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.

Psychologists: “Respect” influenced by gender

By Gerald Masterson

NEW YORK- A recent study at Penn State University revealed that men and women have very different conceptions of what it means to respect a member of the opposite sex. Women see respect as a principle that governs intellectual, emotional and interpersonal relationships while men are more prone to see respect as a means to a desired end. When asked to associate “respect” for the opposite sex with other words, women commonly responded with “understanding,” “equality,” and “honesty,” whereas men most often associated respect for women with “big boobs,” “long legs,” and “willing to experiment.”

The study, performed by Dr. Steven Goldblum and his associates, was intended to see of society’s perceptions of respect and gender square with realities in the home, the workplace, and in public at large. The study shows that female attitudes about respect have evolved to mirror the neo-liberal conception of social equality. As women have moved out of the home and into the workplace, male attitudes have regressed to a level commensurate with Neanderthal understandings of gender. The mid-20th century’s focus on child rearing and maintaining the home has been replaced with bare sexuality that exhibits the same type of survival and reproduction instincts most often found in jungle creates, dogs, and 14 year olds.
Dr. Goldblum explains that phenomenon goes beyond interpersonal relationships to the irrational projections of women that individual men do not even know. “The fact that men hold good looking women in higher regard in their personal lives is a sensible concept: we have been conditioned as human animals to be attracted to certain markers of fertility and general reproductive ability- such as a curvaceous body and good skin. Therefore, men attempt to curry good favor with this type of woman because they intuitively understand that it is a method of perpetuating their blood line,” Dr. Goldblum explained. “But men also project this attitude onto women who they no chance of ever meeting, let alone having sex with. Why would it matter if a TV news anchor was good looking? Men have collectively developed a bizarre delusion that they have to respect attractive women more than ugly ones.”

Goldblum went on to further explain the phenomenon by using a sports metaphor. He explained cited the baseball rule that a tie goes to a runner on plays at a base that are too close to call for the umpire. He said that men apply a similar idea in their analysis of women. If a woman is debatably intelligent, funny, or otherwise good at her job, they will default to a positive evaluation if and only if she is attractive. Goldblum points out that this logical fallacy breaks down in two places: first, that men make these calculations for women who they have no chance of ever meeting, so the positive opinion is pointless. Second, he points out that even if the man ever did encounter the woman, the fact that he had a positive opinion of her before they ever met would have no bearing on whether she would want to have sex with him, so the tiebreaker as about as effective as a bicycle for a fish.

[LEFT- Fans agree that Leggero's funniest performance is the one where she wore that really low cut shirt.]

Males’ fallacious evaluation of female value is apparent through several examples of popular celebrities. For instance, popular ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews enjoys wild popularity in her profession and as a sex symbol, even appearing on the show Dancing With the Stars. A survey of 100 male Erin Andrews fans showed that every fan said that Andrews rates as either “Above Average” or “Excellent” in her job performance, regardless of her performance. Nonetheless, not a single respondent could cite one piece of useful information she has ever expressed in one of her reports or sideline interviews, but several pointed out that they hate how Rick Sutcliffe always hits on her during her reports- you know, because if he’s going to have sex with her, then their chances of getting with her diminish from 0.00000000001% to some number slightly smaller than that.
Comedienne Natasha Leggero, a judge on the show Last Comic Standing, is another germane example. A recent market analysis indicated that Leggero had more male fans than there are males who have ever seen her perform live, watched her on television, or heard her tell jokes in some other medium. Furthermore, none of her self-identified fans could recall any of her jokes, or even what her general style of comedy is.

Dr. Goldblum also points out that the most dangerous application of this principle is in politics. He notes that Republicans have recently come to understand that they can win seats by nominating attractive women to run for office, with the most notable example being Sarah Palin. "Most people don't care about politicians' beliefs anyway, so when there is a nice smile or cleavage staring back at them from the ballot, men are exceptionally prone to saying 'good enough' to a candidate who is anything but," Goldblum said.

[RIGHT- WWE Diva Maryse doesn't artificially benefit in her profession becaues of her appearance because her appearance is the only item in the job description.]

One instance in which the “tie goes to the hot chick” rule falls through is in sports, where there is an objective method of performance evaluation. Whereas fans can appreciate Andrews and Legerro without having to demonstrate that their performance is in any way useful or positive, fans of attractive female athletes have to cope with the reality that their heroines are wildly unsuccessful. Danica Patrick’s protestations to her dedication and competitive spirit in her commercials, there is a record book that shows that she has never finished above 30th out of 43 cars in her career as a minor league NASCAR driver. Before Patrick, Anna Kournikova experienced a similar downfall. Despite a string of years as the most popular player in women’s tennis, she never won a singles tournament, and her success seemed to wane has her popularity waxed. Eventually, she was out of the sport entirely, leaving fans to realize that when she wasn’t a hot tennis player, she was just a somewhat hot normal woman.

The one profession that has successfully negotiated the relationship between sexuality and success is professional wrestling. Since the WWE scripts its results, fans can cheer for the hottest looking female wrestler, and the writers can script her to win every match. Therefore, there is no disconnect between attractiveness and performance. In fact, there is a record of objective results that seem to demonstrate that the better looking woman is actually more successful. Dr. Goldblum cites wrestling as the most efficient expression of male respect for women, as the schism between the woman being good at something and the opinion of wanting to have sex with her does not exist. Nonetheless, Goldblum points out that wrestling fans are even less likely than the population at large of ever meeting or having sex with the women they idolize, so the enterprise remains mental (and literal) masturbation.