If it's norm enforcement, then it reveals the disgusting inner nature of a lot of people: "these people are weak, so they should be harassed." Can you sue a school/teachers for negligence here? Oftentimes demanding people to lawyer up seems to correct behavior remarkably quickly. Similarly, the threat of suing parents would probably also cause something to happen.
  - ishansharma 12y ago
    >>>> But I am pretty firmly of the opinion that the school system tends to greatly underestimate the impact of bullying, conclude based on their actions that they are far more interested in not seeing it than in making it go away Fully agree with this. I remember telling a teacher about bullying near the end of school and he talked to those 4 bullies. Talking in this case was basically taking them out of the class (while smiling) and then talking to them for 2-3 minutes. When they came back, they were walking proudly and clearly pointing at me. A few weeks later, it started all over again. And the optimist in me died a small death. I just finished reading Paul Graham's essay on why nerds are not popular and it kind of resonates. It is not about bullying but talks about schools in a completely different light.
    - apozem 12y ago
      Thanks for mentioning that essay. I just finished reading, and it made a lot of sense. Being popular in school is like a job. Most nerds I know (myself included) simply didn't care to put in the time or effort for the grooming, fashion, and surface-level socialization necessary.
    - notlisted 12y ago
      The link: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
- api 12y ago
  "This kind of bullying is inhuman." Unfortunately it's very human. It's common human behavior, and common behavior among other social mammals as well. Nature deals you and everyone else a more or less random hand of genes. Then, when you reach puberty, you duke it out to establish a pecking order based on relative fitness indicators. These determine who gets to mate with who, and who will be closest to the alpha males who will lead the tribe. This is one reason that despite its trendiness I have never been able to accept the argument from nature. Nature sucks. Fuck nature. My hope is that we can start re-engineering this stuff as soon as we are able.
  - Wohui 12y ago
    One day, pal. I believe it will become possibile too. There are various upsides and downsides to humans achieving self engineering, I realised a terrible one recently - people would truly have nothing that belongs to themselves.
  - mattgreenrocks 12y ago
    LessWrong: "we're running on defective hardware." The argument from nature is completely ghastly from a moral perspective. I have never seen a solid argument that uses it. It's usually the domain of pseudo-intellectuals who are grasping at Internet points instead of actually thinking through the implications of what they're saying. It implicitly condones a huge swath of anti-social behavior in the pursuit of the all-important fitness. It inspires no hope, and it demands that you take an extremely unhealthy interest in your own self.
    - api 12y ago
      "The argument from nature is completely ghastly from a moral perspective. I have never seen a solid argument that uses it. It's usually the domain of pseudo-intellectuals who are grasping at Internet points instead of actually thinking through the implications of what they're saying. It implicitly condones a huge swath of anti-social behavior in the pursuit of the all-important fitness. It inspires no hope, and it demands that you take an extremely unhealthy interest in your own self." That is very well put, and the last point is really an eyebrow-raiser. I've never seen it before, but now I cannot un-see. If you look deeply into the natural everything movement that's so popular right now you'll see an odd kind of cleanliness and purity obsessed narcissism.
- complicated 12y ago
  Oh wow, I am so sorry. I don't really want to imagine what would have happened if I had been bullied for that long.. Indeed, I was made fun of for maybe 10 minutes; and it completely changed me. Back in 2005, last day of school (8th grade), many of us had gathered in a park in order to hang out and just spend time together before the start of the summer holidays. And then, the girl I had a crush on for the past two years, approached me with 3-4 other friends of her. She told me that she really liked me. It felt so thrilling and exciting and I was so happy and I told her that I liked her as well... And then they left, and met up with a group of another ~30 people or so, maybe a 100 meters away. They all started laughing.. I felt so empty, I wanted to disappear, when one of them came to tell me "Oh by the way it was a joke that she likes you". That summer I started playing MMORPGs, did not go to the beach once, just stayed home. Indeed, I spent the rest of high school pretty much isolated (although luckily eventually I replaced MMORPGs with actually studying). Whenever a girl showed interest in me, I immediately avoided her as much as possible, since I thought she just wanted to make fun of me. And it took 8 years, maybe a bit longer, until I started trusting people again. So, why did I write all of this? Partially, because it came into memory after reading this thread. But more importantly, I am really scared by the fact, that the bullying I experienced was so so minor compared to the other stories here; yet it affected me so fundamentally.
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- rjknight 12y ago
  There might be a reason, but it's probably not a good one. These things are chaos-theory-like[1], with the causes so tiny that they're impossible to observe or predict and so may as well be random. It could be as simple as "One day, someone was in a bad mood and took it out on the nearest person unlikely to fight back. They realised that they enjoyed it, and did it again. Others observed and joined in." - by the time it reaches that point, you're already talking about group bullying by multiple people. Knowing the cause, or that there even was a cause, doesn't really help anyone. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
- peteretep 12y ago
  > But I seriously cannot believe this if there is not a > single reason WHY they did such horrible things So what if there was? Would that make it all better?
  - ux 12y ago
    It would help understanding why that happened and thus maybe how to prevent it.
- ishansharma 12y ago
  From what I have seen and experienced, teens just need to make fun if someone. And usually, they will pick someone who is: 1. Different (out of community, different religion etc.) 2. Not good with words (doesn't reply back) I was in category 2 and a few bullies always made fun of me because of this. I was called names and humiliated for no reason. IMHO, they don't need a reason. Just someone to make fun of.
  - ht_th 12y ago
    I remember doubling 10th grade. As I entered the new community of new grade 10 students, I noticed that one girl was being bullied. I did not understand why. I asked the other students about it, but they were never able to explain it to me. Some didn't understand either, but had accepted the situation as normal. Others, all from the same village as this girl, seemed to participate more actively. Somehow, sometime during their elementary school years, the culture formed by the students of that year in that village had to come to include bullying that girl. There might have been an origin to it all, but when I entered their subculture in 10th grade all that was left of that narrative was an unexplainable shared dislike of that one girl.
rjknight 12y ago
Stuff like this makes me proud that the internet and technology industry can give people a way of taking control of their lives back and finding a purpose and career when others are trying to deny it to them.
- dasil003 12y ago
  Just to play devil's advocate, consider that the Internet is what enabled this bullying to be as horrible and psychologically damaging as it was. It's not only tech geeks that get bullied.
  - dtf 12y ago
    Just browsing her portfolio on that website, this looks pretty interesting: http://speakr.co.uk/ http://speakr.co.uk/
  - aaronem 12y ago
    Which is another way of saying that this technology, like any other, is morally neutral, and only the actions of the people who use it have any moral weight.
    - dasil003 12y ago
      True, although I'd say the interesting part are the properties of the technology. In this instance, the cyber-bullying stuff is worse than traditional bullying because of the anonymity and lack of repercussions. Sort of a corollary of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory if you will.
shruubi 12y ago
I can sympathise with the author. I didn't suffer to the degree that she did, but it was there none-the-less. Sometimes bullies like this have no rhyme or reason other than they find some kind of self-worth in bullying. It's a difficult situation to be in, especially as a teenager where you feel like your only options are to either stay silent and suffer, or tell someone and commit social suicide.
- ishansharma 12y ago
  The problem with telling someone is that they can't stop it completely! Author told the school and the bullies still continued. Your point about self-worth is excellent. I've seen bullies being very happy/proud after teasing someone. Sad thing is that all this changes you and hinders your progress a lot.
rg81 12y ago
Heartbreaking story. As a father of an 8 month old girl this really tugs at me. Nobody should have to go through this. On a positive note, Anna is a very talented designer. Hopefully the positive experiences doing meaningful work for appreciative clients will eclipse some of the pain in the past.
onli 12y ago
There is only one thing possible you can do that help in a situation like this. It is to fight back. Throw punches (literally), let them be suspended, arrested, do everything you can do to punish everyone who tries to mess with you that way. You will gain respect, because you have to, even if you sometimes lose a fight - legal or physically. And I know how horribly hard that is while you are under constant attack. And how it feels how it will make only matters worse. One thinks "maybe it will stop if one just tries to fit in a bit more, or be a bit invisible" But it never does. People behaving like this follow animalic instinct, not reason, so the only language they understand is on the same level. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to fight yourself - but hard responses are necessary, and a 2m police man talking angry to a teen is a hard response. Edit: Tried to make it a bit clearer that it is not only about fighting physically.
