Change the Image of Bullies? | A More Aggressive Campaign Needs To be Tried to Stop Bullying (Bully the Bullies).

I fully admit that I may make a jackass out of myself with this Hub, but I believe my ideas are at least worth talking or writing about. Furthermore, I want to add the caveat that this Hub was originally supposed to be a blog entry, but I became so frustrated with the blogging program that I made it a Hub instead.

In any event, I have a young niece, and she is precious. I will not give out her name, in order to protect the innocent, and the picture provided in this blog is not her. Nevertheless, the girl in the image is pretty close to her age and almost adorable as my niece is. Unfortunately, she has been having problems lately, and she has been staying inside more. The result is she has gained weight and became “fat”. Recently, she went outside to play and three older girls beat her up because she is fat. They actually hit her hard enough to draw blood and leave bruises.

I know that there is a lot of anti bullying information and stories out there, and you are probably tired of hearing or reading about problem. The dilemma is that the current anti-bullying campaigns do not seem to be very affective. I propose that the only way to get a handle on bullying is to make bullying uncool. There have been some precedents for the kind of campaign(s) that I am proposing.

The KKK was much more popular in the past than they are today. In fact, not to long ago it was popular to make prejudice jokes and to have prejudice television programming (I know that both still exist today to a much lesser extent). I also realize that some people might claim that it was education that turned the tide against prejudice (and they would be partly correct); however, I would also contend that it became uncool to be prejudice in American culture. Hollywood began to change their messages about minorities and the American people responded. Prejudice people were presented as uneducated or hillbillies. That is why, at least that is what I contend, that is why the KKK and being prejudice is unpopular today (and rightfully so). I would like to reiterate, before moving on, that I know that prejudice- against all kinds of people- is still alive and well today.

Negative political ads are effective even though the average American despises them. In fact, many political careers have been made or broken because of negative ads. Currently many anti-bullying activist are trying to make standing up for someone who is being bullied cool, but it is very hard for kids to stand up to bullies. So, why not make bullies look weak, not so smart, and backwards or something as equally unappealing?

I can already hear some people saying or writing, are you proposing bullying, bullies? Don’t you realize that some bullies are bullied themselves? The answer to both questions is yes. As citizens, we are bullied into correct behavior all the time. We have to give out lunch money to the government, in the form of taxes or fines, or they punish us. Furthermore, if whatever law that is broken causes one to go to jail or prison…the punishment can be very physical (even if it was not intended to be so). Oh, the point about bullies being bullied themselves is somewhat valid but it happens a lot less often then you think (some studies say as low as 6%). By the way, kids are not the only citizens who are tricked out of one of their best defenses, because it is not cool, which is snitching

It blows my mind that criminal elements, and some of the rappers who support them, in our society have made it uncool to snitch on people. The only real defense that we have as citizens- against criminals- is to snitch. Most of us do not want to take the law into our own hands, or we do not have the muscle, guns, or numbers to do so.

In closing, I believe that making it cool to help someone who is being picked on is a good idea, but making it uncool to pick on someone is infinitely more effective. I also know that my ideas would need to be really thought through and fleshed out in order to really make a difference (but it is a start). As an aside, everything I have stated in this blog is a matter of opinion; I cannot rightfully say that any part of psychology supports my contentions.