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BULLYING IS STRANGE by Mr Biffo

14/1/2016

15 Comments

 
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Here is a good thing: Square Enix has launched a new anti-bullying initiative inspired by Life is Strange.

Tweet the hashtag #EverydayHeroes and Square will make a donation to the Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights' National Bullying Prevention Centre. Tweets are being compiled on the Life is Strange website. 

​If you haven't played Life is Strange, my review of Episodes 1 - 4 can be found here.

In short: I enjoyed it. The story managed to engage, the central time-travel conceit worked well, but I wasn't moved in the way that I think was intended. The mix of archetypical characters - bordering on the stereotype - and the high school cliches, just frustrated me. It felt like it was trying too hard to appeal to millennials, in a way that somehow excluded old farts like me.


When it did tackle bigger themes - including bullying - it felt, to me, superficial.

But then, I would say that where bullying is concerned...

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THE TALL GUY
I've spoken on here previously about my own experience of bullying.

Being tall, having glasses, getting facial hair far too young... coupled to a generally non-confrontational nature, made me a target.

I wasn't good at sport, I wasn't one of the boys that girls fancied, I wasn't cool... so, I stood out for the wrong reasons. At least, that's why I think I was a target.

Typically, bigger, older kids would inflict the physical stuff - I had my specs broken more times than I can count, ended up with darts thrown into my leg, a compass jabbed into my face, being spat at more than once, punched in the stomach, kicked to the ground - while the groups of smaller boys my age would spread the rumours, the gossip, invent the names and stories about me that would chip away at my identity.


I know I've said before that it was the verbal stuff that really stuck, and seeped into my bones. That and just how isolating being bullied can feel, even in a crowd. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end, so friends would generally wander away while it was happening. Or - in subtle ways - join in, by way of camouflage.

BEACON BLUE
In my experience, once somebody becomes labelled as a target, they are a target for everyone. It felt like I became a sponge, or a beacon, for everyone's pent-up aggressive, frustration, impotence. It was just a given among my peers that this is why I existed; to make them feel better, and not so powerless. And it extended to the teachers too - when the deputy head joins in with the name-calling, there's nobody left to turn to. 

I used to suffer recurring nightmares where I was alone at sea on a tiny boat, with no land anywhere in any direction: that's exactly how it felt.

My logic was this: to ask for help and admit I was being bullied would've been admitting I was weak... and admitting I was weak would've invited in more bullying. So I endured it, until the point when I genuinely thought I was in very real danger. Only then would I ask for help.


This was life, day in, day out, for years.

You see, bullying isn't a one-off; it's a campaign. It's not a battle, or a skirmish - it's a war. It's daily carpet-bombing of a person's self-esteem and self-worth. It takes away an individual's safety and security, strips their defences, and it leaves their infant soul exposed to the fires of the world. 

I've often felt envious of people who were allowed to grow up with all of those walls intact; being emotionally equipped to cope with the world should be a basic human right. 

Don't get me wrong: I've not grown up as some emotional basket case. Somehow, I've mostly held myself together, and I've had friends react with surprise when I've told them I was bullied.

I mean, it could've been much worse. I had a relatively stable home life - albeit one that was unsettled during my teens by a family that was dealing with unbearable grief. As I've mentioned elsewhere, video games became my safe place to retreat to, to lose myself in. There I had the power and the strength to fight back.

DON'T PITY THE FOOL
I don't seek pity in talking about all this: my intention is twofold.

Firstly, in all honesty, it helps to write about it. I'm still processing it, nearly 30 years later. Even though I spent a couple of years training as a psychotherapist, even though I'm blessed with the love of a wonderful family... the scars are still there. They are part of me now.


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A few months ago, I knocked off my glasses while changing the sheets on the bed, and my other half laughed; I lost it, and then got tearful... because it brought up all those times I got punched in the face, and had my glasses broken. How vulnerable that made me feel, because I couldn't see.

She wasn't to know - heck, even I wasn't to know - but in that moment, an emotional button was pressed, and my primal reaction surprised us both.

Secondly, I know I'm not alone in having had experience of bullying, whether it happened to you in the past, or is happening to your kids and you don't know... it serves nobody to not talk about it. 

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FRUSTRATION

And I think that's why Life is Strange frustrated me.

It's not that I disapprove of its attempts to pay lip-service to how it feels to be bullied, but it didn't reflect my experience of being bullied. Consequently, I didn't buy it. It made that mistake made by lots of  fiction, where somebody who is bullied is portrayed as weak, as a victim, as broken and friendless. I don't think it's ever that cliched or simple.

I was never some cowed in, beaten down, friendless, waif. The pain, the bullying, was internalised, and to most I seemed like a confident, self-assured kid. I wanted to appear stronger than I felt. I think that's still how people see me these days, and for the most part they're right to. 

