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The next Star Wars movie will be influenced by this... (1 Viewer)

MikeAlletto

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Do you just keep telling your kid to keep on taking it and hope that he doesn't commit suicide?
Its called talking to your children. Being there when they come home from school and not letting the tv be their babysitters. Its called spending time with them on the weekends when you don't have to work. Its called helping them with their homework, meeting their friends, basically being involved in their life. I was picked on A TON in school. I was always the smallest kid and the quietest kid, but also a smart kid. I got shoved, name called, everything...you name it. I learned to stand up for myself and the bullying stopped.

I get tired of parents and kids today whining about schools being too hard and kids being too mean. Nothing has changed. The kids and schools are just as hard today as they were when I was in school and when my parents were in school and when their parents were in school. Until this kid and his parents learn to stand up for themselves (and that doesn't mean sueing everyone who is mean to you) those 'dregs of society' kids aren't going to leave him alone. And you know what? They shouldn't leave him alone. The bullies are just as important to this kids development as his parents are.
 

Chris PC

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Here's a thought. I would plea bargain with the people responsible and have them film themselves acting out an almost identical, or similarly amussing bit of footage and have them put that tape on the internet. Trouble is, the part about having something you did get put on the internet "without you knowing" could not be dupliated as part of the payback. Thats what makes it funny in a sick way. That is why the kid has a case to sue the people. It would be rather difficult to live something like that down when teenagers are so superficial and judgemental of their peers. Hard to say what he and his family should do.

I disagree with your view of the bullies. You cannot legitamize or justify their treatment of people and their behaviour by saying its a part of life. When faced with bullies, you are wise to realize that they are part of life, but there is a fine line between teasing and assault. Nobody should have to put up with personal harm in any way, and just because they aren't well equipped to avoid being picked on, or unable to physically fight back, as these kids are often hurt physically, that doesn't mean its ok. Your comment "They shouldn't leave him alone" is totally nonesense. Bullying is wrong at every level and it makes no sense to condone it.

I wonder if I'm part of the problem as I view these videos. Maybe I shouldn't get such a kick out of it. Its not exactly something I'd want to have happen to me, and the main thing is that he didn't do it to himself, someone did it to him.
 

D. Scott MacDonald

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And you know what? They shouldn't leave him alone. The bullies are just as important to this kids development as his parents are.
So you really are advocting bullying. Why did you hide behind your "dark humor" comment in your previous post? Why do you think that anybody that CAN bully somebody have the automatic RESPONSIBILITY to do so? How are YOUR kids going to grow up?
 

Brian Lawrence

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So in other words I should censor my OPINIONS because they may not be popular? Sorry, homey don't play that.
:rolleyes

That fact is that you have already labeled this kid a brat, stated "This little punk needs a good schoolyard whooping to smack him back into reality. " "This kid has no common sense." "Oh and yes, giving this brat a proper whooping is justified because obviously this kid and his parents need a wake up call."

How on earth you can reach these conclusions based on those factoids you posted is anything but clearcut. We are only seeing the very surface layer of this, yet never less you have made rather bold statements with little concern for there accuracy.
 

David Williams

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From the story linked to in a previous post:

The Razas are now seeking $225,000 in damages from the parents of four teenagers: Michaël Caron, François Labarre, Jérôme Laflamme and Jean-Michel Rheault.

They say the four stole the video from a school filing cabinet where Ghyslain had stored a video camera he was using for a student project.

The lawsuit says the four young men then digitized the video before sending it out on the Internet in April, with messages inviting people to make insulting remarks about it.

The statement of claim includes lengthy excerpts that it says come from Internet chats in May between the pranksters.

Complete with misspellings, bad grammar and cyber-style acronyms, the exchanges are used in the statement of claim as evidence that the boys lacked remorse. They also brag in them that they evaded attempts by school officials to find the culprits behind Ghyslain's misfortunes.


and

In the excerpts from Internet chats filed in court, the four appear to be plotting ways to get the gifts sent to another address so they can keep the iPod for themselves.

