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Having been bullied pretty badly myself through school, and with the benefit of a further twenty years to reflect on the experience and my role in it, you know what I've learned?
Bullies and their victims are, at heart, exactly the same.
How? Because both are driven by their own insecurity to divide the world into two categories:
1. Things they are better than you at.
2. Things that are dumb.
All that seperates a bully from a victim is the manner in which they express that vision.
Thus jocks bully nerds because everything a jock uses to measure his worth, nerds treat with passive indifference or active disdain. To a jock, a happy nerd is like a walking "Whatever..." In an already stressful academic context that dismissal, the implication of their insignificance, can strike a particularly raw nerve.
The blog post to which I'm responding isn't the stereotypical jock/nerd story, but all the same dynamics are in place and it's painful to watch them unfold. Chease despises these two 'duchebags' for the way they behave, and yet the first chance he gets he does exactly the same - because at heart he is just like them: everything they are better at than him is dumb (I'd bet good money, by the way, that he finds a lot of their dirty jokes funny but won't allow himself to laugh. This is the voice of experience speaking.) Now he's proved he's better than them at SC2 - and what did that achieve? Nothing. Because as we saw in the stream, they just rearranged their worldview to make 'being good at SC2' dumb.
Chease, if you're reading this: pretty much everyone wants the same things out of life. We want to feel significant, valued, respected - and however ineptly or offensively some people might go about satisfying those needs, you can't bludgeon the need itself out of them by beating them at Starcraft.
The way to win is to show them respect. You should have asked to join their team and simply played, without being critical or apportioning blame for losses - without even offering helpful suggestions. They're not stupid; they're going to see you bringing twice their combined army to the table game after game and they're going to start watching replays, in private, to find out how you manage it. They would see you were clearly better, and yet didn't swagger or diss them, and there's a good chance they'd think "Huh. I don't have to be the best for someone to like me. Who knew?"
And for fuck's sake, if you think a joke's funny, just laugh.
 
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i was quite the bully back in elementary, junior high. I didn't bully people because I was like them, I bullied people because I disliked the way they went about things (ie not showering, acting like a cocky douche bag) and probably because I knew there was nothing they could do about it. Looking back I'm quite lucky I didn't get shot or stabbed. However my friend's and my methods weren't like shove a kid in a locker every day kind of thing or whatever, it was just really extreme stuff occasionally to get a point across.
Looking back on it I don't really feel bad, one of the kids actually thanked me for it and we're friends now lol. The other kids didn't change at all and are mostly the degenerates of society.
So I don't disagree with you that there are alot of bullies that are alot like the people they bully, but this is not some universal generalization you can apply. However if it makes you feel better all the more power to you brother.
I think the real thing to take away from this is to always give people a chance, try to see the best in them if you can because there's alot of good in people out there. Of course if they fuck that up then treat them like the assholes they are because alot of people like to treat others like doormats, but start positive!
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@Divinek: oh, yea, youre a good person, i'm sure all other bullies think they're assholes and condemn themselves in forum posts.
@OP: And some people are just evil. Every other day there is a thread in the general forum of atrocities that are unimaginable. Hunting civilians in afghanistan? Firefighters not doign what they swore in to do? Cops beating up innocent women? Unfortunately more people are bad then there are good. It's just that somehow we like to bunch the indifferent with the good ones making the ratio look better.
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I didn't bully people because I was like them, I bullied people because I disliked the way they went about things
You say you bullied people for not showering? In other words, you couldn't stand the fact they were bad at something you felt was important, yet didn't think any less of themselves for it. You had to impose your vision on them; put them in their place.
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So, if we substitute this in there...
(Victims of bullying) are driven by their own insecurity to divide the world into two categories:
1. Things they are better than you at.
2. Things that are dumb.
I think that's a huge generalisation.
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On October 05 2010 19:48 Sfydjklm wrote:
@OP: And some people are just evil. Every other day there is a thread in the general forum of atrocities that are unimaginable. Hunting civilians in afghanistan? Firefighters not doign what they swore in to do? Cops beating up innocent women? Unfortunately more people are bad then there are good. It's just that somehow we like to bunch the indifferent with the good ones making the ratio look better.
Calling something or someone 'just evil' is a cop-out. Rather like prayer can be, it's a way of dodging the responsibility you feel as a 'good person' to actually go and do something to fix a problem: "Some people are 'just evil'; there's nothing to be done and thus nothing I can do." Not that I'm saying any of the issues you raise really are your responsibility, you understand. It's just a mechanism for coping in a world where news of comparatively rare atrocities and disaster spreads like wildfire, and comparatively common acts of everyday kindness and consideration go unremarked.
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On October 05 2010 20:09 spitball wrote:
So, if we substitute this in there...
(Victims of bullying) are driven by their own insecurity to divide the world into two categories:
1. Things they are better than you at.
2. Things that are dumb.
I think that's a huge generalisation.
Do you think it's untrue?
Since when did a bully ever victimise someone who genuinely respected him for what he was good at?
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God damn this thread is terrible. What moved you to actually create it? Do you actually think CheAse is a more tortured soul than we realize, because you read between the lines and know the hidden truth of every word of his original message? Yea, he IS definitely going to read this and think, "man, THANK YOU, Umpteen, for such wise insight in to my own life. Thank you for reading me like a book, a book I myself could never truly understand."