Certainly, being a big bloke, with a fair pair of shoulders, it's an assumption that people make when they meet me; "Oh, he can handle anything!". I've come through the worst of it to embody the strength I always wanted to have - I know who I am, but part of learning that has meant having to accept my weaknesses, and areas of damage, too. 


I thank god that my daughters mostly escaped school unscathed. My middle daughter had it to a degree - in fact, she ended up in hospital with stitches in her head - but that was an one-off, rather than something that had been ongoing. We've also had some issues with social media stuff with my step-daughters - and I thank god that SnapChat, WhatsApp and Facebook weren't around when I was growing up. 


Either way, now or then, school is hard, and for most of us growing up is an ordeal to some degree or other - whether you're bullied or not (and, let's face it, even those who do the bullying are usually dealing with their own problems). Any effort to try and make that easier for kids is to be applauded. 
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The intentions of the Life is Strange #EverydayHeroes campaign is sincere even if I didn't relate to the game's simplistic depiction of bullying.

Support it.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
GAMES OF MY YEARS by Mr Biffo 
THE POWER OF NOWSTALGIA by Mr Biffo
THE FEEL THING by Mr Biffo
THE MAN IN THE MIRROR'S EDGE by Mr Biffo
15 Comments
Effervescing Elephant
14/1/2016 03:59:40 pm

Your experiences are quite astonishingly similar to my own (except that I had very little in the way of physical bullying). I'm sorry that you had to go through that shit too. I was bent out of shape by it and I'm still having nightmares about it to this day. Recovery is slow. I was in my late thirties before I began to believe that it wasn't my fault (until then I had been told that it most definitely was) and I was in my mid forties before I was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum which explains a hell of a lot. Meeting people in the gaming and Geek subcultures I get the feeling that a lot of them have been through something similar and it's a shame it's not address more seriously.

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Mr Biffo
14/1/2016 04:20:17 pm

Likewise, EE - sorry to hear you went through similar. I think we all respond to things in different ways. I know that I used to be pretty good at pushing stuff down, and assuring myself that I was fine... so the second I was out of school I pretty much didn't look back. It was only in later years that it would occasionally come out, and I could see how much the ghost of it followed me around. Certainly, having internet hassle many years ago brought it all back up, and that's when I tried to tackle it head on. Hope you're doing better now.

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Gaijintendo
14/1/2016 05:03:38 pm

I was bullied by three kids in the year below me, every single break for a year. It was about my appearance and it got to me. I made the classic mistake of pushing one of them, rather than complaining about them. They promptly fell over, and told a teacher.
I then had to do detention, and was given the task of writing an apology letter to the kids parents... on my birthday. I can't remember what I wrote, but I am certain it was extremely pissy, though I was never picked up on it by the teacher.
To be honest, aside from resenting that, it hasn't had a profound impact on me, as far as I can tell.
*HOWEVER* I really feel guilty for what is probably best described as "ribbing" or "joshing"... relentlessly... with all the kids in my year. Statistically I will have struck a bunch of nerves of people. It was just me trying to develop a wit, and it was very much the culture (or so I tell myself), but I get pangs of guilt at times.

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Kelvin Green link
14/1/2016 06:52:09 pm

Good words Biffo.

Even today, if my glasses get knocked off -- by accident -- it brings out a sense of panic in me, because of what went before.

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Keith
14/1/2016 07:42:42 pm

A difficult read, that. I was bullied at school, and yeah, I've always found portrayals of bullying to be lacking something, possibly because actual bullying victims often don't get their voices heard.

When people get bullied, so far as I can see, it's not that they're bullied because, say, they're wearing the wrong clothes - they're bullied for being THAT individual who happens to have the wrong clothes as something to be picked on.
I've heard far worse bullying stories than what happened to me, but a moment that stuck with me, and that can make me feel sick in the pit of my stomach even now, was after months and months of having the piss ripped out of me for wearing rubbish jeans, I finally convinced my parents to buy me a pair of fashionable branded, baggy jeans for my birthday that cost them about 60 quid at the time, meaning I couldn't have any other presents. And when I wore them to a non uniform day the following week at school, feeling pleased I'd not be picked on, I got it worse than ever for being stupid enough to think that wearing expensive jeans would get me off the hook.

I work in a school now, and I have to work hard to not show my utter contempt for bullies, and deal with it reasonably, but it breaks my heart to see articulate, funny, pleasant kids having their confidence ripped from them, and see them gradually stop trying to make a joke, or have an opinion, for fear that they'll get laughed at. And the thing I've noticed is that it's almost arbitrary - as cliques develop, all it takes is a bright kid to say something mildly self deprecating, and it reads to other kids as "bully me"

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Chump
14/1/2016 08:25:43 pm

I remember an incident in junior school when the teacher was asking what was common with some words involving the number three. On the board was a triangle, a tricycle etc.
I didn't put my hand up very often to answer questions, but I did in this instance. I said, "tri". The teacher wrote, " try", said, "no that's wrong, what the duck are you talking about?" and everybody laughed. I think I complained that that want what I meant, but nobody was listening.
The next kid put their hand up and said, "tri" (or maybe they spelt it out). The teacher congratulated them profusely and there was a standing ovation because they were so clever to work that out. (I am not exaggerating as much as you might think)

Maybe it's not bullying per se, but it really hurt my confidence (which was low anyway), and I never understood how the teacher didn't know what I meant, given that this was exactly the answer (or one of the answers) she was looking for.

