8 ms·

So, my only concern with this idea is the inconsistency of the stories we tell ourselves vs the way the world is, and how the two seem to be confused here. Hig

by scoofy 12y ago

So, my only concern with this idea is the inconsistency of the stories we tell ourselves vs the way the world is, and how the two seem to be confused here. High school, for me at least, was a fairly dark time in my life. If i knew myself, the only thing i would be able to tell myself is, it's going to suck until you're halfway through college. Bullies, at least the best ones, don't leave you alone. They don't leave you alone if your confident, they don't leave you alone if you're hurt. They just don't care. They have either yet to learn empathy, or are simply sociopaths and you're simply a fixture in their lives, entertainment. Now, assuming this is the case, which it was for me. You have a choice. Make a game that is a bit dark, existential, cathartic, or simply make a game that tells us to believe the nonsense that we are told to tell ourselves: be confident, give your bully the "i'm not a chicken, you're a turkey" speech, excel and you'll get respect. I think if you want to make a truly interesting game, ignore the uplifting nonsense and go for the catharsis. It gets better when you're able to choose your friends, your you're able to make friends on your own terms, not just pick from those around you. If i were going to make a game like this i would have aspects like: * Having a good cry shouldn't be in game death, it should be a power up. * Being vulnerable and hurt and carrying on regardless should be strength. When i started making friends in upper level classes in college, i was able to be friends with people that saw the world in interesting ways, and cared about things that made sense. We had mutual respect, and that was that. The nasty politics of social groups has rarely ever crept into my life since.

