You're a douche ass-hat!

Originally Posted by Sassafrass

And yea, these are kids. But name-calling (be it on the internet, in the classroom, on the schoolyard or on the bus) should not be taken as seriously as some kids take it.

Used to be if someone started shit with you, you'd just pop them in the eye, and then they'd leave you alone.

But kids aren't allowed to do that anymore. It's grounds for being expelled now. Which makes verbal abuse all the more tantalizing to a bully, and efficient as a form of ostracizing someone.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Interrobang

What exactly do you want us to say? Generic denouncement of bullies? Sympathy for someone who commits suicide over something that's ultimately trivial?

Are we supposed to all parrot out your opinion or what?

I don't think it was ultimately trivial, or he wouldn't have committed suicide to deal with it. There's a reason he was affected by this, and I don't think "Different strokes for different folks" covers it.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by starslight

Nobody kills themselves to escape bullying, whether at school or on the computer. This kid did not kill himself because some assholes he knew were calling him gay. There is undoubtedly much more going on with this kid, just like there was with the kids who shot up their schools.

I'm not saying that bullying doesn't make things worse, but anyone who kills his or herself, or someone else for that matter, is dealing with bigger problems.

Junior high and high school seems like the world when you're at that age. You can try to make an argument that he should have been able to cope with it better (for whatever reason), but I don't think you can make the argument that it wasn't important to him, unless he was just grossly maladjusted to begin with.

Suicide is a way of dealing with situations in which people think there's no way out. If the only consistent locations in your life are home and school, and one of them is hostile, well...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by starslight

My point was that he didn't kill himself solely because of bullying, as people who accuse him of "emoness" or whatever ridiculous shit are suggesting. No one who actually goes through with suicide does so because they got dumped or because someone made fun of them.

I'd like to think that everyone can take things in their proper context, and never become emotionally distraught over relatively small stuff, but the point I was trying to make was that it's possible for people to crash when all the small stuff adds up to seem overwhelming.

Quote:

This whole "kill yourself, emo kid" thing is a load of bullshit that gives people an excuse to trivialize suicide.

Agreed, though.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Shiny McShine

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.

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 was speaking idiomatically.