STFU Hippie, Vol. 2: Anti-Bullying Campaigns

In the era of Bieber Fever and the tween controlled media, every major national organization has somehow simultaneously decided that our nation’s greatest civil rights cause is bullying. Organizations ranging from the American Bar Association to the WWE Universe have set up their own anti-bullying campaigns with the goal of, well, stopping bullying, I suppose. Every time I hear about an anti-bullying campaign, I ponder two very practical questions that I have not been able to answer: first, what exactly are these campaigns trying to eliminate? Second, is the stuff they oppose really a net-loss for society, or are adults so conflict averse that they would rather spend billions of dollars on these campaigns than tell kids that big chunks of life suck and they are going to have to deal with it? Wow, that was a run-on question. I’m proud that I remembered to put a question-mark at the end.

To answer my first question, I decided to consult the experts. I figured that StopBullying.gov would lay out what behavior they wanted to stop. When I click on “What is Bullying?” they tell me that “Bullying can happen anywhere: face-to-face, by text messages or on the web. It is not limited by age, gender, or education level. It is not a phase and it is not a joke. Bullying can cause lasting harm.” Hmm, that doesn’t answer my question. Those are places that bullying can happen and some characteristics that are not part of bullying. I’ll try clicking through to see if they’re a little more specific… “Bullying is a widespread and serious problem that can happen anywhere. It is not a phase children have to go through, it is not "just messing around", and it is not something to grow out of.” Once again, not particularly helpful, though I’ll be sure to remember not to grow out of it.

[RIGHT: Don't worry, little girl, it builds character.]

A-Ha! Dow the page, they tell me that bullying includes name-calling, spreading rumors, leaving people out, and various types of physical force. Wait a minute, that’s not a national epidemic, that’s any 10-minute segment of Fox News. Seriously, short of physical assault- which is illegal on its own- all of these things happen to everyone. All of the time. If you cannot deal with someone teasing you or spreading rumors that involve you, then you are woefully ill-equipped to deal with the stresses of everyday life and failure in general. If you are intrinsically unable to brush off insults, then you have deeper psychological self-esteem issues than David Schwimmer is going to solve in a 15-second “The More You Know” PSA.

I have a sneaking suspicion that everyone behind the anti-bullying campaigns knows that the people who are deeply affected by teasing or name-calling need much more help than they can give, so why waste all of that money on what amounts to a band-aide on a gaping chest wound? I think part of the explanation is that it’s such an amorphous PR campaign that it could never piss anyone off. So many people are constantly looking for a cause or something to be irate about that you can only really oppose something that can’t be pinned down. “Bullying” sounds like a real thing, but saying “hey, don’t bully anyone” is about as heroic as saying that you don’t like things that are evil. Instead, most bullying is a rite of passage that teaches you to laugh at yourself. Somebody steals your lunch money, gives you a wedgie, or calls you a pussy, and you feel embarrassed at first, but learn that life goes on.

Plus, think of all of the great achievements that are inspired by people trying to prove their bullies wrong. Martin Luther was bullied by the Catholic Church so he invented a little thing called Protestantism. Everyone made fun of Columbus for saying that the Earth was round. Imagine if he hadn’t been inspired by those bullies- we’d all be stuck in Europe watching soccer. Probably the best example of a great achievement inspired by bullying is when Daniel Larusso won the All-Valley Karate Tournament as retribution against the bullies from the Cobra Kai. Every hero needs a great foil to reach his fullest potential: Ali needed Frazier, Superman needed General Zod, and Larusso needed Zabka.

What’s getting lost in all of this is the real victims in all of the anti-bullying nonsense: the bullies. Imagine how badly the bullies’ feelings must be hurt by all of those anti-bullying bullies hurting the bullies’ feelings for hurting people’s feelings. Before you know it, we’re going to have to have an anti-anti-bullying campaign bully campaign, then another campaign about that campaign, and on to infinity like those Russian nesting dolls. Before this situation gets out of hand, I think we need to nip the anti-bullying campaigns in the bud and tell those hippies to shut the fuck up.