fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5092 ]

[ SECRET POST #5092 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5092 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 19 secrets from Secret Submission Post #729.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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06. https://i.imgur.com/AjTk1SY.jpg

I have a question that's been niggling at me recently... just how many posters here are former victims of school bullies? Because given many of the secrets I've (two on this post!) and especially the comments on them, well, it would explain a lot.

Bullying is a widespread problem. And the US handles it really badly. I think it's been only in the last decade, decade and a half American schools even wanted to admit there is a problem. And unlike France, we don't have a nationwide anti-bullying measure in schools. (They instituted theirs in the early to late 2000s, I think.)

We need Mr. Rogers even more than ever. RIP Mr. Rogers.

I think it's because of how we portray bullies. Bullies are always OTHER people. And you, person reading this billboard or watching this movie or whatever, are meant to empathize with the victim. You're the victim.

Which means no one ever, and I mean EVER thinks they're the bully! In my experience, most kids are both bully AND bullied depending on the different social circles they're in or the situation. Most kids have shitty moments. It's normal. Kids are inherently selfish, and they're learn how to interact with others by watching. Which means a lot of times they're not working with full context and their empathy machine isn't fully turned on quite yet.

So we need to reframe the conversation around behaviors and how to do better. Not "LOOK AT TIMMY, ISN'T HE A LITTLE ASSHOLE?!"

Weirdly we have the same issue with how we portray racism. Literally no one ever thinks they could be the bad guy because of how the conversation is framed. It's some horseshit.

I'm more interested to see how many posters were bullies themselves. Everyone I know was bullied at least once in high school, if not all throughout; teenagers can be really horrible but admittedly adults can be too so it's more of a 'human' thing than anything to do with age.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-15 06:45 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-15 11:31 (UTC) - Expand

I mean, a girl bullied me once in sixth grade and then I punched her and she stopped so...

I don't think I ever got bullied in HS? I feel like I'd remember.

In second grade, I left school and went straight into therapy because of bullying. If a door opened and I wasn’t expecting it, I would run out of the room in fear.

Some girls bullied me in middle school during lunch and PE. They mostly just said bitchy things about me and made moo-ing noises behind my back, but then one of them tried to steal the necklace that my mom had given me for my birthday, so I slapped her and we got in a fight. We both got suspended, but they never bothered me again.

I was bullied a lot in school but I'm still not sensitive to it at a thematic element.

my school experience was very close to Carrie and Welcome to the Dollhouse except my mother's not crazy and abusive, my sister didn't get kidnapped and obviously I can't blow shit up with my mind.

I was bullied all the way up through high school, but I don't have revenge fantasies about, or resent being unable to get revenge on, my bullies. For one thing, I had so many I doubt I could pick them out of a lineup.

It definitely fucked me up, but I think the culture surrounding bullying was more to blame than any specific kid. The sexually harassing/assaulting stuff on the other hand, I will probably never be over, and I wish people didn't conflate bullying and sexual harassment/assault so often.

I ended up bullying another woman at my workplace as an adult and still feel shitty about it, especially as I was going along with it because I was just glad not to be the victim (and fairly sure no one else, even the victim, realized a bunch of adults were bullying another one like school kids.) Our target was old enough to be my mother so it took my autistic ass awhile to realize why our (including our boss!) behavior was making me uneasy.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-15 06:17 (UTC) - Expand

At least two kids bullied me in middle school, but I was kind of an oblivious child (we were learning about sexual harassment at the same time that one bully was basically using it as a manual of what to do to me and I still didn't recognize what was going on until a year later). They soon gave up and I don't have any residual trauma from it.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-15 00:53 (UTC) - Expand

I assume everyone in fandom was bullied at least a little.

I was bullied significantly at home and in my school life and it's significantly affected me to the point where I am in my 30s and I still suffer from PTSD and crippling depression.

