Web 'terrorists' killed Emo boy, says vicar

myi4u, good stuff

Cyber-bullying: it's well-known and pernicious on the internet.

As The Lazy Geisha says: "“The objectives of bullies are Power, Control, Domination, Subjugation. They get a kick out of seeing you react. It doesn’t matter how you react, the fact they’ve successfully provoked a reaction is, to the bully, a sign that their attempt at control have been successful. After that, it’s a question of wearing you down. The more your try to explain, negotiate, conciliate, etc the more gratification they obtain from your increasingly desperate attempts to communicate with them. Understand that it is not possible to communicate in a mature adult manner with a disordered individual who’s emotionally retarded.”

 As the Geisha points out: "....the only way this will ever stop happening to any of us is when we no longer enable them to scare us into silence. "

Just as it happens on the playground, a bully often attracts a group of followers and enablers.Sometimes cyber-bullying is backed by some websites. In the long run, these types are powerless in the deepest sense of the world.

But a child doesn't know that. A child hasn't had the experience to learn that these types never succeed long-term, nor does a child have the wisdom and maturity to filter it, and say, in essence: "Who cares what a pack of bullying losers thinks"?

And, our society today is one that increasingly encourages people to rely on "the mob," strangers, anyone, to create a self-image. That's one reason why I think Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance" should be required reading at the start of junior high school and then again in high school, by junior or senior year. It's not "just" literature (as though there could be a "just" literature).

I've managed several successful listservs and some websites with community input. Overall, I've found that these types are almost buffoons in the way they fit a stereotype, and they always sound the same.  But it takes experience and astute leadership to recognize early on, and then it takes courage to not side with the bullies.

The Lazy Geisha defines internet bullying and mobbing:

"

Adapted from Ten Key Factors of the Mobbing Syndrome (from Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace)

• Assaults on the dignity, integrity, credibility, and professional competence of a fellow blogger.
• Negative, humiliating, intimidating, abusive, malevolent, and controlling communication.
• Committed directly, or indirectly, in subtle or obvious ways.
• Perpetuated by one or more group members — “vulturing.”
• Occurring in a continual, multiple, and systematic fashion, over some time.
• Portraying the victimized person as being at fault.
• Engineered to discredit, confuse, intimidate, isolate, and force the person into submission.
• Committed with the intent to force the person out.
• Representing the removal from the blogosphere as the victim’s choice.
• Not recognized, misinterpreted, ignored, tolerated, encouraged or even instigated by the larger blogging community

She also notes that bullies can be recognized because : "they require, if not outright demand, validation and attention." Note a central theme she identifies: " Committed with the intent to force the person out.

But kids don't know this stuff. So it takes parents, keeping a close eye on internet stuff, to protect kids.

Because overall, the internet can be a place that seems "real" and that offers bullies who wouldn't dare be a bully in real life a chance to get their turn at kicking someone else on the playground--and kids don't know that their "power" is actually so very very small. And long-term, the bully and those who succor, enable, and follow him are all only revealing an inner sense of lack, inferiority, and a fear that drives them to bullying.

Bullying is really about envy and fear. There's something about the target that the bully and crowd envies, and rather than doing what mature people do and admire and connect with, they try to drive the target out. They have to, because they're so afraid of "losing," or being "shown up," and in the end, they're afraid of what they deep down think is their own inadequacy.

A child, though, who's the target, doesn't know these things. And doesn't know how to just turn that channel to "off."

As the Megan Meier case, this one, and others show: we need to educate about bullies. We need to teach kids about internal values and strength. The Scarlet Letter comes to mind: instead of an "A" for adultery, the bully, although he doesn't realize it, literally stamps an "F" for fear and failure on his own forehead.

Remember Winston Churchill--sacked, out of office--but never bullied, and never totally down and out. He became England's finest champion--and that of the free world as well. We need to get kids to study him, and read his writings, too.