Cyberbullying, huh? It seems as if the father is just looking for a way to blame the internet for this, perhaps due to past cyberbullying? Ah, the troublesome circle of cyberbullying.

I think that kid was pretty unstable, as were his parents. They must have noticed something was wrong. And furthermore, if this kid suffered bullying at school as well...what the fuck are the teachers doing. Granted, most teachers handle bullying well, but there's a select few who do nothing.

Bullying sucks (never happened/happens to me, though). I hope this kid's life story has given all of those people around him a bit of a "wake-up call". Yes, he seemed a bit unstable mentally but you can't really blame him for that i.e. you can't really blame him for his own death.

I think the big issue is this: Children need to stop fucking bullying.


This archaic form of arrogance and childish-ness needs to end. These schools need to push up the 'Zero Tolerance' rule to almost nuclear-like levels. To let these kids that do bully think that they are BETTER than another kid is appalling. Quite frankly the "kids will be kids" line is old, and if kids are like that then, well it needs to stop at an early age immeadiately, before it becomes a problem.

I'm not advocating what this father is doing, my real point is all forms of bullying needs to end, and the school and the parents need to ride these children who bully and teach them "You're not more special than that kid over there" Put those children in their place is what I say, instead of shrugging it off as 'adolescant behavior'. It's those kinds of kids who push on the little people, that become powerful fatcats who control the little people, and keep pushing them around even when their adults.


I'm sorry i'm sounding like i'm ranting or whatever, but the bullying stuff in every grade of school is really just something that needs to die off. We need to teach kids how to be fuckin' humble and learn to be equal...not be fuckin' arrogant and shit.

I like how so many of us, with our comfortable lives (and being older and more experienced this this 13 year old) forget so easily what it was like to be that age. How much smaller your world seemed and how some us being tormented by bullies felt that was all there was to life. Imagine finding an escape on the internet from all this drama and shit directed at you just to find the same harassment online. Can you imagine what it owuld feel like to think you have the entire world closing in on you?

And fuck you and your "keep your chin up" spin. People that get bullied either grow up to be meek and timid or they're fucking pissed off all the time and will flip out on a person from time to time. Can you imagine what it would be like to be always angry like a shark that can't sleep because he'll sink?

But those two were already fucking crazy to begin with. They planned their massacre months ahead of time. Bullying was one of the factors that fueled their hate towards the world.

I know he couldn't dodge them on MySpace, but why didn't he just keep messenger names that his peers couldn't know? It seems like cyber-bullying wouldn't be very hard to avoid that way. Still, I feel sorry for the kid. Having to deal with that at school all day is bad enough without coming home to find the same people making your online life hell too.

That's a great thought, but ridiculous in execution. When I was in 8th grade, my last year of middle school, our principal was fired and there was a power grab between the three assistant principals. They took the zero tolerance policy to the extreme. You could turn another student in for making a veiled threat, ie saying "I'm gonna kill you for that" out of frustration, and it was likely they'd get in-school suspension. It didn't even have to be that much. A little teasing that even the teased person didn't care about? Suspension if certain teachers overheard it.

The result wasn't any sort of drop in fighting and bullying, it was just an increase in people suspended. If anything, bullying increased. The phrase "zero tolerance" became a complete joke to both students and any of the teachers that payed attention, and that only caused more problems in high school when the principal saying "We have a zero tolerance for violence or the threat of violence," received nothing but laughter every morning. If anything, it caused more people who were usually compliant to scoff at the administration.

Parents are the real source, and unfortunately there's only so much the government can do about bad parenting. Even if most people raise good kids, they can still learn the bullying behavior from from the others.

I don't recall the article mentioning how long this bullying (cyber or in school) was going on, but it likely became something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. What the article doesn't mention is the language that was used by the bullies. It's one thing to be called a fag and that's that. It's another thing -- and this is something that 13 year olds don't truly understand yet -- to use the full power of words.

"Hey man, you're a fag and you should die." That's the kind of shit that'll make someone commit suicide. Hear that enough times, and kids going through that time in their lives will start to believe it. Also regarding the power of words and language, the Internet seems to be a far greater tool for retaining negative stimuli as opposed to the actual spoken word.