I think there is a certain limit of what would constitute normal bullying, and it would seem clear that these teenagers have crossed it. They didn't just publish this video for the school's amusement, anyone across the globe with internet access can see Ghyslain's awkwardness. Is 225,000 CDN too much of a consequence? That will be for the court to decide, but these boys desperately need to be punished. I can only imagine what these little monsters will be like as adults.

I only hope that that this poor kid isn't permanently mentally-affected by this incident. It sounds pretty bad, though, in the newspaper article.
 

Jacinto

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My parents tought me this when I was young, and it seems ever more appropriate in today's internet society:

"Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly." -Thomas Jefferson


Maybe the kid should sue his parents for not teaching him that...
 

D. Scott MacDonald

Supporting Actor
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The above quote means that your public face should mirror your private face. It doesn't mean that you should never use the rest room because, after all, the whole world might be watching.

Should I follow you around trying to get a picture of you picking your nose, and mail the picture to all of your friends co-workers? I think this is different than Jefferson's intention.

And I again want to point out that the kid did nothing wrong. When viewed out of context, it can be embarrassing, but no different than me catching you picking your nose.
 

MikeAlletto

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I only hope that that this poor kid isn't permanently mentally-affected by this incident.
If this kid is permanently effected by this little incident, thats it. If this small thing is enough to push him over the line then he will be in institutions the rest of his life. Because this is NOTHING, he's making it worse than it is.

Unfortunately from the comments of some people here they are just as bad as his parents. They want to coddle this kid and protect him from everything that is wrong in the world. Well as soon as this kid learns that the world is not all made up of puppy dogs and rainbows the sooner this kid will grow up. He's 15? He can almost drive and he should be standing up for himself and making decisions for himself already. He is behind the curve and his parents aren't helping matters any.
 

Ricardo C

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Mike, I see plenty of psychological scarring in your children's future, and it won't be at the hand of schoolyard bullies. Something tells me you'll do quite a good job of providing it yourself :thumbsdown:
 

Brian Lawrence

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Thats why parenting is a tough gig. The good parents will bring up kids that are well adjusted. The bad parents produce kids like this.
Please explain then why some parents have a kid that is good and a kid that is bad. I'm sorry but in real life things are not that black and white.


Mike, you really have no knowledge of what degree of bullying (if any) this kid went through, You do not know how mild or nasty it may have been. You don't know how many or how few people are involved. You don't know how the school and parents may have tried handling the situation prior to this. In short , you only have threadbare facts that leave an awful lot of space to be filled in. Yet you seem hellbent on declaring this kid to be in need of punishment. You make a statement that bullying is not against the law yet present us with a double standard in which this kid and his parents deserve a whooping for something that is also NOT against the law.

I really don't get why you seem to have a problem with the fact that these people are dealing with the situation in a court of law.
 

Ricardo C

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Speaking of making broad generalizations based on uninformed opinions, That is no better Ricardo.
Hasn't Mike given us plenty of insight into his idea of how a "good" parent should raise his/her offspring, and how a "well-adjusted" child should handle abuse? I don't think I'm making a terribly big leap here. At the very least, I'm not playing "blame the victim".
 

Morgan Jolley

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Honestly, I do feel bad for this kid. I'm not trying to be mean when I say this, but I really wish he and his parents had a better sense of humor about this. I know a kid who is openly overweight and he's funny as hell because he does stuff like in this video all the time for the laughs. If this kid took advantage of his minor celebrity status (he was on Fox News at one point) then he could really hit it big and probably do something with this.
 

Gary->dee

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Wow this kid sure is controversial! I think MTV should put him on their next awards show as a cameo. Have him do his patented moves.
 

Ricardo C

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I know a kid who is openly overweight and he's funny as hell because he does stuff like in this video all the time for the laughs.
Why should he poke fun at himself for the amusement of the kids who would otherwise bully him?

I was overweight as a kid, and there was nothing I would have enjoyed more than being left the fuck alone. I didn't want to be liked, or appreciated, just left alone. I had only contempt for those kids, for the way they treated anyone they didn't consider one of them (and now that I've seen what kind of adults they are, I've found that my instincts were correct back then), so I wanted nothing to do with them. Apparently, even that was asking for too much.

