Thoughts on bullying & how to stop it?

[Dom]

Bullying is an unfortunate, common occurrence that may leave long scars for the victims. Despite the efforts to battle this problem with various anti-bullying campaigns, it's still happening, more than ever. And it happens on Steam as well; all you have to do is to look at the forums and you'll find these kind of comments and posts. It's heartbreaking sometimes.

I sincerely believe most people are good people. Therefore, I created this thread...

What do you think would be an effective way to battle bullying on Steam and outside Steam? On Steam, should there be some community efforts? Should Valve do something specific that could be suggested?

And outside Steam, what kind of campaigns should we do and what would be the most effective way to raise awareness for this issue?

Feel free to share your experiences and if you have bullied or been the victim of bullying. I ask everyone to be respectful in this thread, it's a serious matter.

[TwisterCat]

Postat inițial de TRASH:

Postat inițial de TwisterCat:

And I think that's another extract to take away from this discussion as well, if people have never experienced malice, they're completely underequipped for any form of social contact

Malice is the opposite of social contact. It is anti-social behaviour.

I think it's as I've stated, there's always going to be competitive reasons for malice. Be it in a sports match, you say something to throw an opponent off, same with video games, in any form of competition really, it's there to be found, and usually the people using tactics like that are successful.

It's not like it's particularly hard to find the people vulnerable to that psychology either, especially IRL, having spent a very large percent of my life playing sports. I think that's why most people new to competitive sports fail and eventually quit playing, because it takes the right mentality to survive mentally without being completely broken down by either your teammates or opponents. It's not antisocial by definition, nobody dislikes or doesn't want to be around me for it, context is important

[Angel]

Online, I would have just ignore and block to move on. I never had that issue though or didn't care enough to let it bother me. Offline, to be frank, I just pushed back the bully and even though I don't advise violence, I would happily advise self defence. Otherwise it's all about gaining some resilience to not care about bullies. Personally I hate bullies since they're all ego wrecked people that brings down people to make themselves think they are great and they don't see the consequences that it can lead people to suicide or depression.

[Gus the Crocodile]

Postat inițial de Radene:

Some things cannot be sped up. You can't get nine women (with consent, of course) pregnant and have a child in a month. So anyone looking to "stop bullying" needs to realize we're talking about at least a decade of hard work here to even begin turning the trend around. And that's the effort most people are not willing to put in.

I'd argue this is a thing that absolutely can be sped up. It really does not take a decade to "even begin turning the trend around" in a community if people are actually putting in that hard work. But of course, in online spaces especially, so many of the communities participate in are in fact profit-driven enterprises, where wellbeing will never be a top priority.

But yes, certainly not instant, either way.

[linis]

All things in due time, even for those that bully.

[Netaris]

Postat inițial de Irene ❤:

If I'm a bully, I will not fear the victim who cries and tries to start a fight. I will fear the quiet person that ignores me and studied my habits everyday. The more bully methods I use, the more that person learns about me. Over time that person will have a compete log of my bully history, understand why things happened, outsmart me and become someone who bully me instead.

That doesn't work often in practice sadly, because lot of bullies aren't smart enough to understand that. Bullying isn't about strongs vs weaks, it's about the weakest insecure against the strongest insecure at the moment. Bullies and bullied have a lot in common and sometimes you can see ex-bullies that become bullied later or the other way. The two are weak in reality. The strongest and smartest persons I've meet in my life have something in common : they're humble. The standards aren't the same. That's why I don't want to become a bully myself, because I can't really evolve like this.

To stop a bully for sure, you have to say in his language : "If you bother me, you'll face consequences". Of course you don't gonna say it out loud like that, but you have to act in a way that makes him understand that he's gonna be hurted too. Not all bullies are like that, but some of them only understand violence.

[Dom]

When people say things like "stop caring" or "bullying teaches people X, it's beneficial", not just on this forum but other places as well.. I sometimes do wonder if these things are said by bullies themselves and they're simply trying to justify what they did...