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On October 05 2010 20:20 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2010 20:09 spitball wrote:
So, if we substitute this in there...
(Victims of bullying) are driven by their own insecurity to divide the world into two categories:
1. Things they are better than you at.
2. Things that are dumb.
I think that's a huge generalisation. Do you think it's untrue? Since when did a bully ever victimise someone who genuinely respected him for what he was good at?
Are you serious? Why should I respect somebody who's bullying me? Am I supposed to know what he's good at and respect him for that? I didn't know anything about the guy who bullied me in school and I'm sure that he didn't know anything about me, other than that I was kind of insecure.
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On October 05 2010 20:28 Cedstick wrote:
God damn this thread is terrible. What moved you to actually create it? Do you actually think CheAse is a more tortured soul than we realize, because you read between the lines and know the hidden truth of every word of his original message? Yea, he IS definitely going to read this and think, "man, THANK YOU, Umpteen, for such wise insight in to my own life. Thank you for reading me like a book, a book I myself could never truly understand."
This man speaks the truth.
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hahahahah man, this thread is so point on, but everyone's gonna come in here and say otherwise. Good job op, you give hope to all the little dumb low post count users who don't think it's possible to post good!
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Great post, makes alot of sense but at the same time I thoroughly enjoyed the 1v2 stomping of the evil, womanizing jocks.
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On October 05 2010 22:10 Scarecrow wrote:
Great post, makes alot of sense but at the same time I thoroughly enjoyed the 1v2 stomping of the evil, womanizing jocks.
Lol, I don't know if they were jocks not sure if it was said or not. If so, those are some pathetic jocks.
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lol @ talking to women = womanizing
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On October 05 2010 19:39 Divinek wrote:
i was quite the bully back in elementary, junior high. I didn't bully people because I was like them, I bullied people because I disliked the way they went about things (ie not showering, acting like a cocky douche bag) and probably because I knew there was nothing they could do about it. Looking back I'm quite lucky I didn't get shot or stabbed. However my friend's and my methods weren't like shove a kid in a locker every day kind of thing or whatever, it was just really extreme stuff occasionally to get a point across.
Looking back on it I don't really feel bad, one of the kids actually thanked me for it and we're friends now lol. The other kids didn't change at all and are mostly the degenerates of society.
So I don't disagree with you that there are alot of bullies that are alot like the people they bully, but this is not some universal generalization you can apply. However if it makes you feel better all the more power to you brother.
I think the real thing to take away from this is to always give people a chance, try to see the best in them if you can because there's alot of good in people out there. Of course if they fuck that up then treat them like the assholes they are because alot of people like to treat others like doormats, but start positive!
yea you did everyone a favor by bullying people 
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I'm pretty sure some bullies bully people because they want to be the alpha male and get all the women and respect. It's not insecurity but rather a desire to be in a dominant social position. Saying that they're just insecure isn't the band-aid explanation to everything. Some bullies are bullies because it gets them respect, sex, power, etc.
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On October 05 2010 20:28 Cedstick wrote:
God damn this thread is terrible. What moved you to actually create it?
The fact I recognised someone stuck in the middle of a situation of which I have the benefit of hindsight. You know, the usual reason 
I wasted a lot of time stewing over what I should have said or done to beat the people who victimised me, without once thinking about how the way I behaved made them feel. Everything they thought made them somebody I either didn't give two shits about, or I thought was outright dumb - and I made no effort whatsoever give them the benefit of the doubt or take an interest. Someone like that is pretty easy to dislike.
I'm not making excuses for abusive behaviour, by the way. I don't think what the people who bullied me did was right. The point is understanding that I was not merely a helpless innocent victim, either.
Do you actually think CheAse is a more tortured soul than we realize, because you read between the lines and know the hidden truth of every word of his original message? Yea, he IS definitely going to read this and think, "man, THANK YOU, Umpteen, for such wise insight in to my own life. Thank you for reading me like a book, a book I myself could never truly understand."
Who said anything about him being a particularly tortured soul, or needing to read between the lines? My whole point is that people are fundamentally the same. And nobody said anything about never, either. Does a person have to be utterly incapable for it to be OK to try and help?
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On October 05 2010 20:35 spitball wrote:
Are you serious? Why should I respect somebody who's bullying me? Am I supposed to know what he's good at and respect him for that? I didn't know anything about the guy who bullied me in school and I'm sure that he didn't know anything about me, other than that I was kind of insecure.
Same here. I didn't know, and I didn't want to know. As soon as I knew a person had different interests to me, they could have dropped off the face of the earth and I wouldn't have given a shit. That's pretty much the point
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On October 05 2010 22:53 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:
I'm pretty sure some bullies bully people because they want to be the alpha male and get all the women and respect. It's not insecurity but rather a desire to be in a dominant social position. Saying that they're just insecure isn't the band-aid explanation to everything. Some bullies are bullies because it gets them respect, sex, power, etc.
What is insecurity if not the persistent fear that one's social position is under threat and must be constantly reinforced? There were alpha-male boys in my school who got all the girls and the respect and never needed to bully anyone to prove anything.
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EPT
