Why do people bully?

[unknown_user]

I would add ignorance and intolerance ( they often come together ) as a common reasons of bullying.

For example, others bullied me at school for:
- Mixed race (i.e. I didn't belong to locally dominated race);
- Weird emotions and weird ways to express them;
- Weird and clumsy social interactions (actually, I just didn't understand, what kind of behaviour others awaited from me in different social situations);
- Weird views and interests, which others didn't share;
- Clumsiness and weird walking;
and many other weirdnesses.

It is interesting, that I've changed several schools (but notice - they all were common level schools, with a lot of low-culture people and stupid people in them), and this situation re-appeared in new schools again and again. So parents and teachers concluded from that, that reason of everything lies inside of me, and this all is my fault. They all said that I should change, or I will be mocked and beaten (deservedly!) again and again through life, and nobody will be friends with such a freak of nature.
My mom said once, that when she look at how I walk on the street from the side, my walking look so ridiculous and pathetic, that she herself want to kick me. Also my mom and classmates were deeply sure that I'm crying and screaming from pain in very funny way, so, of course, they were happy to give me a reason to do it. And, of course, everybody were sure that I regularly spill liquids and break things not because of my clumsiness, but for a purpose to make others mad. And that I have weird interests not because I'm sincerely interested in them, but just because I want to stand out from others and show that I'm higher than they L(° O °L). The same goes from my weird social behaviour - everybody were sure, that I'm either too stupid, or like to play a clown and cause mocking on myself to draw attention.
Of course, I tried to change, but had no idea, how, because nobody was able to explain it in logically coherent way to me. So I always failed, and as a result, was sure that my life will remain miserable till I'll die... (I really wanted someone to just come and kill me and end all of this. Yes, since then I'm so passionate about killers )

Since times, when I've attended the high-level University and meet a lot of civilized people with high intelligence from different regions and cultures, nobody bullied me anymore... not that I changed much, it more like these new people around were too clever for doing such a stupid things. It turned out, that smart people just don't think that if someone differs from them, they should torturing this person for that. Also there turned out, that a noticeable amount of other (very talented!) students and professors at my math department have their own weirdness, so they are more tolerable to weirdness of others.
Of course, some of these people still didn't like me much, but the main difference was is that they didn't think that it is the reason to do bad things for me. They just didn't got friends with me, but instead got friends with people they like (it's logical, isn't it?) and left me be like I am, that's all.
In the same time, people, who liked me, just calmly ang logically explained me things about social interactions, which I didn't understand before, instead of yelling or mocking at me for that. So I've started to understand such a things much better and learned how to behave more socially adequately with time. Also people explained logically, how to grab things and move more correctly, so I wouldn't break everything so often. It appeared to be, that I just didn't notice some details about my movement, and when clever people explained me them, I've learned to move better, almost like the normal people do. Everything what I needed - just a reasonable, logical explanation.

So... eventually, I concluded that doing bad things to person, who differs from you, is often just a sign of low culture and ignorance in collective.

[SilentHamster102]

I always was curious in which part of country you lived during childhood. Because in the place where I live my whole life race-based bullying is probably last thing that you can encounter even from lowest culture people around here.
In my town we have 4 major ethnic groups living here - Russian, Chuvash, Bashkir, Tatar people and a small Armenian diaspora, but they live in neighbouring town. But we live that way for 300 years, so maybe we just accustomed each other already.

[unknown_user]

At Sakhalin island. Most of people there were almost pure slavic, also there were like 5% of korean and a bit of caucasians (I think, nowadays more nationalities appeared there). Also my childhood coincided with a time of Chechen–Russian conflicts, so slavic was angry at chechen, as you probably know. And since I remind chechen in my appearance, my appearance was accociated with an enemy and was considered as repulsive.

[SilentHamster102]

Now I understood, yeah, that time was harsh. Some bashkirs and tatars told us that when they were in western Russia and Moscow in late 1990s they were mistaken for caucasians and recieved bad treatment from locals.
Even through my childhood when we played "wars" we played it as Russians vs. Chechens. And everyone regardless of ethnicity was not happy to play as chechens, including me, lol.
And, some people still angry at chechens, because they're only ethnicity I heard bad words about (not only by russians) in my town.