Joeboy 12y ago
> If i knew myself, the only thing i would be able to tell myself is, it's going to suck until you're halfway through college. If I may just highlight this. Children should be told that being a schoolkid is a weird kind of environment, the like of which they probably won't experience as an adult. Most workplaces don't involve customary physical violence, or even frequent overt verbal abuse. Glibly telling them that their life is horrible because they're not doing it right is a fucking awful thing to do to them.
- pjc50 12y ago
  You can't tell people things like that because they might ask "what are you going to do about this awful situation?" or "why do I have to go to school if it's so bad?". To which we have no answer.
  - Joeboy 12y ago
    Exactly. I assume this is why people feel the need to construct narratives where it's within the bullied child's power to fix the problem.
    - aragot 12y ago
      What's wrong with the American society? You can be the country of awesomeness and freedom and entrepreneurship, and at times you also have those weird customs like bullying at school. So beware game creators: This topic will be "understood" by other European cultures but it will not match what they live at school. For example we keep watching movies like Back to the Future where Marty gets bullied, or others with baby showers and popular girls dressed in pink, but it doesn't match any experience we live here. About bullying in France: I didn't have any. No physical violence, except once on the beach, so pretty much out of school. I'm pretty sure most French people have never seen a wedgie or a swirlie. I don't even know how to translate those into French. We probably don't have a word for "bully". Ok, we do have the word "racket". But this is only about stealing. And even in this instance... we use the English word. So I'd say: Don't lose hope. Society doesn't have to be tough on children. You can change it somehow.
      - protester 12y ago
        In my opinion, this is key to all of this. I don't have those bad experiences and can't understand where all these problems come from. In my experience, from a country which is not usa, kids and teenagers are perfectly capable of making new friends constantly, sometimes they slowly stop hanging around with some of them, occasionally they get into a fight about some specific situation but they forget the day after, maybe they don't get along with somebody or whatever, some friendships last for less than a year and some last forever. But all of this without the drama and the suffering everybody is mentioning here. So I can't understand when some say "that's life", because that's not life and saying so stops everybody from looking for an alternative. When I was a kid and later a teenager everybody used to tell me "enjoy your time in school (and later in college), cause once you are out of college your happiest days are behind". That was, in essence, wrong. But it was true in many senses. And that's how it should be everywhere. We should put every effort needed to make it so.
OvidNaso 12y ago
"The nasty politics of social groups has rarely ever crept into my life sense." Except for the rest of the world that doesn't live up to your, let's be honest, pretty high, political standers required to enter your social group. "i was able to be friends with people that saw the world in interesting ways, and cared about things that made sense." If someone wants to be friends with you, knew this is what you valued, and yet didn't 'qualify'; their ability to enter your social group becomes seriously vague and very hard to navigate. "It gets better when you're able to choose your friends, your you're able to make friends on your own terms, not just pick from those around you." Ever ponder the possibility that there were, or are, some people out there that just can't figure out your social politics and are maybe confused and lonely wondering what it is about them that you don't like?
- scoofy 12y ago
  I really don't understand your point. I don't like everybody, and not everybody has to like me. That doesn't mean i'm out to actively ruin someone else's day. If we look at the issue rationally, it's an issue of coordination and sorting. People that have mutual kinship can improve their position with people with similar interests. If you have some sort of "objective coolness" in your theory of friendship, then you may run into issues with constantly shooting yourself in the foot by only pursuing friends that happen to in the upper tiers of your coolness bell curve, and their will always be the paradox of choice, but i'm not really sure why i'm not supposed to have preferences when it comes to the people i associate with.
Millennium 12y ago
We can indeed draw strength and well-being from a having a good cry. Sometimes you have to break down in order to come back stronger. But this comes at a price: breaking down is usually still a setback in other ways, and so its value has to be weighed against the situation. There are times when we truly cannot afford to do it. I think that this game's death-concept is actually a decent model for this. You suffer a setback, but you ultimately come back in a better state than you were in just before it happened, and although you have to face once again some of the problems you'd solved before, you've got the tools to do that. You can still only suffer so many of these before the problem starts to get much more serious, and there are times when suffering even one can be catastrophic. But if you persevere and handle your emotions with care, you can make it through.
- saraid216 12y ago
  Relevant to this comment: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea-julie-jc-peters/ http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a...
threatofrain 12y ago
From what I've gathered before from some reading on adolescent bullying: Bullies (not bully-victims): * A transient, difficult-to-predict population, and perhaps more elegantly thought of as a social position than an individual propensity. * Bullies generally don't stay bullies, and it's difficult to know who will become a bully. * Bullying is also an audience-related activity, and is often performed in front of others -- the "bystander" population is in on it, and may provide substantial social rewards to bullies. Even victims may admire bullies. * Bullies experience improvement in social popularity. * Bullying events tend to involve a group of bullies against singular or fewer victims. * The stereotypes that bullies are sociopaths / psychopaths, come from abusive home situations, are anxious or insecure, do not persuasively conform to observations. * Bullies experience protective effects against loneliness, social anxiety, stress, and some other things. They do better than the normal population on these aspects. Victims: * Are a stable population, and may perhaps be more elegantly thought of as an individual propensity, rather than a social position where people move in and out of. * One study estimates that the victim population constitutes about 10% of the school population. * A small handful of studies with admitted methodological difficulties finds that those who are bullied at school are also significantly more likely to be bullied on online social networks.

by scoofy 12y ago

Joeboy 12y ago

> If i knew myself, the only thing i would be able to tell myself is, it's going to suck until you're halfway through college. If I may just highlight this. Children should be told that being a schoolkid is a weird kind of environment, the like of which they probably won't experience as an adult. Most workplaces don't involve customary physical violence, or even frequent overt verbal abuse. Glibly telling them that their life is horrible because they're not doing it right is a fucking awful thing to do to them.

pjc50 12y ago
You can't tell people things like that because they might ask "what are you going to do about this awful situation?" or "why do I have to go to school if it's so bad?". To which we have no answer.
- Joeboy 12y ago
  Exactly. I assume this is why people feel the need to construct narratives where it's within the bullied child's power to fix the problem.
  - aragot 12y ago
    What's wrong with the American society? You can be the country of awesomeness and freedom and entrepreneurship, and at times you also have those weird customs like bullying at school. So beware game creators: This topic will be "understood" by other European cultures but it will not match what they live at school. For example we keep watching movies like Back to the Future where Marty gets bullied, or others with baby showers and popular girls dressed in pink, but it doesn't match any experience we live here. About bullying in France: I didn't have any. No physical violence, except once on the beach, so pretty much out of school. I'm pretty sure most French people have never seen a wedgie or a swirlie. I don't even know how to translate those into French. We probably don't have a word for "bully". Ok, we do have the word "racket". But this is only about stealing. And even in this instance... we use the English word. So I'd say: Don't lose hope. Society doesn't have to be tough on children. You can change it somehow.
    - protester 12y ago
      In my opinion, this is key to all of this. I don't have those bad experiences and can't understand where all these problems come from. In my experience, from a country which is not usa, kids and teenagers are perfectly capable of making new friends constantly, sometimes they slowly stop hanging around with some of them, occasionally they get into a fight about some specific situation but they forget the day after, maybe they don't get along with somebody or whatever, some friendships last for less than a year and some last forever. But all of this without the drama and the suffering everybody is mentioning here. So I can't understand when some say "that's life", because that's not life and saying so stops everybody from looking for an alternative. When I was a kid and later a teenager everybody used to tell me "enjoy your time in school (and later in college), cause once you are out of college your happiest days are behind". That was, in essence, wrong. But it was true in many senses. And that's how it should be everywhere. We should put every effort needed to make it so.

OvidNaso 12y ago

"The nasty politics of social groups has rarely ever crept into my life sense." Except for the rest of the world that doesn't live up to your, let's be honest, pretty high, political standers required to enter your social group. "i was able to be friends with people that saw the world in interesting ways, and cared about things that made sense." If someone wants to be friends with you, knew this is what you valued, and yet didn't 'qualify'; their ability to enter your social group becomes seriously vague and very hard to navigate. "It gets better when you're able to choose your friends, your you're able to make friends on your own terms, not just pick from those around you." Ever ponder the possibility that there were, or are, some people out there that just can't figure out your social politics and are maybe confused and lonely wondering what it is about them that you don't like?

scoofy 12y ago
I really don't understand your point. I don't like everybody, and not everybody has to like me. That doesn't mean i'm out to actively ruin someone else's day. If we look at the issue rationally, it's an issue of coordination and sorting. People that have mutual kinship can improve their position with people with similar interests. If you have some sort of "objective coolness" in your theory of friendship, then you may run into issues with constantly shooting yourself in the foot by only pursuing friends that happen to in the upper tiers of your coolness bell curve, and their will always be the paradox of choice, but i'm not really sure why i'm not supposed to have preferences when it comes to the people i associate with.

Millennium 12y ago

We can indeed draw strength and well-being from a having a good cry. Sometimes you have to break down in order to come back stronger. But this comes at a price: breaking down is usually still a setback in other ways, and so its value has to be weighed against the situation. There are times when we truly cannot afford to do it. I think that this game's death-concept is actually a decent model for this. You suffer a setback, but you ultimately come back in a better state than you were in just before it happened, and although you have to face once again some of the problems you'd solved before, you've got the tools to do that. You can still only suffer so many of these before the problem starts to get much more serious, and there are times when suffering even one can be catastrophic. But if you persevere and handle your emotions with care, you can make it through.

saraid216 12y ago
Relevant to this comment: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea-julie-jc-peters/ http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a...

threatofrain 12y ago

From what I've gathered before from some reading on adolescent bullying: Bullies (not bully-victims): * A transient, difficult-to-predict population, and perhaps more elegantly thought of as a social position than an individual propensity. * Bullies generally don't stay bullies, and it's difficult to know who will become a bully. * Bullying is also an audience-related activity, and is often performed in front of others -- the "bystander" population is in on it, and may provide substantial social rewards to bullies. Even victims may admire bullies. * Bullies experience improvement in social popularity. * Bullying events tend to involve a group of bullies against singular or fewer victims. * The stereotypes that bullies are sociopaths / psychopaths, come from abusive home situations, are anxious or insecure, do not persuasively conform to observations. * Bullies experience protective effects against loneliness, social anxiety, stress, and some other things. They do better than the normal population on these aspects. Victims: * Are a stable population, and may perhaps be more elegantly thought of as an individual propensity, rather than a social position where people move in and out of. * One study estimates that the victim population constitutes about 10% of the school population. * A small handful of studies with admitted methodological difficulties finds that those who are bullied at school are also significantly more likely to be bullied on online social networks.