- catshirt 12y ago
  i understand the rationale behind "fight back" and in many instances it is probably the right solution. but if 15 people are bullying you and sending you death threats, punching one sounds like the dumbest god damned idea.
  - onli 12y ago
    If you get death threats, it is a case for the police anyway, before any cyber bullying laws. And severe enough, like described in the article, for them to act.
    - catshirt 12y ago
      i didn't downvote you but i admit i was probably too dismissive of your post. i see now you were suggesting that punching/suspension/arrest are all different methods for fighting back (some more suitable than others depending on the circumstances).
  - Wohui 12y ago
    This needs more votes, simply for reminding people that bullying isn't some generic situation. The least bad case of bullying is when you have a single bully, who can be made to start treating you as a human being without going as far as a fight. The worst case is a group, who chronically hate you for whatever reason. Not every situation in life has a solution, if you have enough enemies.
TeamMCS 12y ago
That is really horrendous. Sent shivers down my spine just reading it :/
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Sodaware 12y ago
I don't think the term "cyber bullying" really conveys how serious it can be. I have no idea how anyone could endure this. It's inhuman.
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  It's the word "cyber", which is essentially an indicator for "Please ignore me, I know nothing about this subject" to anyone other than mainstream news media. If it was called online bullying, it'd be a different story.
  - aaronem 12y ago
    Why does it need to be called "anything bullying"? It seems to me that for anyone who's been bullied, or who hasn't but has seen what it does to someone who is, the noun stands quite well on its own.
cwaniak2 12y ago
Just a question from someone who was bullied in Eastern Europe many years ago (i.e. 1980s, communist times): why your parents didn't go to their parents to talk? Why all the recordings, emails and other evidence wasn't presented to them? My mom yelled so bad at mom of the guy who bullied me, literally questioning her parenting abilities that it never happened to me again. I mean, where are the parents in all of this? Were they both too busy working?
Apreche 12y ago
Cyber bullying isn't any different from regular bullying. Just because technology is being used doesn't change anything. As most nerds/geeks I was bullied during my younger school days. Not quite as bad as in the story, bud badly enough. Technology was not used, but it was bullying all the same. The real problem is simply that bullying, cyber or not, has no consequences. Back in the day I was punished more for fighting back than any bully ever was for harassing me. Until teachers and administrators are given the ability to actually punish bullies with real consequences, why would they stop? By seriously punish I don't mean violence. Obviously the right punishment in each situation will be different. But the first idea that comes to my mind is to simply remove all the bullies and disruptive students from school and put them in a separate school of their own. Perhaps a military-style academy?
- brazzy 12y ago
  Cyber bullying is different from regular bullying because it follows you to your home and your entire outside-school life. This is a huge difference.
  - ErrantX 12y ago
    Normal bullying followed me home from school. Okay so life-penetration wasn't as deep. But, to the point that walking into town on a saturday was risky business. The difference with cyber-bullying isn't any of these things; it's just that it's much harder for other people to see happening (unless, of course, you show them the messages). Quite a few times at school people would come across me being bullied; and more often than not they put a stop to it.
    - Pxtl 12y ago
      On the other hand, cyber-bullying doesn't physically beat the crap out of you. Which kinda sucks when it happens on a daily basis.
      - aaronem 12y ago
        Could be both, as for example when not only do you get your ass kicked, but some prick uses the iPhone Daddy bought him to take video of it, which he later uploads so he can share the link around your entire school. Just another point in demonstration of the fact that "cyberbullying" vs "(just plain) bullying" makes a distinction without a difference.
id 12y ago
Looks like she doesn't want this to be posted here. https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459673982149877760 https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459673982149877760
- 4ad 12y ago
  Then why does she put it on the Internet for everyone to see?
  - smileysteve 12y ago
    To be callous, that's the question I feel about the entirety of the story. The bullying is horrible, but the solution seems to be a tiny bit of anonymity. - start texting you and calling you (at all [distracting] times) making your primary number useless? Get a new number. In 2004, not everybody had cell phones (or especially texting plans) If a cell phone loses its utility of being a tool, then ditch it. - Messaging on Hotmail This is [the known attacker version of] why many parents concern their kids with not being searchable or using their real name. Don't have your real age or name on hotmail. Further, don't accept unauthenticated im friendships and give out private information. - Blog comments How did they know her URL, if not just for her class? Is the easy solution to just not allow comments, or at least require authorization to post comments?
- rickyc091 12y ago
  She probably wants to avoid comments such as "she's a liar, this didn't happen, etc."
- arethuza 12y ago
  Ouch - maybe we should all flag this then?
- dtf 12y ago
  Probably just expecting the usual dumb comments: "Thanks, it's ok. It seems to be being moderated well for once. And I can take any stupid comments these days." https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459677447404138496 https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459677447404138496
herokusaki 12y ago
That is a heartbreaking read. I had to deal with bullying at school but what is described here is at such a different scale I feel it would be wrong to compare my experience to the author's. If, like me, you were surprised at first at the magnanimity she showed towards her bullies (not wanting them to get a criminal record) consider that even if you absolutely wanted them to be punished there would have been a psychological price to pressing charges and going to court, so it would by no means be an easy choice to make.
RighteousFervor 12y ago
To the author of this post and anyone else who may be the victim of cyber-abuse: my heart goes out to you, but you must fight back. Tooth and nail, fullest extent of the law, the whole she-bang. It seems to me the victim in this account held back, thereby preventing justice and prolonging the abuse.
- jerf 12y ago
  I think the problem lies in that we often never tell children this, don't support them if they try, and the system in general in its effort to make the problem no longer visible to the authorities (as opposed to actually making it go away) often finds the easiest path is to get the compliant target to shut up about the problem rather than the much harder task of actually fixing it. (They don't even realize that they're doing this... but when the kid's talking to the authorities for the fifth time because the first four didn't do anything, and the authorities give off a "this again? jeez", it's not hard to figure out how pointless the meetings are.) Which, as an adult, I now realize they simply don't have time for, but I wish they'd be more up front about it and let kids deal with that, rather than pretend they've got all the solutions, ban you from doing anything effective, then fail to do anything effective themselves. I'm a male, and my tormentors were male, and I think that makes this a radically different situation than the linked article. But for me, I'm pretty sure two or three well-placed swings (they probably didn't even have to connect) would have made school orders of magnitude more pleasant for me. I wish I hadn't been raised with everybody around me telling me how wrong that always is, because in hindsight it would have been a great deal less wrong than what happened to me. So, other parents, I encourage you to take a more nuanced approach than mine did. You certainly don't want to encourage violence for everything and sure, start with the proper authorities, but I would encourage you that if that still can't fix the problem, stand behind your kid if they need to take a bit of action on their own. And please don't teach them complete passivity as the answer to everything. I was lucky in ways I didn't even understand at the time, and my personal psychological makeup was mostly able to withstand this and come out with very little scarring. Don't count on that for your child. I've observed that it's not true of everyone. Incidentally, I submit as evidence the fact that people even here have a hard time agreeing to this idea. Think about it. You're asking one person to put up with years of physical and/or psychological abuse to save a small set of bullies, who are by definition being bad actors... what? A bruised nose, once or twice? Bruised egos? What kind of fucked up ethical system have you all subscribed to where a bullied person is obligated to put up with years upon years of inescapable abuse rather than throw a punch? Seriously. Please. Think about that for a moment, and stop valuing years of psychological and/or physical abuse at what appears to be "zero"... you are, and I am dead serious about this, part of the problem if you act that way. Bullying is bad. Really bad. Not just "I say the word bad and pat myself on the back for having Good Think", but really, really drive-people-to-the-brink-of-suicide-or-beyond bad. Don't mouth the words about how bullying it bad, act like it! (And again, if something other than violence works, hey, great! It's not a good first resort. It's not the solution to everything and it isn't magic. But don't act like it's nuclear waste and take it entirely off the table at the cost of years of soul-searing abuse. It's a bad situation and there may not be a "perfect solution", but I find it abhorrent how many people even here would rather see someone put up with epic abuse rather that assert themselves even a little.)