I got bullied properly at secondary school, but other than some annoying c**t who seeked me out whilst I was waiting for the bus, mostly I was too insignificant to attract even bullies. The little bullying I did get though was awful, and I feel for anyone who got bullied properly every day, it must have been hell.

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Anon
14/1/2016 09:45:53 pm

I remember ages after leaving school, someone from my class (who hadn't bullied me) said that they were surprised I hadn't a girlfriend. They said I was funny and I suppose reasonably happy looking.

I guess it had never seemed to him like I was getting all that much crap at school but the years added up and at that stage I didn't have anyone I felt was a friend never mind a girlfriend.

I *think* I had friends after school but I never felt like they'd want me around anymore than the people at school would and they just went their own way and I went mine.

Bit disappointing!

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Anon E Mouse
15/1/2016 01:50:37 am

For what its worth, I was in the same boat. Something about being big, but having a kind nature attracts the cruelty of others. I had a weird situation where one of my mates turned out to be a sociopath and one day, decided to turn my few friends against me.

Never mind, I became the type who doesn't take any s**t. Shame that inner damage isn't so easily fixed.

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Damon link
15/1/2016 02:18:45 am

You know I was told by someone I was being bullied but I never saw it that way. I don't know why but for some reason I've always had this attitude that other people's opinions don't matter. My best guess is that this comes from an impossible to please father, but I digress.

My experience with bullying is that it didn't happen because I distanced myself from people. I'm working through why I do this, my best guess is because I'm scared to open up because I know once I do what's gonna pour out. Distancing myself from people has also left me lonely in my adult life-- form a meaningful relationship? Nah, that's too risky.

I also want to say that I've had those emotional buttons pressed. Occasionally at work people aren't happy with the work I produce, which happens. But some guests (I work at a hotel) really rub me in a way that makes me feel like I'm 8 and they're my father. And unluckily for both of us I tend to fight more than shirk away. As soon as something less service-oriented comes along I'll probably have to leave the position if only for my own stability.

(Wow that meandered without ever reaching a real point but I'm sharing this in hopes it helps someone - the worst feeling is feeling alone, I think.)

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Superbeast 37
15/1/2016 10:31:58 am

LiS was one of my favourite games last year.

I couldn't give a monkeys about any messages it sent about bullying, depression and other issues though and I found it incredibly patronising when they pushed all that stuff about "if you are experiencing X then contact...."

I'm not twelve and watching Grange Hill ta. I'm sure if I wanted to jump off a building that I'd know to call the Samaritans and don't need a game to remind me.

I also don't want those messages that we had at the end of He Man either - "Remember kids, whilst Trevor just shot 300 people, you must never do this in real life and should tell a grown up if you see someone doing that"!

But yeah the portrayals were a bit weak and seemed to be based on reading Daily Mail stories rather than actual experience of bullying - that in the case of woman can be both more subtle and more spiteful than depicted.

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Admiral Vev Vroooom
15/1/2016 01:54:07 pm

In fairness, He-Man usually either hit people with the blunt end of his sword or threw them about non-concussively. Even the shootier cartoons had wild inaccuracy and special guns to reserve actual injury for important occasions. If children had mistaken cost-effective animation for real life, the casual handling of lethal weaponry would probably have caused more damage than any tacked-on messages.

On the plus side, such messages were partly responsible for both Mr. T's excellent advice and the Wheel of Morality.

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Deathhamster1
15/1/2016 12:14:20 pm

Schools are such unhealthy places for young people - sometimes it verges on child abuse in my opinion. Anyway, don't get me started on the teaching profession; as someone who works in the HE sector, I spend far too much time undoing the damage those tossers do to young people's thought processes and command of English.

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PeskyFletch
15/1/2016 04:54:28 pm

"We've also had some issues with social media stuff with my step-daughters - and I thank god that SnapChat, WhatsApp and Facebook weren't around when I was growing up. "

I worry about this, both for my (soon to be) natural child and my long term foster son. He is only 8 at the mo but the spectre looms large, my concern is that when i was at school, if you fell out with someone or had an argument it finished at 3:15 and you all had the night to calm down. None of that with social media.....

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Mr Biffo
15/1/2016 05:03:19 pm

Yeah, it's absolutely terrifying. Thing is, you hold all that technology back from them, and then they feel they're missing out, because all their mates have it...

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Damon link
15/1/2016 09:27:28 pm

I don't think tech is the issue. It's just a tool that if they didn't have, they'd find another way to torment someone.

I think the best thing you can do is teach people that the best thing you can do is use the block feature and move on with your life.




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