That old adage "get it in writing" applies nicely. To request something in writing means to have it permenantly engraved as fact. You write up a contract, those conditions are for all intents and purposes categorized into a "do it" or "don't do it" dichotomy. In the boy's case, having to see these words repeatedly (lest he closed the chat windows, but then they'd obviously just pop back up) reinforced what may have been written. In the most extreme case, which may very well be true, "fags should die" was probably the one recurring thought he could never banish.

Whether or not he was actually gay made little difference. It goes back to the self-fulfilling prophecy and the labeling theory. He was labeled as a fag for whatever reason, and after enough repetition from his classmates he began to believe it. Step one. His classmates, ignorant to how strong their words can be to someone who's insecure and already broken in, continually hound him with "fags should die" or something akin to that. Step two. The last step is simple and sequential -- he was labeled, reinforced, self-fulfilled and executed. The fag died.

As for what should be done? What can be done, really? When Jack Thompson hears about this, he'll be all over Rockstar's Bully saying that it caused the behavior of these children and made poor Ryan Halligan kill himself.

The article is correct about a couple things, namely the topic about norms. You can't really legislate these kinds of norms -- norms of politeness, courtesy, and nonjudgment. You certainly can't legislate them over the anonymous sector known as the Internet.

Fixed.

Bullshit. If some guy punches me in the face at school, I'm gonna feel a hell of a lot worse than if some dude calls me a "faggit lolz" on MySpace. It would be more accurate if it simply said depressed emo teenagers shouldn't kill themselves because they can't deal with being made fun of.

Edit: Also, for anyone who uses the defense "they wouldn't leave him alone" or something to that effect, that's also bullshit. Any kid who spends enough time on the internet that he kills himself due to the sheer amount of times he's been called a fag, sure as hell has a grasp on common technology and can close a window and block a contact here and there.

Really? How about a few examples?

http://www.bullyonline.org/schoolbully/cases.htm

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...28/ai_17382263

I don't get it, Shiny. Do you think that just because you can close a chat window you can end all insults coming at you on a daily routine?

In fact, it seems kinda backwards to say that. I'm calling bullshit to your argument entirely. For one, physical pain can be overcome. No big deal, right? Get a black eye? Just wait a few days and it'll be good as new. Broke a leg? S'cool, just get a cast and you'll be fine.

What seems to be misunderstood is the whole "fag" issue. Regardless of what the bullies called him, the kid was still being hit multiple times on a near-daily basis with negative reinforcement. If you go in to school and everyday someone punches you in the arm, you'll eventually not feel it anymore. Doesn't work the same way with verbal insults, at least not for all teenagers. Some have emotional wells that run infinitely deep, but hear this -- they're in the minority.

I don't know how well this example'll work, but here goes. When I was 13, which was 11 years ago, my parents divorced and my mom and I moved from the north part of the U.S. to the southern part. I started 6th grade in a brand new part of the nation (to me) with brand new people in an environment I was wholly unfamiliar with.

For me, 6th sucked ass. I was constantly hounded about being from the North, so much so that the mere location of my birth became an object for insulting me and it wasn't very fun. Granted, I didn't threaten to nor kill myself, but still the fact remains that for no other reason besides my place of birth, I was made fun of immensely. To the same degree, I think they were jealous because I still had all my teeth intact, and still do. Ftw.

Times have changed dramatically. Boys, especially teenage ones, don't have the same size emotional well as teenage boys did back in the 70s or 80s, or hell even early 90s. Whether or not this kid was in fact homosexual is not the issue -- reinforcing a negative stereotype on someone is damaging.

Okay, let me try to make my point a little clearer. From what I read of the article, the kid killed himself because bullies from school were calling him names on the internet. So, he was called names on the internet as well as at school. Next...

Touche. However: Have you ever broken your leg? It's less of a "Throw a cast on the bitch and it'll be fine" and more of a "Holy fuck my bone just cracked this is the worst pain of my life". Also, emotional pain can be overcome as well. Maybe not as quickly or as healthily as physical pain, but I know that there are some things in my life I thought I'd never get over and I did. It may have taken a couple of years but depression is something that can be worked out of, if you've got the willpower and strength to pick yourself up and move on. This kid obviously did not posses that willpower.

I realize that everyone is different and we all have our own tolerance levels to certain things, but please don't try to seriously back a kid who killed himself because people were making fun of him. He obviously needed help and wasn't getting enough attention. It's obvious this "e-bullying" was going on for some time, unless somebody wants to tell me next that he killed himself after a week, which at this point wouldn't entirely surprise me.

Well it seems like you and I have been through much of the same. There's a town slightly smaller than the one I live in, about 9 miles south of here called Mendocino. I went to the same district of schools my entire life, Fort Bragg Unified. Born and raised here. The kids from Fort Bragg and the kids from Mendo don't particularly like each other, and while it's not quite the same as dealing with it at school every day, living that close can change that quickly. It was not uncommon in grade school to be walking down the street and be called a "Fort Fag" and have something thrown at you, be flipped the bird, or, in the absolute worst of situations, get a full on shot of somebody's ass hanging out the window. And yes we'd get irritated, and yes, our feelings would be hurt; but we would not kill ourselves over it.

The point I'm trying to make is, no matter which way you slice it, bottom line is this kid killed himself because he was being bullied. Whether he was being bullied a little or a lot is irrelevant. Being bullied is a big part of growing up and so is learning to deal with it. Apparently some people just weren't equipped to handle it.


Anyways, it's 3:30AM and I am extremely tired. I hope I got my point across without sounding like too much of a douchebag.

Hasn't anyone here ever heard of the phrase "mental cruelty?"

In divorce filings, mental as well as physical cruelty can be listed as reasons for divorce--since it's a form of abuse.

If this happened to a woman and she killed herself because she wanted to end the pain of the abuse her husband was causing her, we'd say--"She should have killed him. It would have been justified."

Sorry, folks, when you suffer repeated mental abuse, your self-esteem goes out the window and you do the only thing that makes sense to you. To end the pain, you remove the source--yourself.

Just because I also found the "cyberbullying worse than physical bullying" part to be hilarious, I have to disagree with this. Just because it's physical, that doesn't mean that there's no psychological damage. If it hurts and was done ON PURPOSE, there's likely going to be a fear of it happening again. Even abused dogs who go to better homes may still cower in fear if someone just raises a hand, it's not something that's easily forgotten.

I don't happen to find one or the other to be worse (though I probably lean more towards physical since, y'know, people can be killed and stuff). Bullying freaking sucks, and if they can't control the physical/verbal bullying, I highly doubt they'll be able to control this cyberbullying.

The main problem here is that the kid did not know how to deal, nor could he find a method to escape, which shouldn't be that hard to do on the internet IMHO. It's a pity, but what can one do if the kid wouldn't talk about it? And I do agree that that's the age where (most) kids don't want to bring up this stuff with adults. Eh, it could be a number of reasons.

It should be a part of growing up and learning how to deal with the world, but it doesn't work out that way with everyone. It's sad for those of us who made it past that and onto better things because we know there are better ways to handle it. It's really frustrating to hear when someone else can't.

This is definitely something that the parents should take more interest in for their children's sake, and talk to their kids about it. Like they do about drugs and sex. As if bullying ONLY happens at school. Pfft. I really don't think it's the school's fault.

Bullying Physically and Bullying on the internet are COMPLETELY different. Physical Bullying can only go so far, but come on, if you get agitated easily over bullying online through IM or MySpace, you already have problems to begin with. First of all, you're taking the world online WAY too seriously. What

Sounds like the kid took it into his own hands anyway since nobody else seemed to be aware. The most logical thing to do would be to talk to somebody about it. I assume this kid had some friends or something. Talk to them, parents, teachers, counselors, whatever. I'm sure it would have avoided suicide.

Yeah... I'm not gonna say that cyberbullying and physical bullying are the same, it's just... hard to say which is worse. It really depends on the individual.

For me I'd personally find physical abuse to be worse, because I've learned not to care about what some asshat says to me. But I can easily see where it can be the other way around, especially if all one wants is acceptance.

Logic... if only more people had some of that. Lawl.

I just want to say that if I got a lot of shit IRL from people and then came to, for example, Gamingforce just to have some more shit happen it would get to me. Me, personally now, I'd just leave if it was that bad and not take it too much to heart. But I can't expect everyone, especially a 13 year old, to think like me and it does become more of an issue then just "leave the places they are bothering you at or change your name." At some point people in those positions begin to question why the fuck it is they have to be the one to get fucked with so much and they either do nothing, they kill themselves because maybe the world is right and the world doesn't need them, or they lash out.

I've said this more than once: yes, bullying makes things harder for kids. Most kids get bullied at some point in their lives, and VERY few kids known to be bullied kill themselves. My point, again, is that bullying is not the sole reason for their suicide. It is absolutely a problem, but if a child is mentally unstable enough to commit suicide then it is not their biggest problem.

Every kid gets bullied, and every kid needs a support system (their family) to help them deal with that. The children that kill themselves either lack that support system or have some serious mental health problems that go unnoticed or untreated.

ô_ô

No, I think that's the whole point, here. He felt like nothing he did made a difference in how people were going to treat him. Otherwise he wouldn't have committed suicide. Obviously I can't tell you why he wasn't able to get away from them online, but it seems clear that he wasn't. His body in his grave is proof positive.

If someone calls you a failure/fag/etc occasionally during your developmental years, you might shrug it off. If someone (or in this case, many people) do it constantly, it starts to seep in where it might not have bothered you before.

Bottom line: I don't think any one of us takes suicide lightly under normal conditions. It's much easier to underestimate him in this case than to question why he might have thought it necessary to end his whole existence.

I hate when some jerk gets new screen names just to see if anyone blocked them.

Maybe this poor kid tried changing his screen name, but had crappy friends who ratted him out? Who knows, it's possible. Sometimes people who you think you can trust have no respect for privacy.

That may be so, but still, to contemplate suicide because of it is definitely not natural. Maybe I too, don't understand the degree to which this kid was harassed and bullied, but still, suicide is not a common solution among 13-year olds. There was certainly something else that also contributed. Most kids by this time have usually fit into a group of friends somewhere at school, which, personally, for me, was refuge from wherever bullies may have struck. And if nothing else, the parents should have been there or, if it struck at school, the staff surely would have done something about it.

This is assuming that the kid had the courage to talk to somebody about his problem. Now if he didn't, then I don't know. I also have to wonder how long he put up with the shit thrown at him already before he finally snapped.

As for being secure in my identity at a young age, I'll admit I wasn't, but I was still able to shrug off verbal punishment thrown my way by bullies. If you just ignore them, bullies lose interest and find another victim. To be bullied for an extended period of time means they got a kick out of it and continue to do it, which usually boils down to the kid attempting to argue with the bully.

Whether or not that's played a part in my current state of introversion, I don't know, but still, bullies bully others because they find enjoyment in doing it, or they're getting something out of it.

I was talking about the general idea of internet bullying; I did read the article otherwise I wouldn'tve bothered making a post. Also, I'm talking as someone who has never had any experience of cyber bullying. No one every specified what it is.

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Kids are weak these days. And it just seems to get worse and worse. Even though back in the day it wasn't any better, kids wouldn't commit suicide but rather grow up to become serial killers or rapists.

I hate going into the suicide argument because people always say "It's depression! He was unstable and he had no choice. Family problems, bullying, personal problems. It's a chemical unbalance, it wasn't his fault!" Fuck you with your bi-polar bullshit, that's no excuse. I've been through all of that and back, I'm not 6 feet under am I? I'm just afraid for the next generation of children because suicide rates seem to be soaring, not only in America and not only due to bullying, but all over the world. It seems to be the "new escape".

And bullying doesn't only happen in elementary school. It happens constantly and kids need to learn to deal with it properly. What good does it do to make it against the law in school? It's just sheltering kids from the real world and what will happen when they get bullied when they're adults? Walk into work with a sawed-off? Or "oh no!" maybe he'll commit suicide later when he has a family.

Right, because we need more serial killers and rapists in our society!

You do not possess the authority to speak for another person's emotions; your triumph over your own emotional issues does not permit you to show disdain for those who are, for whatever reason, unable to do the same. In the boy's mind, that "bi-polar bullshit" was sufficient cause to kill himself. Again, one cannot know or explain the emotions of another unless it becomes possible to become a perfect copy of that person.

I agree that children need to learn to cope with bullying after a certain point, but I fear that you are overlooking the age of the student in this case: this could've been the result of bullying over all of his past education--"something's gotta' give" eventually: one can only ignore something like that for so long at the age of thirteen. Does that mean that I feel suicide is justified? No, but the "suck it up" argument does not work.
Furthermore, plenty of people that have "walked into work with a sawed-off." For the third time, you cannot control the emotions of others.