[unknown_user]

Actually, it always astonished me, how people, who consider themselves as a good ones, and even are considered as a good ones from society, in some circumstances turn into cruel, sadistic monsters. It especially tend to happen, when they manage to dehumanize someone. Making bad things to dehumanized person even stops being considered as actually bad, if this person is not a human in eyes of bullies. Everything is allowed, if in their eyes it is just a disgusting freak, an ugly animal, a piece of shit; not a human. For example, my classmates often called me "it" instead of "she", which emphasize this aspect.

Actually, in my opinion, the existing of such a thing as bullying itself shows very clearly, how hypocrite and ugly human society can be, especially when it has low culture and consist from mostly ignorant people. After all, we all have some of that ancient blood-thirsty animal part inside our minds...

[HGohwell]

One of the biggest reasons is because they can. If there were actual consequences for such actions, a lot of it would disappear pretty quickly, but there aren't. "Bullying will not be tolerated" is the biggest lie ever told in schools for the simple reason that teachers associate subconsciously with the bullies as the "normal" kids. Such things as "it's just teasing" "why don't you get new friends" and "you're not perfect either" all got leveled at me when I put up with 3 years of bullying. And every time I told a teacher I was brushed off, but the second I said something back to them, they'd tell the teacher and I'd be punished. Picking up a cup of paint and pouring it over me was "just a silly joke". The only time an attempt to deal with it was made was when it turned into violence and was caught in class and by then it had gone on 3 years and my mum simply had me transferred away because obviously they weren't going to deal with it properly if they hadn't already. If it was actually taken seriously, it wouldn't go on nearly as much and because it's not taken seriously by the school, kids don't tell the people who will take it seriously.

[SilentHamster102]

hypocrite and ugly human society can be

Sorry for popping out again, but why society "can be". It is, and always was, and always will be. At least this is my opinion, and my expericnce in social life only confirms this for the most part.

[Kann]

Most of my bullies were bullying me, when they were hanging out with the biggest bully in the class/school. When alone, they were either ignoring me, or being friendly, wchich was confusing as hell. XD

I was that kid they saw as vulnerable, because I was a huge crybaby and that gave them opening to pick on me because of other reasons. Maybe they tried to show their power or something? After school finished, some of those guys became criminals, while most of them put their life together.

So I think reasons range from simple peer pressure to having some psychological issues or being brough up in an unhealthy family. There's never the same reason for every bully.

[unknown_user]

Sorry for popping out again, but why society "can be". It is, and always was, and always will be. At least this is my opinion, and my expericnce in social life only confirms this for the most part.

Yes, you are right essentially, i.e. right now human society as a whole actually is like this. But I used more soft formulation, because I believe, that people with high conscious, responsibility and intelligence level can, at least partially, overcome all this shit. I.e. I believe, that in some conditions society can be not that evil.
For example, as I already said, I didn't meet bullying in academic society, and in general this part of society look more healthy for me, than the most of population. Of course, it has its own issues, but academic people look less agressive, cruel and hypocrite in general for me. They usually mind their own business, and have not enough agression (and free time) for making vile things to each other. I.e. even right now, at least, in particular part of society some of human vilenesses can be overcomed.

[SilentHamster102]

That's great if you have at least some good moments from social interractions. That's probably was a good academy where you've learning.
Mine wasn't so good, other students looked at me like I'm turd because my clothes was from bazar and my car is Lada and nobody is going to pick me up after learning day on the new BMW 7. Teachers looked at me like I'm turd because I wasn't a brownoser to them and didn't tolerate their jokes and insults about me (that wasn't only me who got insults from them, but I was only who didn't tolerate), so yeah, that's it.
That's really good to see that you have some belive in the society, I don't have it for a long time already. There are some good people around, but society at all... meh, I don't like it.

[MoThErNaTure]

Because people are jealous of their victims. They think they're better that everyone. They don't care about anyone because no one cares about them. They like to bring people down because they never got a happy life like most people do. They're mentally intoxicated and have learned the wrong things. Anything they say is caused from something.
Be nice to them, ask if something has happened in their life. Ask them "Hey, do you want to talk about anything." Ask "Hey! Is everything alright?" Be caring and sweet. If they do it out of smite you smile that beautiful smile and say "Thanks, your pretty cool yourself."

[DiegoPalacios]

they are trying to establish some sort of dominance because of their deep seated emotional insecurities.(the reasons behind those insecurities can vary a lot, as many people previously said)

Some do it as a way to get attention, others are driven by envy, there are even some cases where they try to prove they are "tough".

