Via a post by Mark Esposito, one of the weekend guest-bloggers at Jonathan Turley’s place, comes another teenage bullying story :
Whitney Kropp, a self-described outcast with just a handful of close friends at Ogemaw Heights High School, was picked to be the female representative of the sophomore class royalty. It certainly came as a shock.
But hours later, the 16-year-old learned classmates voted for her as a joke. She spent the night in tears.
I’m like, ‘Wow, I feel like trash,'” Kropp said. “I feel like I’m a little thing that no one really cares about.”
That night, she said, she contemplated ending her life “right here, right now.”
Hysterical, right? Let’s vote for the unpopular girl so we can have a great laugh at her expense. While my position has long been clear that this shouldn’t give rise to a new law creating a crime of behaving like a total jerk, mean, selfish and thoughtless, the flip-side is that there is nothing about being mean to others that makes you anything other than an absolute idiot. It’s not funny. It’s cruel. Your father ought to take you the woodshed, each and every one of you, for this behavior so you learn that it’s not acceptable to go through life acting like such a douche.
But this time, things turned around on the little snot-nosed jerks who thought they could grad a cheap laugh at Whitney Kropp’s expense.
But thanks to a push from her family and friends, she decided to embrace what happened and turn the tables.
“I can just prove all these kids wrong … I’m not the joke everyone thinks I am.”
When word of the prank spread, local businesses stepped up to the plate.
Opting to stay on the homecoming court was a tough decision, Kropp said. That bold move prompted local businesses to donate her homecoming gown and shoes, while a salon gave her hair a new ‘do.’ A Facebook support page created for her has more than 96,000 “likes.”Just as the answer to hate speech is more speech, the answer to non-violent bullying is strength by not letting the jerks own you. As the video shows, Whitney Kropp seems like a lovely young lady. Why others in school pick one person or another to be their goat, the school outcast, rather than a popular kid is never quite clear, but I bet that in a few years, all the boys who treated her poorly will wish they could get a date with her. Only then, when she blows them off, will they possibly have a clue how badly they screwed up.
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It’s not nearly as melodramatic as handwringing or crying over another teen tragedy, but this story demonstrates a few critical points that need airing. Kids can be jerks, cruel and uncaring about others just as they try to hide their own feelings of inadequacy behind bravado at the expense of others. It’s hardly their finest quality, but it has always been the case and the psyche of teenagers isn’t changing any time soon.
Rather than promote and elevate the victimhood of the butt of stupid and hurtful pranks, kids need to toughen up and fight back. Most children end up being the victim of “bullying,” if its defined as conduct which hurts the feelings of another, and unless we plan to put every teenager in jail until they grow out of their insecurities and into some sort of a more empathetic state, there will be no legal solution to this. Get over it.
As Whitney Kropp, as well as her many supporters, shows, a far more effective solution is to beat them at their own game. They pranked you? You beat them. Self-esteem is a fragile thing, but self-respect can’t be taken away by anyone.
Most importantly, just because it may not be a crime to pull a prank at someone else’s expense doesn’t mean it’s okay to do so. You’re a jerk. Only an insecure little shit goes out of his way to hurt another person’s feelings to assuage his own feelings of inadequacy. Your prank doesn’t impugn the victim, but you, and your own sense of worthlessness.
No one makes you behave like a bully. Don’t do it. And if you do, I hope somebody like Whitney Kropp gives you a good spanking to let you know who got beat. Guess what? The reason you have all those secret feelings of inadequacy is that you are. Who’s laughing now?
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That, is a truly great story. And your comments are, as well.
Those who lifted this girl up, and allowed her the sweetest revenge on those who would beat her down, deserve some very high praise. Bravo
What a wonderful way to defeat this terrible (yet inevitable, as you mention) characteristic of childhood.
Just think of how this could play out if all those victims of bullying, of all types, were lifted up by their family/community; instead of being ignored, as is the usual. So much better than the “outlaw bullying” approach that is fraught with peril, and woefully ineffective.
“…there is nothing about being mean to others that makes you anything other than an absolute idiot.”
How very true. And how very rich coming from you, Greenfield, one who regularly stabs his readers with gratuitous insults. Your sanctimony here is really amazing. Are you really unaware that you yourself are one of the rankest assholes on the internet?
Rankest? I don’t know what that means, but it’s probably pretty bad.
I could respond by pointing out the difference between someone who comes here, make the affirmative decision to leave a comment and expects to be have his tummy rubbed no matter how idiotic, erroneous or irrelevant his comment may be, as opposed to someone affirmatively going out of their way to find another person, who is minding their own business, living their own life without inserting themselves into yours, doing absolutely nothing to insert themselves into the other person’s world, and coming up with a way to deliberately harm them, but I don’t think it would help you to comprehend the distinction. Oh well.
So what’s your point?
See definitions 3, 4, and 5 here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rankest
Especially 5.
I’ll trust that your readers are bright enough to see through the desperate sophistry in the rest of your post.
Notwithstanding my rule against links in comments, I’ll let yours slide. I trust my readers (present company excepted) are smart enough to see a butthurt puppy. Here’s the problem: if someone agrees with you, they don’t need you to tell them. If not, they laugh at your inability to comprehend the distinctions. And no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to change either one, making your comments nothing more than some odd vindication of your personal indignity and an exercise in vanity.
You can think ill of me. It’s okay.
By the way, notice that I posted your comments (and even left your link in)? That’s because I don’t mind your calling me names. Notice that you don’t use your name when you try to attack me? There’s a reason for that, too. You need to do a bit of soul searching, kid.
Scott certainly isn’t easy on people who write things that make people stupider, but then, he’s made his position abundantly clear. Yet people feel compelled to write stupid things, and he responds as expected.
He’s no bully. He’s never been gratuitously mean. He is not, on the other hand, unduly kind to idiots. This reader appreciates it, as, I suspect, do most of his readers.
Scott says what most of us think and wish we had the balls to say. Being honest and accurate isn’t the same as being a bully. And he always does so under his own name rather than from behind a rock, like you.
Greenfield, in spite of all your smokescreens here, I know, you know, and your readers know – at least those who refuse to lick your ass – that what I’ve said is true. You regularly and gratuitously bully commenters here.
Physician, heal thy self.
Still not man enough to come out? Your language, by the way, is pretty disgusting. I realize you’re angry and hurt, but there is no need for language like that. I’m sure you can express yourself in less vulgar ways.
Aside from that, yes, anyone who cares will have whatever opinion of me they have. I doubt anyone’s opinion was changed by you. Now that you’ve played out all the curses you know and vented your spleen, I trust you’re done here.
Yes, I’m done. Thanks for letting me weigh in. You didn’t have to do that.
You’re welcome.