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grey-area 12y ago
This story is a perfect candidate for that new comment filtering feature on HN. I'm not even sure a meaningful HN discussion is possible on this sort of topic anyway.
- notlisted 12y ago
  I beg to differ. I have no proof, but I suspect a large number of visitors to HN (technically inclined, perhaps not as socially developed as kids, most pretty darn smart) have some personal experience in the matter, which may explain the number of comments. In terms of meaningful discussion, there are comments from those who were bullied and those who did (interesting perspective).
pitt1980 12y ago
This is probably going to come off as insensitive, but whatever I went through a bit of this myself to a lesser degree for whatever reason, in my experience, getting authorities involved (older siblings, parents, school authorities) not only doesn't solve these things, they seem to inflame them ime, bullies get off on the realization that they can affect another human's behavior ignoring it (or at least pretending to), or projecting that it doesn't affect you seems to be a much more affective strategy which is easier advice to give than to follow, I understand
C1D 12y ago
This reminds me of what happened to my self last year. I had a YouTube channel with Gaming Videos, they went to my channel created a fake Google+ account using my name and started posting offensive content on it. They then went to videos with homosexual acts and posted comments with my name saying things like "I endorse this", etc.. On the Google+ page they posted Male Pornography all under my name. I went to the Police here in Dubai and after a few weeks of no response I found out that they lost my file and that I would have to do another report to get anything done about it. I eventually took it into my own hands, contacted Google+ send pictures of my passport and they shutdown the account and removed all Google query's of the page.
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amalcon 12y ago
No one should have to endure this sort of thing, which is somewhat worse than what I experienced myself (pervasive internet use is a significant amplifier). Kids are a lot stronger than we give them credit for -- much stronger than adults, I think. Primary and secondary schools are an extremely harsh environment, because they have many of the same problems as prisons to a lesser degree. We forcibly put large groups of socially underdeveloped people together, and barely monitor the situation. Kids can't even really escape the systemic problems at home anymore, due to the internet. Somehow, the vast majority of our children manage to come out of them more or less intact. This is nothing less than miraculous, one of the great unsung triumphs of human spirit. I keep coming back to how nobody should have to endure this. This triumph is over an adversity of our own making. We can and should take this more seriously than any other threat to children, even though they somehow endure it, because it is more pervasive.
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  Somehow, the vast majority of our children manage to come out of them more or less intact. Except the ones who kill themsleves. Or the ones who are fundamentally changed for the rest of their lives. Or the ones who grow a hatred and distrust for the people in charge who did nothing to protect them. Or...
  - vezzy-fnord 12y ago
    Or the ones who grow a hatred and distrust for the people in charge who did nothing to protect them. Sounds like that one is inevitable, no matter where you are.
  - amalcon 12y ago
    Sure, I don't mean to imply that bullying does no damage. Quite the opposite, in fact. The fact that anyone can experience bullying, survive, and go on to be a productive adult is impressive. The fact that most do is downright incredible, and were there not so much evidence I would not have believed it possible. This does nothing to lessen the tragedy of those who are not so lucky.
agentultra 12y ago
I was bullied like this when I was in high school. My car was vandalized on several occasions, almost everyone would throw food at me if I entered the cafeteria, and I was hospitalized once after losing one of many fights. A friend of mine wasn't so lucky and ended up in a coma for six months. That kind of abuse never leaves you. Every time I read a story like this it all comes flooding back. Sadly even > 12 years on and I still don't have any good answers.
- lectrick 12y ago
  Do internet hugs work? I was bullied from about 12 (right after moving to a new school, a VERY susceptible time, in hindsight) until at least 14. I wouldn't call this justice but the main bullier ended up taking a shotgun to his own head just a few years ago. I have a feeling that bullying harms more than just the victims, it also harms the perpetrators...
  - _pmf_ 12y ago
    > I have a feeling that bullying harms more than just the victims, it also harms the perpetrators... Most likely, they have already been harmed when they start bullying.
    - agentultra 12y ago
      I think so. [trigger warning -- abusive words, etc] I think that if it wasn't for the violence and bullying I would have had much in common with my tormentors. I had an opportunity once to talk, briefly in private, with the kid who was ultimately responsible for sending me to the hospital. He was one of the few black kids at our school of mostly white upper-middle class kids. He was also a foster kid and lived in a home with a violent foster father. I don't even remember if he apologized or not. I just remember being struck by how much we did have in common: I spent my teenage years living with my single, mobility-challenged mother and had escaped a very abusive household. We never spoke again and if I ever saw him around he just went back to his old behavior: spitting at me, cursing, calling me a faggot; so we just learned to avoid one another after that.
jokoon 12y ago
When facebook was on the rise I had a situation when several students came at me for no reason. So many people behave like animals, hatred and bad jokes are like a source of energy to them. I failed to have a degree due to these people. That was a reason I stopped using facebook too. I think the web should be used to drive people who have the same interests towards each other, but that's the opposite that happens: you end up confronting the people who know you and dislike you, and it's impossible to avoid them because you either work with them or you are in the same class. What boggles my mind is when I read on the internet people saying "bullying is fine and it's part of life". Sounds like it's a game for them, and they don't realize that people just don't want to play with them. If I could relive my teenage years, I would stab so many students. The scars bullying leaves on you are for ever.
4ad 12y ago
War, famine, disease, losing your liver -- all this pales compared to cyber bullying! I was bullied as a kid, it was awful, but I was being hit with fists, and when I didn't have any money to steal, they'd hit me again. They also carried knives. I lived in a ghetto. If this is the worse thing that happened to her in her life, she must have had a pretty good and happy life. I am certain that cyber bullying is real and can create a huge emotional torment, but what I read here is pretty lame. Colleagues post mean comments and it affects you emotionally? Seriously? Maybe it was much worse than the author can express, in which case she is just a bad writer, but her twitter reaction[1] made me think this is not the case, and it made me lose all sympathy for her. If this stuff affects you, it's bad parenting. If you live in Disneyland and are this isolated from real life, it's only the fault of your parents who didn't teach you anything about the real life, where people are hateful, mean, and generally want to fuck you up in some way. Because I am extremely arrogant and because I am always right, people hate me a lot, especially people on the Internet. This doesn't affect me negatively, this amuses me. Seven years back (wow, already 7 years!) some guy hated me so much, that he hired thugs to beat me up. Real thugs. With sticks. Sticks that hit me in the eye. I couldn't see for two weeks with my left eye. I still have floaters and flashes in my both eyes. Did this depress me? No! I am now stronger, I learned a thing or two about self-defense and I got my revenge, except without violence. [1] https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459673982149877760 https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459673982149877760 /edit: this was downvoted less than two seconds since when I posted it. Two seconds! HN readers muts read pretty fast, since I assume everyone here actually reads before downvoting. Surely that's true! As I said, amusing.
- aaronem 12y ago
  > because I am always right Really? Your whole comment here constitutes a contemptuous dismissal of anything, suffered by anyone, which doesn't live up to your particular standard of "bad enough to cry over", and you say you're always right? Certainly you're arrogant, but that's neither an accomplishment nor a cause of reasonable pride; as far as right goes, I can only imagine that hit in the eye you took must have done something bad to your close detail vision, because you certainly give the strong impression of having badly misread the definition of the word. Here, have a dictionary link [1], and since it's online, you can zoom in on the text just as far as you need to, in order to actually read it this time. [1]: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/right http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/right
notlisted 12y ago