"You can call it bullying, I was only teaching him X. He learned an important lesson."

[Irene ❤]

Postat inițial de Ad Victoriam !:

That's why I don't want to become a bully myself, because I can't really evolve like this.

You're right. : D
The person who studied the situation will soon realize the bully is insecure and insignificant.

Postat inițial de Dom:

When people say things like "stop caring" or "bullying teaches people X, it's beneficial", not just on this forum but other places as well.. I sometimes do wonder if these things are said by bullies themselves and they're simply trying to justify what they did...

"You can call it bullying, I was only teaching him X. He learned an important lesson."

Bullying campaigns does nothing. As all it ever do is "hey stop bullying" or "hey stop being bullied". It's laughable.

I think very bully is different. Case by case basics. People can backstab you at work to make you lose your job, your neighbors can be nasty and you can't have a relax home, or on steam people can devalue your comments just to satisfy their huge ego. A different solution is needed for a different problem.

Bullies often target people who they believe they are alone, or tries to bad mouth them so that they will be alone. You're a group owner, you can protect the lonely victims. You can study the problems and create solutions. = )

[Edward Von Worms]

if you abuse someone or insult them sooner or later your gonna get what you asked for, why does everyone have a weird problem with being nice it would also help if we stopped trying to rip eachother off all the time.

[Yamantaka]

First of all make sure you don't become one or encourage/accept such behavior even slightly. People so easily justify their own actions and see themselves as reasonable, but in reality that may not be the case. There's certain amount of blindness for ourselves and becoming aware of that is a worthwhile effort.

Quite recently there was a study about online behavior. According to majority of people they saw themselves as being decent and well behaving online, while others had issues with being offensive and rude. The point is that it's rather conflicting how people see themselves and how they in fact act. In reality the ratio of "well behaving" was unrealistic and the eagerness to point finger to others was too high. It was a limited group study, but it does show something what everyone should be aware of first. That being: Yourself.

The best thing what everyone can do is to make sure they become aware of themselves, fix their own issues and only then they may able be show any positive example to others. The idealized version of yourself must be stripped down to bare bones.

And yes, there are other matters to be taken into consideration too. There are generation wide issues to be fixed, but we should start from ourselves first.

[Netaris]

Postat inițial de Irene ❤:

I think very bully is different. Case by case basics. People can backstab you at work to make you lose your job, your neighbors can be nasty and you can't have a relax home, or on steam people can devalue your comments just to satisfy their huge ego.

That's a good point I think. That's why I want to be clear : I only speak about my personal experience, that is about real life bullying and assaults. I don't know anything about online bullying and I don't speak about that at all. ^^

[Vault Hunter 101]

Postat inițial de Irene ❤:

If I'm a bully, I will not fear the victim who cries and tries to start a fight. I will fear the quiet person that ignores me and studied my habits everyday. The more bully methods I use, the more that person learns about me. Over time that person will have a compete log of my bully history, understand why things happened, outsmart me and become someone who bully me instead.

This is actually smart advice, the amount of stuff you can learn from a person by seeing how they attack you and what they choose to attack is massive, but you should never "bully back", by bullying back you become bully yourself, drop down to the their level and can no longer complain about being bullied yourself.



But still the "block,report and move on" works best, some people just WANT to get bullied back to gain pity from others or to justfiy their crappy behaviour. If you cease all communication they technically cannot bully you unless it's public place and when it is public place use report functions. Simple as that

[Radene]

Postat inițial de Yamantaka:

First of all make sure you don't become one or encourage/accept such behavior even slightly. People so easily justify their own actions and see themselves as reasonable, but in reality that may not be the case. There's certain amount of blindness for ourselves and becoming aware of that is a worthwhile effort.

Quite recently there was a study about online behavior. According to majority of people they saw themselves as being decent and well behaving online, while others had issues with being offensive and rude. The point is that it's rather conflicting how people see themselves and how they in fact act. In reality the ratio of "well behaving" was unrealistic and the eagerness to point finger to others was too high. It was a limited group study, but it does show something what everyone should be aware of first. That being: Yourself.