The important thing to understand is that their behavior is their own fault and responsibility. A bad childhood can explain some behaviors, but it never justifies them.

[ar-ninetysix]

I've picked on a few kids back in middle school, and the reason for it was super simple too (not excusable, just simple lol). I just wanted to fit in with my friends, man..

About my friends and this one time I picked on a kid

See, my friends and I were all cool and we had our shared interests and stuff, and soon enough, I became one of them. They had friends they had history with from a different elementary school, and they pick on 'em every so often for fun. Just teasing. I joined them after I got the gist of everything they were saying and they were cool with it. That attitude of "See? Even he gets why you suck at skateboarding or whatever" was very much a thing between everyone starting to include me into the group. It was super reassuring, and I developed a neat friendship with them as a result. Is that teasing considered bullying? I dunno, it's kinda subjective.

But speaking of teasing somebody, I specifically remember this one guy who had recently moved schools at the time, and we didn't think much of him at first. But come to find out, he was a teacher's pet and a bit of snitch, and not only that, but.. he was fat and slightly uncool.. (Valid reasons to pick on a kid, I know lol) He's that one guy, you know the one, "But teacher! You forgot to give us homework!"

My friends couldn't stand it, but they would've never gone out of their way to outright pick on him unless they were.. provoked or bored and in need of a laugh, I guess. I didn't care all that much about him tbh but fast forward to drama class (yeah, super ironic, I know) and we had to do a group activity. Guess who we got in a group with?? I'm don't remember what triggered it, but everyone at the table started ganging up on him. I played a part in it too, bc I just had to fit in. He.. uhh.. he cried, and told the teacher, and we got sent to the office. All my friends (about 6 or 7) got suspended for a few days except for me and one other. Either they knew we weren't bad kids or the kid told 'em we didn't say as much about him. We were let go, and we went back to class.

In any case! We never picked on him again, we all kinda decided on that, based on it not being worth falling behind in schoolwork. I could dance around it all I want, the fact is we were bullies in that moment, and we may have been an awful part of middle school for him. I'd like to think that if I could meet him again and apologize, that like.. maybe we'd be cool, but I don't know. I don't get to know. Maybe he's holding a lifelong grudge, or maybe he's moved on altogether. I just hope he's doing well and living a full life at this point. Frankly speaking, he was a really nice kid, and I hope he didn't have to face that again after all the mean stuff we said.

I can tell you for a fact that what people consider bullying varies, so in that sense.. it's super dependent on the two parties involved, the bullies and the victims. One could see it as teasing or just playing around, but the other can see it as bullying and torment. One could even be aware of the mean stuff they're doing, and the other could still see them as friends!

Hell, I had what felt like a toxic as hell friendship in high school which was a part of the reason I dropped out. He just liked being rough with his friends.. dudes being dudes, bros being bros, all that. But I felt like it was abusive, and I hated it. I even went as far as starting to avoid him before a class we had together started. After I dropped out, and got in touch with him on Facebook a few years later, he still treated me as a normal friend and he seemed to have mellowed out too so.. I mean.. I don't know if it's bullying since that's the reaction I had, but I also don't know if it could've been avoided had I said something. Doesn't matter, I don't care anymore lol we're good now

I'll say this much based on my experiences being on both sides, I genuinely don't think there's that many people who bully others based on some trauma or some sad home life. I feel like it's more in line with people that don't realize what they do can be hurtful. As a result of believing that, I kinda live my life on the internet writing every single comment I make like as neutral or positive as possible~

[baasinsimple]

Some are just shitty people or others want to feel better, some don't value your skills as much as their own. Some see you as vulnerable and others are just fucking bored. Kids lack self-awareness and empathy and only begin to develop it over time, the only things that develops empathy in a child are the same things that can take it away. Simply put, children are kind of crappy because they learn empathy only through seeing a diverse amount of locations and people and seeing what makes them tick and going through their own mountain of shit through this they develop their opinions. If you look in the average rural community where everyone thinks the same, nobody mentally changes after high school if it's not for the worse. They're still the same immature people they were in highschool with the same petty, dumb drama because they literally have nothing else to do. Whenever there's an atrocity within their hometown, they're not just scared, they're excited, because these people have been bored for years. The people who married in highschool are cheating on each other with the other one's best friend because they don't love each other but they have to stay together because it'll reflect badly on them. In the end no one wins because they never learned or grew, anyway enough shitting on small-town life I think you get my point now.

