Bullying – Survival Of The Fittest?

I have recently been following the case of Phoebe Prince, a 15 year-old Irish immigrant who hanged herself following months of bullying, both online and within school.

Is it just me, or are these types of stories becoming more and more common?

In a way, the internet is both a blessing and curse in these cases. The internet provides bullies with an easy, albeit decreasingly private, outlet to bully with. I am young, only twenty, and I even I remember back in the day when you could go home, and at least there be free from ridicule or cruelty, but now, because of the internet, bullies can follow a person home.

However, the internet, although an easy outlet, is also a huge glass house. In the days before cyber bullying accusations often boiled down to a ‘her words against mine’ sort of problem, whereas now, bullies are stupid enough to post their words on open open, public websites, such as Facebook or Twitter, and consequently, the bullies are easier to identify, and easier to catch.

But does it matter how easy they are to catch when victims like Prince are still hanging themselves? Granted, the teens who tortured her are now being prosecuted, and no doubt some sort of justice will be granted to her family, but the fact remains that a young girl is dead.

How do we allow our children and teens to get to this point? More importantly, is the weeding out of the weak that we see all too often in schools actually the result of society’s influence, or is it a natural human instinct? Sadly, I find myself becoming more and more affiliated with the latter opinion.

I myself was bullied all throughout school, although less so in the later years of my high school experience, and I have oftentimes asked myself the question that every victim of bullying will at some point voice: why me? What did I do to attract the attention of certain individuals? My family likes to tell me now that my eagerness to please made me a good target, but seeing as my bullying started from a very young age (I remember incidents as happening to me as young as five) couldn’t my eagerness to please have grown out of the bullying itself, as a way to appease and befriend my tormentors? Some of my friends like to site my bookishness as a cause, claiming that other students may have found my good grades intimidating, but again I have to disagree. Perhaps it is true that a lot of bullying victims tend to be good students, but I remember a lot of the people bullying me being so as well. In fact, some of the people I remember from my later years in school are now in excellent colleges, and excelled in the same classes as I did.

So what causes bullying? One thing I can say is that if you have been bullied before, you are more likely to be bullied again, almost as if the very first person to attack you lifted leg and left a further marker for any future bullies. I have been to four different schools in my life, was bullied in each one of them, and I even felt victimized by a former colleague of mine at work.

Part of me has to wonder if these people really know or anticipate what they are doing. I mean, how many of us has said something they regret? I know I have. Sometimes I wonder if I made any of the people I went to school with feel as bad as I felt. I’m sure some of the people I’ve encountered would be shocked if they knew the extent of the psychological trauma I experienced as a result of their actions. The woman I worked with, would she be mortified to know that I used to cry in my car on the way to work? I think so.

Am I simply a victim of my own weakness? Was Phoebe Prince? If we were stronger people would we have been the fittest? If she were fitter would she have survived?

I think her case really stayed with me because I saw myself in so much of it. I myself started my freshman year of high school after emigrating from another country (England), and I was only fourteen. When I look back on it I definitely drew attention to myself: I was loud, I was nervous, I was desperate to make friends, and I was a tease. Yes, a bloody tease. I thought it would make people like me (little lesson to any high school students who may be reading this for tips – no one likes a tease), but all I succeeded in doing was isolating myself, and giving myself a bad reputation. No wonder I was preyed upon.

Still, I can’t help but point out that I knew plenty of people more awkward than I was, plenty of people more bizarre, and plenty of people that really bloody annoyed me. You know what I did? I fucking ignored them. Perhaps not the kindest thing to do, but better than jabbing mercilessly at someone for sport. I’m a bitch, but I’m not a cruel bitch, I’m just…frank. I’m not saying I’ve never said something unkind, or lost my temper, or snapped at someone, but I’ve been trying really hard to recall my high school memories (was it really only two years ago?) and I can honestly say that I never singled any one out for torture. What compels people to do that?

The fact is, the human race is a cruel one. We come from a long line of bitches. I used to be an optimist, but now pessimism is creeping into my brain and making itself at home. I’m starting to really believe that in their natural state human beings are truly evil.

I want to be proven wrong. I want it so badly, but I see more darkness in this world than anything else.

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