The best thing what everyone can do is to make sure they become aware of themselves, fix their own issues and only then they may able be show any positive example to others. The idealized version of yourself must be stripped down to bare bones.

And yes, there are other matters to be taken into consideration too. There are generation wide issues to be fixed, but we should start from ourselves first.

That's nothing new for the human society, though. "I can, my reasons are valid, but everyone else is just an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if they do it".

You're right, we need to start fixing this with ourselves. But to get some momentum going, we should also think about changing the early socialization, and teach our kids not to even get into that pattern of thought.

[Castyles]

Bullying ripped the veil of innocence I had, for a lack of a better word, and it's one of the main reasons why I see the world for what it really is. And for why I'm self-conscious about my appearance.

See, back when I was in school the concept of bullying didn't exist. Everyone used to be ♥♥♥♥♥ with everyone and it was perceived as normal behaviour. Sometimes I was the bully, sometimes someone else was the bully... And life goes on.

But I always saw everything as a joke. To me it was only that. I was a fair bully. If someone told me to stop and gave me a valid reason then I would stop. If it's not funny then it's not a joke, right?

Until I met unscrupulous bullies. Real bullying is different. With said types you have four options:
1)Ignore them. They may or may not stop.
2)Make fun of yourself. They see you're not suffering anymore and ♥♥♥♥ gets boring.
3)Make fun of them and bully them back. They might even respect you, believe it or not.
4)And last, but not least, get physical. Break their face. Nothing sends a message like a good ol' punch. Even if they wreck you it's worth it.

I never had to get physical and no one got physical with me, though. So it's probably best to pick this option only as a last resort.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Postat inițial de Dom:

Thoughts on bullying & how to stop it?

The following is relevant, because it's often times, in the modern world, the REASON that bullying is happening & escalating among the youngest generations:

Postat inițial de baconborn:

Teaching manners, morals, decency, stoicism etc. in school would be a good start. Human decency class if you so want to label it.

Some places have started to do just that - more-so with an emphasis on recognizing human-emotion & being able to interact in the real world at all, though, due to the fact that we're now living in an age where technology has become SO prevalent, that the majority of kids in some places have grown up using tablets since before they could even walk or talk; all they've ever known is the oversimplified nature of media, which abstracts & removes so much of our humanity & the nuances of daily human expression (quite literally, even just facial expressions, tend to be under-represented in animation & memes).

These kids have been so focused on the technology that they've become completely alienated from normal human expressions, which they, now, don't know how to respond to. ...and as a result, they tend to respond quite poorly. EVERYTHING is "creepy" & EVERYTHING is threatening to them now... :/


There was a documentary about professional & long-term research being done on all of this - of course, as they pointed out: the technology is moving so fast now, that by the time we have a sound & reliably TESTED set of data about what's going on... things will have already moved to the next point, so this is something we really should be considering addressing - or attempting to address - now, rather than waiting - mainly because the affects of a new generation of people being completely disconnected from the humanity of other people is already starting to manifest ...and it's quite bad in some cases / instances.

We're also seeing the first generations to be completely disconnected from human interaction, due to growing up with technology (like tablets & cell phones) in their hands.
It might seem like we've been here before... but actually... we haven't.

[Yamantaka]

Postat inițial de Radene:

That's nothing new for the human society, though. "I can, my reasons are valid, but everyone else is just an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if they do it".

You're right, we need to start fixing this with ourselves. But to get some momentum going, we should also think about changing the early socialization, and teach our kids not to even get into that pattern of thought.

Yes, I agree. There's a lot what the whole childcare/education system could do better. Also, many vicious cycles from generation to another need to break down. As just one example here war traumatized one generation of men and those results can be still seen today. Same pattern goes for culture tied role models in many ways. Looking at the values which the system is tied to could use serious set of updates as well...

Still, that all starts within, but yeah, external changes need to come about too.