[vothnthorvaldson]

What I can add from my experience:

1)The things bullies pick on are sometimes just excuses to act horribly.
I never, ever got bullied for reasons that made even a bit of sense.
I got bullied for being too poor (my family was of about same wealth as the bullies' families), being from a family of slightly different religious denomination (but everyone was actually atheists or completely ignorant of the religious differences), being too good at school (I was actually an average student), dressing badly (I was dressing very similar, maaaybe a bit more mature?).
I NEVER got bullied for my sexual orientation or gender identification even if it must have been evident from a very early age that I was not 'standard' on these aspects. They did not see what was "wrong" (in their point of view) exactly, so they went for other things even if they made no sense, I suppose.

2)A lot of people like bullies, even if they don't realize it. As an adult I went through many blatant cases of people that were very aggressive, very intolerant, and got praised (even hired for a job) for being 'enthusiastic', and then I had to help the praising people to get rid of them a few months later because the 'enthusiastic' people had become horrible, unmanageable bullies. Same people redo the mistake at next occasion. I saw so many times aggression toward others seen by the general public as 'enthusiasm', and if you warn the future victims they call YOU a bully.

[SilentHamster102]

Damn, no offense, but statements like that is the reason why I VERY dislike folks from big cities (altough we're living in different countries, but people are the same everywhere). Big city folks always thinking that we are worse, more stupid, more backwards and many other things.
But I can say only one thing - worst people I've met in my life was those who was lived in the big cities and that's enough for me.
And for me person from small town or village will be always more favourable at all aspects than person from the city, especially capital city like moscow.
Even on the road I always driving like an asshole when I see a car with moscow plates and such, because I having strong dislike to them all and always trying to show it openly ( and for sure they don't like small town people like me too) .

Again, no offense to you personally, that was just my rant mixed with butthurt.

[baasinsimple]

That's fine, but here's my reasoning-- I lived in a collection of small towns and it's been the same everytime because my parents wanted me to have the same upbringing they did whenever we moved, but here's the thing, if you have a fundamental ideological difference with the main values of the town or you haven't been there since the day you were born, you're gonna have a bad time. Of course you're going to meet a lot more assholes in the city, because there's more people, but I prefer people openly insult me for being a shit head and getting hammered in public before I was even in highschool yet (which is something that's fair enough to get pissed over) than people gossiping about my family just because we weren't from there and someone died. And every small-town family member I had has turned out the same way, My grandmother still gossips about people and when someone dies she gets excited because there's something to do, from what I've heard she was the same way over 50 years ago. Because she never got out of the town to explore and meet different kinds of people. She never learned empathy because nothing super extreme has ever happened to her or anything. Sure some people who live in small towns are some of the kindest people I ever met, but they'll hate people because of some bad experiences and stick to their own area and all the towns I lived in the adults never changed if they stayed, they always kept up a 2D cardboard cut-out facade in front of others and never genuinely cared to do anything but gossip and get the paycheck. If your town isn't a shallow place, like the 4 towns I lived in where, then honestly, I'm happy for you, because that sounds like a Utopia to me. Maybe it's just a difference in perspective. I'm practically an outsider-looking in, whilst you're an insider-looking out, so naturally you'd have a different experience.

[SilentHamster102]

I don't have so much experience in my life, I only lived for some time in the big city.
And I saw that those who moved to the cities are changed, and maybe they experienced something far better than we having there, but that something made them selfish egoistic crooks (everybody of them, that's main curiosity for me), certainly not the type of people I like.
Of course I will leave my town one day and start to live in the city, but not because I like it, but because my town dying since 1991.
And again, the main thing I want to say, the fact that we're living in small town isn't making us worse, if I would have a bit more experience with big city life, I'd probably could write a far more bad things about them than about people from towns, but I don't have this experience. And when I will have such experience I'll write, for sure. That would be a big essay or something like that, I guarantee this.

And because almost nobody from big city isn't understanding the fact that we're all people and nobody is worse or better because of place of living, they will always recieve bad attitude from me.

[charliesackett]

You can always cut ties with people that aren't good for you, family or not. They want you to think you can't so that they can continue to have power over you. But you definitely can. I haven't talked to my Dad OR his side of the family in years because they were bad for my health. And guess what? The only thing that happened is I'm way healthier now.

[Jenny-Toons]

I second this. As the saying goes:

"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb"