Sumaiya Sadmin

Dr. K.M. Smith

Eng 101
March 22, 2019
Bullying: A closer look

Bullying, in America, is a social problem that has slowly evolved through the age of the internet

and one that truly has no end in sight. Any person can be a victim of bullying, whether they are a

student at an elementary school or in an office setting amongst co-workers. Bullying is usually

meant when someone is made to feel weak by another person through teasing, physical abuse, or

even psychological torture. There are many facts associated with bullying. In addition, many

studies have been conducted as well to find the root cause and to see whether a solution exists to

bullying. In order to do so, researchers first had to find out how many possible ways can a person

be bullied. As stated in an article found on medicine.net, there are five types of bullying. The

first type of bullying is physical bullying.

Physical bullying is when a person is the victim of abuse that may include slapping, punching,

kicking, smacking, hitting, spitting. 1 In this form of bullying, we can use an example of a student

in a school who is constantly bullied by another student. To feel superior, the bully may steal

from his victim, he or she may hit the victim repeatedly, may want to embarrass them in front of

their peers, and even spit on them as a means of public humiliation. While it is expected of

teachers and educational administrators to enforce anti-bully rules, usually it is neglected upon

and bullying tends to continue for the victim.

1Bullyingstatistics.org “Physical Bully” http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/physical-bullying.html Bullying

Statistics
The second form of bullying is verbal bullying. Verbal bullying is usually defined as when

constant name calling, unnecessary criticism, directing sexually explicit comments toward a

victim, or even teasing. When a co-worker constantly uses hurtful words to describe their

victim’s weakness, the bully is both teasing and passing judgement through criticism. As a

victim, it would make sense to file a complaint with a company’s human resource department,

in order for the bully to be reprimanded, however the victim may worry about retaliation.

Relational bullying is the third form of bullying. This form of bullying, by general definition,

takes place amongst common peers or a group of friends. While often, relational bullying

amongst friends may be perceived to be “innocent teasing” or “ribbing on each other”, it is a

manipulative technique to control the victim by the bully. While many studies have shown that

bullying can take place among any group of people, relational bullying tends to effect females

more than males. This is not to discount the male sex as saying that they cannot be subject to

relational bullying. An example of relational bullying is when the bully teases the victim in a

manner that seems innocent, simply by saying, “Someone forgot to wear deodorant today, just

kidding” or “If I needed your advice, we’d all ask for it, but we didn’t”. Relational bullying, as

stated above, is not just limited to any specific group or sex. As there are usually other peers

within the group, by not taking a stand against the bully to defend the victim, eventually even

they are complacent in the actions of bully as well.

The fourth form of bullying is reactive bullying. An interesting method of bullying nonetheless, a

bully may once have been a victim themselves, and now choose to be the aggressor. Yes, it is

very much possible for this scenario to happen and many at times it does. The list of examples

are even often endless. To name just two examples, a person who was once obese chooses to

tease people who are obese. Another scenario is when a student who used to be picked upon by a

bully in school, has now grown up and chooses to be a bully to their child. In justifying both
these situations, the now athletic individual will use an excuse of “motivational speaking” while

the former bullied student will say that they want their children to never be bullied and there for

bullying them from a young age would help them become better human beings.

The final form of bullying is described by medicine.net as when a bully will cause damage to

property or even theft, to make the victim feel assaulted. Not all of us have great neighbors.

Maybe someone decided to have a get together or party at their house, have they ever wondered

what would happen if their neighbor decided to play the role of a bully and throw garbage all

over their door or yard? Or what if a student who is in the locker room changing from their gym

attire to their normal outerwear only to find that their locker had been opened and everything has

been stolen?

The question we begin to ask is how has bullying evolved? Well the term of bullying itself has

evolved as we have seen above. In the age of the internet, cyberbullying as become a new form

of bullying. Whether it is social media, a Facebook post, a Twitter tweet, or an Instagram post, a

quick search of the internet and we will come across millions, if not billions of posts by

cyberbullies. As a victim, common sense would tell us that it is the internet and the world wide

web should not be censored. As a human being, we have emotions and it is very much possible

for a cyberbully to belittle us and our confidence. When mentioned earlier, cyberbullying truly

has no end in sight, unless we begin to use censorship on the internet, at which point a person

living in the United States of America will have their Constitutional right of Free Speech being

threatened.

According to a fact-finding website in regard to bullying, there are close to 3.2 million cases of

students being bullied each year. The repercussions of bullying are often endless, and it has

consequences that are often irreversible. An example of what happens when bullying can go
wrong is the Columbine High School Shooting Massacre of 1999. While a clear motive was

never discovered for the incident by the perpetrators, researchers had discovered bullying played

a role. The sad truth of Columbine is discussed in a New Yorker article by Maria Konnikova,

titled “How the Internet Has Changed Bullying”. In the article, Ms. Konnikova speaks of a

researcher named Susan Swearer and the research that followed. In the research she found that

bullying has two different demographics, the urban vs. rural bullying scenarios. In an urban

environment, if a person is bullied in school, it is easy to change schools and in doing so, the

victim is escaping their bully and given a chance to start afresh. The reason for this is because, as

urban communities tend to be much more densely populated, one school cannot offer their

services to the whole community. Within one zip code may exist 2-3 schools. At the same time,

in a rural setting, it is hard to change schools, especially when the next school maybe many miles

away, making it hard for the victim to escape their bully.

Every problem in life tends to have some form of solution. Psychologists have often described

bullies as those who themselves are suffering from anxiety and even do not have proper social

conditionings. A bully just could not survive without a victim. To bullies, the usual victim is

those who lack a sense of confidence or a sense of command. We could go as far as saying, the

bully is an alpha while the victim is the beta. In an age of technology, bullying has evolved from

the traditional five types to cyberbullying. As we have access to smartphones and social media

applications, one can put a post of them smiling and be subjected to scrutiny, verbal insults,

photoshopped bullying, using their post amongst friends for teasing manipulatively, or even a

former victim themselves could make fun of them. When we see someone being bullied, taking a

stand and coming to the aide of the less fortunate is a form of a solution. If a victim feels they are

the being bullied, then they have one of the best options. They can choose to be the aggressor

and fight back equally or they can choose to be a pacifist and ignore it. Personally, it is my best
opinion that to be a pacifist has been a solution to many violent bullies within history. Martin

Luther King Jr was a big believer in non-violence when he used Mahatma Gandhi as an example

during the Civil Rights Movement. If a person does not report they have been a victim of

bullying, they are letting a person get away with them. Another solution for a victim is to try to

befriend the bully. As noted above, most bullies are often times themselves a victim of sorts;

maybe all the bully ever needed was just a friend. There will always be good and there will

always be evil. It has been like this since the beginning of time and likely continue till the end,

but as human beings, we have to choose which side we want to take, the good or the bad.

Bullying anyone for any reason is never a way to go with, because to make a mockery of the

weak only shows the insecurities that lie within the faint at heart.

In conclusion, to bully someone and to make a victim feel less of a human is never a

means to live by. Bullying itself has many classifications, especially as we evolve as a society.

Even though, studies have shown that young men tend to be the victims of bullying in school, the

victim range can vary far and wide. Almost anyone, can be a victim; from a young boy or girl in

elementary school to someone in an office environment. Even in politics, victims are never safe

from being bullied by someone. Reporting a bully is often the best first step in trying to stop

someone from being bullied. When confronted by a bully, it is in the best interest of a victim to

not resort to violence against his or her bully as that would prove to be counter-intuitive. The

emotional impact of being bullied is quite hard hitting for anyone at any age. It does get better

with time and finding the right solution helps for the right circumstance.