Not adding to a sensible discussion perhaps, but I'm convinced that bullying is the result of inaction by parents and teachers/schools. Merely standing by and letting it happen is the worst thing you can do to your children. As a dad with young kids, I can assure you that if this were to happen to them, I'd wage all-out cyberwar, on the kids and any parents that didn't properly curtail their child's behavior after official notifications. From doxing and redialing faxes to bully-vision youtube channels naming and shaming their family. It isn't slander if it's true… I've made it 100% clear to my kids that I've got their backs. It's my duty as a dad. Edit: Yes, this story obviously struck a nerve for me. I was bullied as a 12yo kid for a few months. I was a good kid, and did well in school, which made me the outlier. I remember how terrified I was when the bell rang at the end of the school day, knowing that the pests would be waiting for me on the way home. I also vividly remember the day my dad took me aside and simply said: "Go ahead. You have my permission to make them feel sorry. I have your back. Just don't do it on school property." The day I took action was a truly glorious and empowering day. Hearing my dad tell their parents afterwards they had it coming, supported by some photographic proof of damage caused in the past, was even better. Upside: nobody ever bothered me again. This happened a long time ago, and not in the litigious USA where money and lawsuits get off every bullying 'precious snowflake', yet I'm certain I'd take that risk today, if official channels failed to ensure the (mental) well-being of my children.
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  As a dad with young kids, I can assure you that if this were to happen to them, I'd wage all-out cyberwar, on the kids and any parents that didn't properly curtail their child's behavior after official notifications. From doxing and redialing faxes to bully-vision youtube channels naming and shaming their family. You will make your child's school life more of a hell than it already is.
  - voicereasonish 12y ago
    I think you have to judge each case on its merits. The sure fire way to beat a bully though is to stand up to them and let them know that what ever they throw at you, you'll throw twice as much back. They will not win. Some bullying stops if you just ignore it and make it "not fun anymore" for the bully. But it all depends on the individual circumstances.
lectrick 12y ago
FYI, she wants to block hackernews visitors (probably due to a hosting issue), so can someone throw up a mirror?
- emhart 12y ago
  Bah, sorry. Accidental downvote!
- rickyc091 12y ago
  Cached. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IEXZG92OC5oJ:maban.co.uk/91/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IEXZG92...
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  Her Twitter implies she didn't want it here because she didn't anticipate a good conversation (i.e. she expected abusive comments on HN). So a mirror is probably the last thing she wants.
kjackson2012 12y ago
As a former bully, my advice to anyone being bullied is to fight back. I wasn't someone who would physically attack people, but I would relentlessly verbally abuse them. I'm not sure about the legal consequences these days but I know that if the person I picked on punched me in the face, I'd probably back down. This is what I have told my kids if they ever find themselves bullied. I'm not sure about the circumstances of the OP but I do think if you allow the bullying to fester, then kids who normally wouldn't bully start looking at you as a target and join in. The key is to not make yourself a target and if they know every time they bully you, that you will fight back tooth and nail, eventually they will choose someone else. It's sad and unfair, but true. It's like Lord of the Flies. The one thing that makes me glad that I'm not younger is the fact that I didn't have the internet when I was a kid. I know for a fact I would have engaged in cyberbullying so I'm glad I never had access to a tool like this when I was at my worst.
- SoftwareMaven 12y ago
  I agree, but I don't think it is ever that easy. The problem is bullies target people who they know won't fight back, whose personality makes that particularly difficult. There is usually more than one bully involved, too, which makes one feel like s/he has to try to fight back against all of them, an overwhelming proposition. Benjamin Franklin's solution to getting a person who hated him to like him was to get the other person to do things for him[1]. Doing something for somebody you hate causes cognitive dissonance, as you do positive things for a "negative" person, and the way this often resolves is through a reduction of those negative feelings (empathy may also play a role). Suspension and other punishments don't solve the underlying problem, which is a lack of empathy. A punishment of service to the abused seems like it would be more useful. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect
  - kjackson2012 12y ago
    Yes, but that's the point. I never picked on someone who I felt would fight back. I don't know how I developed this intuition as a kid but it was fairly accurate. The thing is if the kid fought back then I would probably have picked someone else. It must be hard for the bullying victim but it's something that has to be done. This link you gave is interesting. My corollary to this is as a victim, never do favors for your bullier. It only makes you look weaker in their eyes and it will only spur them on. For me, the only solution is to fight back and make yourself not look an easy target.
bananas 12y ago
My sister went through the same things about the same time. She put a hockey stick in the face of the ring leader in the end, smashed her teeth and broke her jaw. She was arrested but the duty officers agreed to write it off as they'd already been contacted by my parents about the bullying it and they said the CPS wouldn't touch it in this case. So up turns a guy at my door one day (the girl's father) ready to kick off at my sister and my parents. He was removed by our dogs. Two years down the line from this, her father is in prison for robbery and the girl was in youth custody for assault. Moral of the story: half the human race is shit not worthy of a breath of air. Fight fire with fire. No sympathy regardless of the background for any behaviour like this. Also avoid living in shitty suburbs of Nottingham (this was Woodborough Road next to St Anne's).
izzydata 12y ago
I'm really confused as to what the author did to upset this group of people. I find it hard to believe that so many people who go so far out of their way for such an extended period of time for absolutely no reason other than to harass someone for laughs. Edit: What's with the downvotes? Are we not allowed to ask questions here anymore? Or is it inappropriate to not believe everything you hear at face value? It isn't even that because the author doesn't explain it at all.
- ANTSANTS 12y ago
  Children don't need a reason to be absolute shitheads.
  - izzydata 12y ago
    Perhaps once, but for such a long period of time? I don't believe it.
    - ANTSANTS 12y ago
      Do you have retrograde amnesia, or were you homeschooled?
      - izzydata 12y ago
        What are you even talking about? Make your point if you have something to say.
nachopg 12y ago
Everything in this article is terrifying and, somehow, what scared me the most was how much Internet is actually the world for so many people born not that later than myself. It is incredible how fast this change happened. Also, I know my role as a professional is doing nothing but making that a bigger issue. As a side note: bullying (cyber or not) is not the same in all countries. In my hometown, when I was growing up and we were not that penetrated by american culture yet, nothing like this would happen. The worst thing possible was a light fist fight.
mattboulos 12y ago
I run an online service that connects teens with experienced lawyers who advise them for free (it is a labour of love). Obviously I am biased, but I think we need more services that can help kids deal with online realities. In our experience, kids who are being bullied have no idea how to get the help they need and burrow instead. We owe it to them to change that. I am convinced that the tech community can play a big part in that, it certainly has for my organization.
aquadrop 12y ago
I don't understand why parents of those bullies did nothing? It looks like they all were informed (suspension, police)? And that - "I knew that if they got a criminal record, they might not be able to go to university. I didn't want that burden." looks like a strange position. Why would you care about that happening to someone who was giving you death threats?
rooster8 12y ago
> The answers to my secret questions on my accounts are all fake, so not even a friend could know them. Side note, this is good advice for anyone. Many sites use the same questions, and they're often stored in plaintext in the database. One compromised database on an unimportant service may expose vulnerabilities to your most sensitive accounts. I treat these like any other password field, using random text as the answer, and store the random answer along with the password in 1Password.
gremlinsinc 12y ago
You know what would be awesome some sort of anti-bullying squad -- that dishes out some of their own medicine. -- Have maybe 10-15 people situated along the pathway of a bully's walk home, and cameramen to ask him questions... like Did you know most bully's bully because they hate themselves, what do you hate most about yourself, what makes you a bully? ... etc... -- get it all on tape, if they run--get their cowardice on tape.. youtube it for the whole world to see, enough instances of this happen, and it'll cut back on bully's I'd hope-- I wonder if To Catch a Predator had any statistics on if the program curtailed any predatoring...
notlisted 12y ago
Relevant - interesting article from a couple of days ago: http://www.care2.com/causes/ways-school-bullying-can-affect-your-life-even-decades-on.html?cid=tw_causes_bullyingimpact http://www.care2.com/causes/ways-school-bullying-can-affect-... 5 Ways School Bullying Impacts Your Life Even Decades On "Following participants into midlife (aged 50), the researchers then tested for evidence of the known effects of bullying at regular intervals throughout the subjects’ lives, and participants were tested for psychological distress as well as their general health, with tests at 23 and 45. At age 50, participants were also tested in terms of cognitive functioning, social relationships, as well as for general levels of well-being (these were assessed using standard scales). What the researchers found was that, even after accounting for things like IQ and socioeconomic status at the beginning of the study, bullying appears to have a significant impact on people’s lives for decades after the bullying has finished."

239 points by Fletch137 12y ago

In 2004? This kind of bullying is inhuman. I've experienced a bit of bullying (not cyber) and it really affects you a lot. I was bullied for 2-3 years and it fundamentally changed me. Before that, I was a friendly, trusting person who wasn't afraid to lead. Now, I'm more on reserved and untrusting side. I also found my sanctuary on the internet and it helped me recover a lot. Anna, you're brave and strong. Had I been subjected to this level of bullying, I'd have broken down completely.

jerf 12y ago
I have been told by my parents that I was a friendly, outgoing child going in to kindergarten. I sure as fuck wasn't on the way out. (I was already a nerd.) I've long since dealt with it. I don't even twinge saying that. But I am pretty firmly of the opinion that the school system tends to greatly underestimate the impact of bullying, conclude based on their actions that they are far more interested in not seeing it than in making it go away, and this has probably contributed to my current deep, deep skepticism about the schooling system as it stands today.
- aaronem 12y ago
  Seconded in full, save that I suspect in a lot of cases it's not just "interested in not seeing it" but rather silently cheering bullies on, on the same general theory as someone might, while finding the specific methods distasteful, approve in general of the idea of cross-gender rape as a corrective for homosexuality. (If that seems like an overly strong statement to you, consider that both "corrective rape" and bullying revolve around the use of violence to enforce a social norm. Granted, the former is much worse than the latter generally manages, but I'm increasingly convinced that the difference is more of degree than of kind.) It's for reasons like this that, while pragmatically convinced it'll never actually happen, I am strongly in favor of the law treating adults who passively or actively enable bullying as it does anyone else who abets or conspires to a crime. Seeing the erstwhile principal of a school dragged off in irons, to be arraigned on suspicion of having been an accessory before and after the fact to assault and battery, seems to me just the thing to give every other responsible party, in every other school sharing the jurisdiction, powerfully to think. No, it'll never happen, but the once-bullied kid in me surely wishes it would.
  - ishansharma 12y ago
    I am strongly in favor of the law treating adults who passively or actively enable bullying as it does anyone else who abets or conspires to a crime That's a good idea. But as you said, it'll never happen. They have all the resources and power to make bullying stop, yet thye don't choose to.
    - aaronem 12y ago
      I'm not sure whom you imagine to constitute "they", but I've found from my own experience that assigning the responsibility for a problem, to some nebulous "they", tends to result in considerable underappreciation of the complexities involved.
      - ishansharma 12y ago
        I was referring to the authorities. But yes, I guess I should be thinking and discussing solutions rather that assigning responsibility to "them"!
  - chilldream 12y ago
    I've lost the link, but something like that actually did happen in the US recently. It surely helped that it was so flagrant and that there was video evidence, but a teacher was arrested for encouraging a bunch of kids to beat up another kid in the halls.
    - aaronem 12y ago
      I can't find the story either, but that sounds like an excellent start to me.
  - mattgreenrocks 12y ago
    If it's norm enforcement, then it reveals the disgusting inner nature of a lot of people: "these people are weak, so they should be harassed." Can you sue a school/teachers for negligence here? Oftentimes demanding people to lawyer up seems to correct behavior remarkably quickly. Similarly, the threat of suing parents would probably also cause something to happen.
- ishansharma 12y ago
  >>>> But I am pretty firmly of the opinion that the school system tends to greatly underestimate the impact of bullying, conclude based on their actions that they are far more interested in not seeing it than in making it go away Fully agree with this. I remember telling a teacher about bullying near the end of school and he talked to those 4 bullies. Talking in this case was basically taking them out of the class (while smiling) and then talking to them for 2-3 minutes. When they came back, they were walking proudly and clearly pointing at me. A few weeks later, it started all over again. And the optimist in me died a small death. I just finished reading Paul Graham's essay on why nerds are not popular and it kind of resonates. It is not about bullying but talks about schools in a completely different light.
  - apozem 12y ago
    Thanks for mentioning that essay. I just finished reading, and it made a lot of sense. Being popular in school is like a job. Most nerds I know (myself included) simply didn't care to put in the time or effort for the grooming, fashion, and surface-level socialization necessary.
  - notlisted 12y ago
    The link: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
api 12y ago
"This kind of bullying is inhuman." Unfortunately it's very human. It's common human behavior, and common behavior among other social mammals as well. Nature deals you and everyone else a more or less random hand of genes. Then, when you reach puberty, you duke it out to establish a pecking order based on relative fitness indicators. These determine who gets to mate with who, and who will be closest to the alpha males who will lead the tribe. This is one reason that despite its trendiness I have never been able to accept the argument from nature. Nature sucks. Fuck nature. My hope is that we can start re-engineering this stuff as soon as we are able.
- Wohui 12y ago
  One day, pal. I believe it will become possibile too. There are various upsides and downsides to humans achieving self engineering, I realised a terrible one recently - people would truly have nothing that belongs to themselves.
- mattgreenrocks 12y ago
  LessWrong: "we're running on defective hardware." The argument from nature is completely ghastly from a moral perspective. I have never seen a solid argument that uses it. It's usually the domain of pseudo-intellectuals who are grasping at Internet points instead of actually thinking through the implications of what they're saying. It implicitly condones a huge swath of anti-social behavior in the pursuit of the all-important fitness. It inspires no hope, and it demands that you take an extremely unhealthy interest in your own self.
  - api 12y ago
    "The argument from nature is completely ghastly from a moral perspective. I have never seen a solid argument that uses it. It's usually the domain of pseudo-intellectuals who are grasping at Internet points instead of actually thinking through the implications of what they're saying. It implicitly condones a huge swath of anti-social behavior in the pursuit of the all-important fitness. It inspires no hope, and it demands that you take an extremely unhealthy interest in your own self." That is very well put, and the last point is really an eyebrow-raiser. I've never seen it before, but now I cannot un-see. If you look deeply into the natural everything movement that's so popular right now you'll see an odd kind of cleanliness and purity obsessed narcissism.
complicated 12y ago
Oh wow, I am so sorry. I don't really want to imagine what would have happened if I had been bullied for that long.. Indeed, I was made fun of for maybe 10 minutes; and it completely changed me. Back in 2005, last day of school (8th grade), many of us had gathered in a park in order to hang out and just spend time together before the start of the summer holidays. And then, the girl I had a crush on for the past two years, approached me with 3-4 other friends of her. She told me that she really liked me. It felt so thrilling and exciting and I was so happy and I told her that I liked her as well... And then they left, and met up with a group of another ~30 people or so, maybe a 100 meters away. They all started laughing.. I felt so empty, I wanted to disappear, when one of them came to tell me "Oh by the way it was a joke that she likes you". That summer I started playing MMORPGs, did not go to the beach once, just stayed home. Indeed, I spent the rest of high school pretty much isolated (although luckily eventually I replaced MMORPGs with actually studying). Whenever a girl showed interest in me, I immediately avoided her as much as possible, since I thought she just wanted to make fun of me. And it took 8 years, maybe a bit longer, until I started trusting people again. So, why did I write all of this? Partially, because it came into memory after reading this thread. But more importantly, I am really scared by the fact, that the bullying I experienced was so so minor compared to the other stories here; yet it affected me so fundamentally.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

rjknight 12y ago
There might be a reason, but it's probably not a good one. These things are chaos-theory-like[1], with the causes so tiny that they're impossible to observe or predict and so may as well be random. It could be as simple as "One day, someone was in a bad mood and took it out on the nearest person unlikely to fight back. They realised that they enjoyed it, and did it again. Others observed and joined in." - by the time it reaches that point, you're already talking about group bullying by multiple people. Knowing the cause, or that there even was a cause, doesn't really help anyone. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
peteretep 12y ago
> But I seriously cannot believe this if there is not a > single reason WHY they did such horrible things So what if there was? Would that make it all better?
- ux 12y ago
  It would help understanding why that happened and thus maybe how to prevent it.
ishansharma 12y ago
From what I have seen and experienced, teens just need to make fun if someone. And usually, they will pick someone who is: 1. Different (out of community, different religion etc.) 2. Not good with words (doesn't reply back) I was in category 2 and a few bullies always made fun of me because of this. I was called names and humiliated for no reason. IMHO, they don't need a reason. Just someone to make fun of.
- ht_th 12y ago
  I remember doubling 10th grade. As I entered the new community of new grade 10 students, I noticed that one girl was being bullied. I did not understand why. I asked the other students about it, but they were never able to explain it to me. Some didn't understand either, but had accepted the situation as normal. Others, all from the same village as this girl, seemed to participate more actively. Somehow, sometime during their elementary school years, the culture formed by the students of that year in that village had to come to include bullying that girl. There might have been an origin to it all, but when I entered their subculture in 10th grade all that was left of that narrative was an unexplainable shared dislike of that one girl.

rjknight 12y ago

Stuff like this makes me proud that the internet and technology industry can give people a way of taking control of their lives back and finding a purpose and career when others are trying to deny it to them.

dasil003 12y ago
Just to play devil's advocate, consider that the Internet is what enabled this bullying to be as horrible and psychologically damaging as it was. It's not only tech geeks that get bullied.
- dtf 12y ago
  Just browsing her portfolio on that website, this looks pretty interesting: http://speakr.co.uk/ http://speakr.co.uk/
- aaronem 12y ago
  Which is another way of saying that this technology, like any other, is morally neutral, and only the actions of the people who use it have any moral weight.
  - dasil003 12y ago
    True, although I'd say the interesting part are the properties of the technology. In this instance, the cyber-bullying stuff is worse than traditional bullying because of the anonymity and lack of repercussions. Sort of a corollary of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory if you will.

shruubi 12y ago

I can sympathise with the author. I didn't suffer to the degree that she did, but it was there none-the-less. Sometimes bullies like this have no rhyme or reason other than they find some kind of self-worth in bullying. It's a difficult situation to be in, especially as a teenager where you feel like your only options are to either stay silent and suffer, or tell someone and commit social suicide.

ishansharma 12y ago
The problem with telling someone is that they can't stop it completely! Author told the school and the bullies still continued. Your point about self-worth is excellent. I've seen bullies being very happy/proud after teasing someone. Sad thing is that all this changes you and hinders your progress a lot.

rg81 12y ago

Heartbreaking story. As a father of an 8 month old girl this really tugs at me. Nobody should have to go through this. On a positive note, Anna is a very talented designer. Hopefully the positive experiences doing meaningful work for appreciative clients will eclipse some of the pain in the past.

onli 12y ago

There is only one thing possible you can do that help in a situation like this. It is to fight back. Throw punches (literally), let them be suspended, arrested, do everything you can do to punish everyone who tries to mess with you that way. You will gain respect, because you have to, even if you sometimes lose a fight - legal or physically. And I know how horribly hard that is while you are under constant attack. And how it feels how it will make only matters worse. One thinks "maybe it will stop if one just tries to fit in a bit more, or be a bit invisible" But it never does. People behaving like this follow animalic instinct, not reason, so the only language they understand is on the same level. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to fight yourself - but hard responses are necessary, and a 2m police man talking angry to a teen is a hard response. Edit: Tried to make it a bit clearer that it is not only about fighting physically.

catshirt 12y ago
i understand the rationale behind "fight back" and in many instances it is probably the right solution. but if 15 people are bullying you and sending you death threats, punching one sounds like the dumbest god damned idea.
- onli 12y ago
  If you get death threats, it is a case for the police anyway, before any cyber bullying laws. And severe enough, like described in the article, for them to act.
  - catshirt 12y ago
    i didn't downvote you but i admit i was probably too dismissive of your post. i see now you were suggesting that punching/suspension/arrest are all different methods for fighting back (some more suitable than others depending on the circumstances).
- Wohui 12y ago
  This needs more votes, simply for reminding people that bullying isn't some generic situation. The least bad case of bullying is when you have a single bully, who can be made to start treating you as a human being without going as far as a fight. The worst case is a group, who chronically hate you for whatever reason. Not every situation in life has a solution, if you have enough enemies.

TeamMCS 12y ago

That is really horrendous. Sent shivers down my spine just reading it :/

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Sodaware 12y ago

I don't think the term "cyber bullying" really conveys how serious it can be. I have no idea how anyone could endure this. It's inhuman.

blueskin_ 12y ago
It's the word "cyber", which is essentially an indicator for "Please ignore me, I know nothing about this subject" to anyone other than mainstream news media. If it was called online bullying, it'd be a different story.
- aaronem 12y ago
  Why does it need to be called "anything bullying"? It seems to me that for anyone who's been bullied, or who hasn't but has seen what it does to someone who is, the noun stands quite well on its own.

cwaniak2 12y ago

Just a question from someone who was bullied in Eastern Europe many years ago (i.e. 1980s, communist times): why your parents didn't go to their parents to talk? Why all the recordings, emails and other evidence wasn't presented to them? My mom yelled so bad at mom of the guy who bullied me, literally questioning her parenting abilities that it never happened to me again. I mean, where are the parents in all of this? Were they both too busy working?

Apreche 12y ago

Cyber bullying isn't any different from regular bullying. Just because technology is being used doesn't change anything. As most nerds/geeks I was bullied during my younger school days. Not quite as bad as in the story, bud badly enough. Technology was not used, but it was bullying all the same. The real problem is simply that bullying, cyber or not, has no consequences. Back in the day I was punished more for fighting back than any bully ever was for harassing me. Until teachers and administrators are given the ability to actually punish bullies with real consequences, why would they stop? By seriously punish I don't mean violence. Obviously the right punishment in each situation will be different. But the first idea that comes to my mind is to simply remove all the bullies and disruptive students from school and put them in a separate school of their own. Perhaps a military-style academy?

brazzy 12y ago
Cyber bullying is different from regular bullying because it follows you to your home and your entire outside-school life. This is a huge difference.
- ErrantX 12y ago
  Normal bullying followed me home from school. Okay so life-penetration wasn't as deep. But, to the point that walking into town on a saturday was risky business. The difference with cyber-bullying isn't any of these things; it's just that it's much harder for other people to see happening (unless, of course, you show them the messages). Quite a few times at school people would come across me being bullied; and more often than not they put a stop to it.
  - Pxtl 12y ago
    On the other hand, cyber-bullying doesn't physically beat the crap out of you. Which kinda sucks when it happens on a daily basis.
    - aaronem 12y ago
      Could be both, as for example when not only do you get your ass kicked, but some prick uses the iPhone Daddy bought him to take video of it, which he later uploads so he can share the link around your entire school. Just another point in demonstration of the fact that "cyberbullying" vs "(just plain) bullying" makes a distinction without a difference.

id 12y ago

Looks like she doesn't want this to be posted here. https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459673982149877760 https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459673982149877760

4ad 12y ago
Then why does she put it on the Internet for everyone to see?
- smileysteve 12y ago
  To be callous, that's the question I feel about the entirety of the story. The bullying is horrible, but the solution seems to be a tiny bit of anonymity. - start texting you and calling you (at all [distracting] times) making your primary number useless? Get a new number. In 2004, not everybody had cell phones (or especially texting plans) If a cell phone loses its utility of being a tool, then ditch it. - Messaging on Hotmail This is [the known attacker version of] why many parents concern their kids with not being searchable or using their real name. Don't have your real age or name on hotmail. Further, don't accept unauthenticated im friendships and give out private information. - Blog comments How did they know her URL, if not just for her class? Is the easy solution to just not allow comments, or at least require authorization to post comments?
rickyc091 12y ago
She probably wants to avoid comments such as "she's a liar, this didn't happen, etc."
arethuza 12y ago
Ouch - maybe we should all flag this then?
dtf 12y ago
Probably just expecting the usual dumb comments: "Thanks, it's ok. It seems to be being moderated well for once. And I can take any stupid comments these days." https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459677447404138496 https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459677447404138496

herokusaki 12y ago

That is a heartbreaking read. I had to deal with bullying at school but what is described here is at such a different scale I feel it would be wrong to compare my experience to the author's. If, like me, you were surprised at first at the magnanimity she showed towards her bullies (not wanting them to get a criminal record) consider that even if you absolutely wanted them to be punished there would have been a psychological price to pressing charges and going to court, so it would by no means be an easy choice to make.

RighteousFervor 12y ago

To the author of this post and anyone else who may be the victim of cyber-abuse: my heart goes out to you, but you must fight back. Tooth and nail, fullest extent of the law, the whole she-bang. It seems to me the victim in this account held back, thereby preventing justice and prolonging the abuse.

jerf 12y ago
I think the problem lies in that we often never tell children this, don't support them if they try, and the system in general in its effort to make the problem no longer visible to the authorities (as opposed to actually making it go away) often finds the easiest path is to get the compliant target to shut up about the problem rather than the much harder task of actually fixing it. (They don't even realize that they're doing this... but when the kid's talking to the authorities for the fifth time because the first four didn't do anything, and the authorities give off a "this again? jeez", it's not hard to figure out how pointless the meetings are.) Which, as an adult, I now realize they simply don't have time for, but I wish they'd be more up front about it and let kids deal with that, rather than pretend they've got all the solutions, ban you from doing anything effective, then fail to do anything effective themselves. I'm a male, and my tormentors were male, and I think that makes this a radically different situation than the linked article. But for me, I'm pretty sure two or three well-placed swings (they probably didn't even have to connect) would have made school orders of magnitude more pleasant for me. I wish I hadn't been raised with everybody around me telling me how wrong that always is, because in hindsight it would have been a great deal less wrong than what happened to me. So, other parents, I encourage you to take a more nuanced approach than mine did. You certainly don't want to encourage violence for everything and sure, start with the proper authorities, but I would encourage you that if that still can't fix the problem, stand behind your kid if they need to take a bit of action on their own. And please don't teach them complete passivity as the answer to everything. I was lucky in ways I didn't even understand at the time, and my personal psychological makeup was mostly able to withstand this and come out with very little scarring. Don't count on that for your child. I've observed that it's not true of everyone. Incidentally, I submit as evidence the fact that people even here have a hard time agreeing to this idea. Think about it. You're asking one person to put up with years of physical and/or psychological abuse to save a small set of bullies, who are by definition being bad actors... what? A bruised nose, once or twice? Bruised egos? What kind of fucked up ethical system have you all subscribed to where a bullied person is obligated to put up with years upon years of inescapable abuse rather than throw a punch? Seriously. Please. Think about that for a moment, and stop valuing years of psychological and/or physical abuse at what appears to be "zero"... you are, and I am dead serious about this, part of the problem if you act that way. Bullying is bad. Really bad. Not just "I say the word bad and pat myself on the back for having Good Think", but really, really drive-people-to-the-brink-of-suicide-or-beyond bad. Don't mouth the words about how bullying it bad, act like it! (And again, if something other than violence works, hey, great! It's not a good first resort. It's not the solution to everything and it isn't magic. But don't act like it's nuclear waste and take it entirely off the table at the cost of years of soul-searing abuse. It's a bad situation and there may not be a "perfect solution", but I find it abhorrent how many people even here would rather see someone put up with epic abuse rather that assert themselves even a little.)

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grey-area 12y ago

This story is a perfect candidate for that new comment filtering feature on HN. I'm not even sure a meaningful HN discussion is possible on this sort of topic anyway.

notlisted 12y ago
I beg to differ. I have no proof, but I suspect a large number of visitors to HN (technically inclined, perhaps not as socially developed as kids, most pretty darn smart) have some personal experience in the matter, which may explain the number of comments. In terms of meaningful discussion, there are comments from those who were bullied and those who did (interesting perspective).

pitt1980 12y ago

This is probably going to come off as insensitive, but whatever I went through a bit of this myself to a lesser degree for whatever reason, in my experience, getting authorities involved (older siblings, parents, school authorities) not only doesn't solve these things, they seem to inflame them ime, bullies get off on the realization that they can affect another human's behavior ignoring it (or at least pretending to), or projecting that it doesn't affect you seems to be a much more affective strategy which is easier advice to give than to follow, I understand

C1D 12y ago

This reminds me of what happened to my self last year. I had a YouTube channel with Gaming Videos, they went to my channel created a fake Google+ account using my name and started posting offensive content on it. They then went to videos with homosexual acts and posted comments with my name saying things like "I endorse this", etc.. On the Google+ page they posted Male Pornography all under my name. I went to the Police here in Dubai and after a few weeks of no response I found out that they lost my file and that I would have to do another report to get anything done about it. I eventually took it into my own hands, contacted Google+ send pictures of my passport and they shutdown the account and removed all Google query's of the page.

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amalcon 12y ago

No one should have to endure this sort of thing, which is somewhat worse than what I experienced myself (pervasive internet use is a significant amplifier). Kids are a lot stronger than we give them credit for -- much stronger than adults, I think. Primary and secondary schools are an extremely harsh environment, because they have many of the same problems as prisons to a lesser degree. We forcibly put large groups of socially underdeveloped people together, and barely monitor the situation. Kids can't even really escape the systemic problems at home anymore, due to the internet. Somehow, the vast majority of our children manage to come out of them more or less intact. This is nothing less than miraculous, one of the great unsung triumphs of human spirit. I keep coming back to how nobody should have to endure this. This triumph is over an adversity of our own making. We can and should take this more seriously than any other threat to children, even though they somehow endure it, because it is more pervasive.

sillysaurus3 12y ago
Somehow, the vast majority of our children manage to come out of them more or less intact. Except the ones who kill themsleves. Or the ones who are fundamentally changed for the rest of their lives. Or the ones who grow a hatred and distrust for the people in charge who did nothing to protect them. Or...
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  Or the ones who grow a hatred and distrust for the people in charge who did nothing to protect them. Sounds like that one is inevitable, no matter where you are.
- amalcon 12y ago
  Sure, I don't mean to imply that bullying does no damage. Quite the opposite, in fact. The fact that anyone can experience bullying, survive, and go on to be a productive adult is impressive. The fact that most do is downright incredible, and were there not so much evidence I would not have believed it possible. This does nothing to lessen the tragedy of those who are not so lucky.

agentultra 12y ago

I was bullied like this when I was in high school. My car was vandalized on several occasions, almost everyone would throw food at me if I entered the cafeteria, and I was hospitalized once after losing one of many fights. A friend of mine wasn't so lucky and ended up in a coma for six months. That kind of abuse never leaves you. Every time I read a story like this it all comes flooding back. Sadly even > 12 years on and I still don't have any good answers.

lectrick 12y ago
Do internet hugs work? I was bullied from about 12 (right after moving to a new school, a VERY susceptible time, in hindsight) until at least 14. I wouldn't call this justice but the main bullier ended up taking a shotgun to his own head just a few years ago. I have a feeling that bullying harms more than just the victims, it also harms the perpetrators...
- _pmf_ 12y ago
  > I have a feeling that bullying harms more than just the victims, it also harms the perpetrators... Most likely, they have already been harmed when they start bullying.
  - agentultra 12y ago
    I think so. [trigger warning -- abusive words, etc] I think that if it wasn't for the violence and bullying I would have had much in common with my tormentors. I had an opportunity once to talk, briefly in private, with the kid who was ultimately responsible for sending me to the hospital. He was one of the few black kids at our school of mostly white upper-middle class kids. He was also a foster kid and lived in a home with a violent foster father. I don't even remember if he apologized or not. I just remember being struck by how much we did have in common: I spent my teenage years living with my single, mobility-challenged mother and had escaped a very abusive household. We never spoke again and if I ever saw him around he just went back to his old behavior: spitting at me, cursing, calling me a faggot; so we just learned to avoid one another after that.

jokoon 12y ago

When facebook was on the rise I had a situation when several students came at me for no reason. So many people behave like animals, hatred and bad jokes are like a source of energy to them. I failed to have a degree due to these people. That was a reason I stopped using facebook too. I think the web should be used to drive people who have the same interests towards each other, but that's the opposite that happens: you end up confronting the people who know you and dislike you, and it's impossible to avoid them because you either work with them or you are in the same class. What boggles my mind is when I read on the internet people saying "bullying is fine and it's part of life". Sounds like it's a game for them, and they don't realize that people just don't want to play with them. If I could relive my teenage years, I would stab so many students. The scars bullying leaves on you are for ever.

4ad 12y ago

War, famine, disease, losing your liver -- all this pales compared to cyber bullying! I was bullied as a kid, it was awful, but I was being hit with fists, and when I didn't have any money to steal, they'd hit me again. They also carried knives. I lived in a ghetto. If this is the worse thing that happened to her in her life, she must have had a pretty good and happy life. I am certain that cyber bullying is real and can create a huge emotional torment, but what I read here is pretty lame. Colleagues post mean comments and it affects you emotionally? Seriously? Maybe it was much worse than the author can express, in which case she is just a bad writer, but her twitter reaction[1] made me think this is not the case, and it made me lose all sympathy for her. If this stuff affects you, it's bad parenting. If you live in Disneyland and are this isolated from real life, it's only the fault of your parents who didn't teach you anything about the real life, where people are hateful, mean, and generally want to fuck you up in some way. Because I am extremely arrogant and because I am always right, people hate me a lot, especially people on the Internet. This doesn't affect me negatively, this amuses me. Seven years back (wow, already 7 years!) some guy hated me so much, that he hired thugs to beat me up. Real thugs. With sticks. Sticks that hit me in the eye. I couldn't see for two weeks with my left eye. I still have floaters and flashes in my both eyes. Did this depress me? No! I am now stronger, I learned a thing or two about self-defense and I got my revenge, except without violence. [1] https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459673982149877760 https://twitter.com/anna_debenham/status/459673982149877760 /edit: this was downvoted less than two seconds since when I posted it. Two seconds! HN readers muts read pretty fast, since I assume everyone here actually reads before downvoting. Surely that's true! As I said, amusing.

aaronem 12y ago
> because I am always right Really? Your whole comment here constitutes a contemptuous dismissal of anything, suffered by anyone, which doesn't live up to your particular standard of "bad enough to cry over", and you say you're always right? Certainly you're arrogant, but that's neither an accomplishment nor a cause of reasonable pride; as far as right goes, I can only imagine that hit in the eye you took must have done something bad to your close detail vision, because you certainly give the strong impression of having badly misread the definition of the word. Here, have a dictionary link [1], and since it's online, you can zoom in on the text just as far as you need to, in order to actually read it this time. [1]: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/right http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/right

notlisted 12y ago

Not adding to a sensible discussion perhaps, but I'm convinced that bullying is the result of inaction by parents and teachers/schools. Merely standing by and letting it happen is the worst thing you can do to your children. As a dad with young kids, I can assure you that if this were to happen to them, I'd wage all-out cyberwar, on the kids and any parents that didn't properly curtail their child's behavior after official notifications. From doxing and redialing faxes to bully-vision youtube channels naming and shaming their family. It isn't slander if it's true… I've made it 100% clear to my kids that I've got their backs. It's my duty as a dad. Edit: Yes, this story obviously struck a nerve for me. I was bullied as a 12yo kid for a few months. I was a good kid, and did well in school, which made me the outlier. I remember how terrified I was when the bell rang at the end of the school day, knowing that the pests would be waiting for me on the way home. I also vividly remember the day my dad took me aside and simply said: "Go ahead. You have my permission to make them feel sorry. I have your back. Just don't do it on school property." The day I took action was a truly glorious and empowering day. Hearing my dad tell their parents afterwards they had it coming, supported by some photographic proof of damage caused in the past, was even better. Upside: nobody ever bothered me again. This happened a long time ago, and not in the litigious USA where money and lawsuits get off every bullying 'precious snowflake', yet I'm certain I'd take that risk today, if official channels failed to ensure the (mental) well-being of my children.

sillysaurus3 12y ago
As a dad with young kids, I can assure you that if this were to happen to them, I'd wage all-out cyberwar, on the kids and any parents that didn't properly curtail their child's behavior after official notifications. From doxing and redialing faxes to bully-vision youtube channels naming and shaming their family. You will make your child's school life more of a hell than it already is.
- voicereasonish 12y ago
  I think you have to judge each case on its merits. The sure fire way to beat a bully though is to stand up to them and let them know that what ever they throw at you, you'll throw twice as much back. They will not win. Some bullying stops if you just ignore it and make it "not fun anymore" for the bully. But it all depends on the individual circumstances.

lectrick 12y ago

FYI, she wants to block hackernews visitors (probably due to a hosting issue), so can someone throw up a mirror?

emhart 12y ago
Bah, sorry. Accidental downvote!
rickyc091 12y ago
Cached. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IEXZG92OC5oJ:maban.co.uk/91/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IEXZG92...
k-mcgrady 12y ago
Her Twitter implies she didn't want it here because she didn't anticipate a good conversation (i.e. she expected abusive comments on HN). So a mirror is probably the last thing she wants.

kjackson2012 12y ago

As a former bully, my advice to anyone being bullied is to fight back. I wasn't someone who would physically attack people, but I would relentlessly verbally abuse them. I'm not sure about the legal consequences these days but I know that if the person I picked on punched me in the face, I'd probably back down. This is what I have told my kids if they ever find themselves bullied. I'm not sure about the circumstances of the OP but I do think if you allow the bullying to fester, then kids who normally wouldn't bully start looking at you as a target and join in. The key is to not make yourself a target and if they know every time they bully you, that you will fight back tooth and nail, eventually they will choose someone else. It's sad and unfair, but true. It's like Lord of the Flies. The one thing that makes me glad that I'm not younger is the fact that I didn't have the internet when I was a kid. I know for a fact I would have engaged in cyberbullying so I'm glad I never had access to a tool like this when I was at my worst.

SoftwareMaven 12y ago
I agree, but I don't think it is ever that easy. The problem is bullies target people who they know won't fight back, whose personality makes that particularly difficult. There is usually more than one bully involved, too, which makes one feel like s/he has to try to fight back against all of them, an overwhelming proposition. Benjamin Franklin's solution to getting a person who hated him to like him was to get the other person to do things for him[1]. Doing something for somebody you hate causes cognitive dissonance, as you do positive things for a "negative" person, and the way this often resolves is through a reduction of those negative feelings (empathy may also play a role). Suspension and other punishments don't solve the underlying problem, which is a lack of empathy. A punishment of service to the abused seems like it would be more useful. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect
- kjackson2012 12y ago
  Yes, but that's the point. I never picked on someone who I felt would fight back. I don't know how I developed this intuition as a kid but it was fairly accurate. The thing is if the kid fought back then I would probably have picked someone else. It must be hard for the bullying victim but it's something that has to be done. This link you gave is interesting. My corollary to this is as a victim, never do favors for your bullier. It only makes you look weaker in their eyes and it will only spur them on. For me, the only solution is to fight back and make yourself not look an easy target.

bananas 12y ago

My sister went through the same things about the same time. She put a hockey stick in the face of the ring leader in the end, smashed her teeth and broke her jaw. She was arrested but the duty officers agreed to write it off as they'd already been contacted by my parents about the bullying it and they said the CPS wouldn't touch it in this case. So up turns a guy at my door one day (the girl's father) ready to kick off at my sister and my parents. He was removed by our dogs. Two years down the line from this, her father is in prison for robbery and the girl was in youth custody for assault. Moral of the story: half the human race is shit not worthy of a breath of air. Fight fire with fire. No sympathy regardless of the background for any behaviour like this. Also avoid living in shitty suburbs of Nottingham (this was Woodborough Road next to St Anne's).

izzydata 12y ago

I'm really confused as to what the author did to upset this group of people. I find it hard to believe that so many people who go so far out of their way for such an extended period of time for absolutely no reason other than to harass someone for laughs. Edit: What's with the downvotes? Are we not allowed to ask questions here anymore? Or is it inappropriate to not believe everything you hear at face value? It isn't even that because the author doesn't explain it at all.

ANTSANTS 12y ago
Children don't need a reason to be absolute shitheads.
- izzydata 12y ago
  Perhaps once, but for such a long period of time? I don't believe it.
  - ANTSANTS 12y ago
    Do you have retrograde amnesia, or were you homeschooled?
    - izzydata 12y ago
      What are you even talking about? Make your point if you have something to say.

nachopg 12y ago

Everything in this article is terrifying and, somehow, what scared me the most was how much Internet is actually the world for so many people born not that later than myself. It is incredible how fast this change happened. Also, I know my role as a professional is doing nothing but making that a bigger issue. As a side note: bullying (cyber or not) is not the same in all countries. In my hometown, when I was growing up and we were not that penetrated by american culture yet, nothing like this would happen. The worst thing possible was a light fist fight.

mattboulos 12y ago

I run an online service that connects teens with experienced lawyers who advise them for free (it is a labour of love). Obviously I am biased, but I think we need more services that can help kids deal with online realities. In our experience, kids who are being bullied have no idea how to get the help they need and burrow instead. We owe it to them to change that. I am convinced that the tech community can play a big part in that, it certainly has for my organization.

aquadrop 12y ago

I don't understand why parents of those bullies did nothing? It looks like they all were informed (suspension, police)? And that - "I knew that if they got a criminal record, they might not be able to go to university. I didn't want that burden." looks like a strange position. Why would you care about that happening to someone who was giving you death threats?

rooster8 12y ago

> The answers to my secret questions on my accounts are all fake, so not even a friend could know them. Side note, this is good advice for anyone. Many sites use the same questions, and they're often stored in plaintext in the database. One compromised database on an unimportant service may expose vulnerabilities to your most sensitive accounts. I treat these like any other password field, using random text as the answer, and store the random answer along with the password in 1Password.

gremlinsinc 12y ago

You know what would be awesome some sort of anti-bullying squad -- that dishes out some of their own medicine. -- Have maybe 10-15 people situated along the pathway of a bully's walk home, and cameramen to ask him questions... like Did you know most bully's bully because they hate themselves, what do you hate most about yourself, what makes you a bully? ... etc... -- get it all on tape, if they run--get their cowardice on tape.. youtube it for the whole world to see, enough instances of this happen, and it'll cut back on bully's I'd hope-- I wonder if To Catch a Predator had any statistics on if the program curtailed any predatoring...

notlisted 12y ago

Relevant - interesting article from a couple of days ago: http://www.care2.com/causes/ways-school-bullying-can-affect-your-life-even-decades-on.html?cid=tw_causes_bullyingimpact http://www.care2.com/causes/ways-school-bullying-can-affect-... 5 Ways School Bullying Impacts Your Life Even Decades On "Following participants into midlife (aged 50), the researchers then tested for evidence of the known effects of bullying at regular intervals throughout the subjects’ lives, and participants were tested for psychological distress as well as their general health, with tests at 23 and 45. At age 50, participants were also tested in terms of cognitive functioning, social relationships, as well as for general levels of well-being (these were assessed using standard scales). What the researchers found was that, even after accounting for things like IQ and socioeconomic status at the beginning of the study, bullying appears to have a significant impact on people’s lives for decades after the bullying has finished."