I was, by both peers and teachers, to the point that I have PTSD from it as well as depression and anxiety disorders that I'm still dealing with years later.

I mean, nerds getting bullied by jocks and popular kids is the classic representation of school bullying. I would presume everyone here is at least part nerd, despite fandom being less hardcore nerdy than it used to be. I was rarely bullied at school because a) I was pretty oblivious to other people and b) my school had a super effective anti-bullying program for my first four years of high school, and in the last two years (when we had a new principal who didn't believe bullying was a problem so got rid of the program) people were less dickish.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-15 10:58 (UTC) - Expand

I was never popular, but there was mainly only one year (seventh grade) where I was bullied enough to really call it bullying, as opposed to chalking it up to "kids are often mean to each other." From first till ninth grade I maybe had a bit more negative interaction with my peers than was standard (like it was quite clear to me I wasn't very popular and I wasn't considered pretty), but only seventh grade was particularly bad.

It doesn't bother me now, though. I'm more bothered by the ways I was occasionally mean to other kids without realizing I was being mean.

I was bullied with a side plate of sexual harrasement throughout middle school and it didn't stop til I was changed of schools. Ended up with low grades, low self esteem, PTSD and a short fuse when it comes to bullies.

I did go to therapy because my parents got worried about me not talking about it but there is just so much they can do when it comes to stuff like this.

The sad thing about bullying is the fact that your bullies will forget about you, but you will always remember them for all the wrong reasons.

Edited 2020-12-16 00:20 (UTC)

Honestly, the older I get, the more I like the movie (just the first one, the second one bored me) and the less I like the books. I have fond memories of the series, but I reread all the books last year and had definitely grown out of them. Plus, I didn’t like how Mia’s mom ended up marrying her dad anyway in the last(?) book and it was super weird that she suddenly had a half-sister that nobody had been aware of before.

I know the part where Lana gets cone’d was super unrealistic, but I still liked that Mia got away with it.

Did Mia's mom break up with the algebra teacher? I only read the first four PD books.

Spoilers

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-15 00:50 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Spoilers

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-15 01:58 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Spoilers

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-15 02:24 (UTC) - Expand

i don't know if this is on the same level, but i told a kid who was harassing me on the bus on a field trip to shut the fuck up at a volume where i'm sure one of the teachers heard me and never got in trouble for it.

also, after that, that kid never bothered me again. if only i'd known to do that sooner.

I never read the books, so I don't have this feeling about the movie. But I totally understand having this reaction as I have this reaction about other things. Particularly the Wizard of Oz where the movie changes so much, and particularly the making it all a dream basically ruins it for me, and yet the movie has completely replaced the book in the public conscious.

My favorite part of the books is how annoyed Mia gets about the films. That's the one thing that stands about both to me now.

Ah, that’s my favorite bit of the books too! Especially when she talks about how they made her grandmother too nice, but the guy they got to play Michael was hot.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-15 15:25 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, I don’t hate the movie, and I never loved the book--yet I still feel like the book is better. Or like…I think the book does a much, much better job of being for young teen girls, and giving them stuff they can actually relate to, while also giving them all those wish fulfillment elements.

The movie has the wish fulfillment, but it loses most of the relatability factor. It gives you the Hollywood Movie Written By Adults version of being an unpopular teenager, where everything is just big, glossy stereotypes, and “we know she’s supposed to be plain because her hair is frizzy--there, now she’s pretty, yay.”

Also, I will forever be grateful to the book(s) for making Mia flat-chested and self-conscious about it. As someone who was completely flat until I was fourteen, and grew tits at a glacial pace for like five years after that, it was extremely validating to have a protagonist who was described as being flat-chested, and still implied to be pretty. By the time I was fifteen or sixteen it wasn’t such a big deal to me anymore, but when I read the first book at twelve, I was actively getting teased at school for being “flat as a board” and looking “like a little kid,” so it was really comforting that Mia was described as being flat.

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