What lesson did I learn? Puberty can be very kind to you, and schoolyard bullies will move on to more helpless targets (as was the case with me), or you'll remain fat and short, and the torture won't end till you're out of college and have moved on to a more or less civilized social situation (as was the case with my best friend). Playing the "funny fat guy" role in a group can feel a thousand times worse than simply being mocked by others.
 

Rob Gillespie

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It's really sad that the kid has been affected so much by this. I hope he ends up OK.

If he was being bulled at school then the school should have taken care of it - end of story. Any school that doesn't is irresponsible and incompetent.

BUT.

That Starwarskid2 video (with the lightsaber and Drunken Jedi Master title) is hysterical. The original one is just some kid messing about but the revamped one had me in fits of laughter. Very nicely done.

Kind of makes me wonder though - who's the more geekish? The geek with the fake lightsaber or the geek or turns it into a real one?
 

Holadem

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
but it's a pretty hard thing to pull off when you have the maturing of a 15 year old and no self esteem.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Thats why parenting is a tough gig. The good parents will bring up kids that are well adjusted. The bad parents produce kids like this.
Mike, I was agreeing with you (and about the whole PC thing in general) until that tremendously ridiculous thing you wrote above. Low self esteem and puberty pretty much go hand in hand. There are a lot more people outside of the in-crowd than inside.

However, if anything should tell me that these aren't very good parents after all, it's the fact that they are sueing. This is sending the kid a message that will affect his behavior for the rest of his life.

--
Holadem
 

Jed M

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If this small thing is enough to push him over the line then he will be in institutions the rest of his life. Because this is NOTHING, he's making it worse than it is.
LOL, yeah, having worldwide attention is NOTHING compared to the real world, huh? How many times in your "real world" have you been humiliated by over a million people around the globe. Internet Celebrity? Sure, but that usually is not a great thing, just ask Kobe Bryant's accuser. Or instead of whining, should she just play this off and laugh about it. These victims just need to roll over so we can have a good time at their expense. Worldwide humiliation happens all the time in the "real world".:rolleyes:

I am in no way comparing this to rape, just trying to show that being posted all over the internet is not a good thing for most people. What you consider NOTHING I am sure you are basing that on assumption. I bet you have never come close to this kind of scrutiny in your life, but its easy for you to stand on your soap box hiding behind a "level headed adult" persona and claim its no big deal or just a "small thing".
 

Max Leung

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Note on bullying:

I was the skinny, short, and the only visible minority kid in a school full of white kids. I was bullied and picked on of course. It all stopped when I flew into a rage in grade 5 and tried to kill any kid that I could get my hands on. Unfortunately I was too short to catch any, but all of them left me alone after that. The bullies saw the red in my eyes, and knew that I would stop at nothing to get them. The bullying completely stopped. I was never bullied again for the rest of my life -- once you've stood up for yourself, the would-be bullies can smell it and will forever leave you alone. Of course, YMMV.

Doing nothing and just "taking it" is a useless tactic on the playground. Taking revenge behind their backs, a la Revenge of the Nerds style, is also useless because the bullies will not associate their punishment with the crime (like punishing a dog that pooped all over the carpet a week later is useless...because the dog doesn't know why it was punished).

As an adult, you don't need to play these schoolyard games, because you have the law to back you up. In older, more violent times, you would challenge someone to a duel to resolve any adulthood bullying. Nowadays, you sue someone.

Another comment about parents and raising kids:

Peers appear have more to do with your upbringing than your parents -- at least according to the latest scientific evidence. In short, you don't have as much influence on your kids than you think, if your kid spends a lot of time socializing on the playground. However, if you never have the kid out of your sight, and micromange him, then you're diminishing his chances of being accepted on the playground -- but you'll have plenty of influence on the kid's (screwed up) playground life.

If you would like a complete bibliography just PM me...

Disclaimer: My study of human behavior is a hobby of mine -- I try to ensure all scientific references I make have been peer-reviewed and from reliable sources, but just remember that science is about changing your mind through evidence, so new evidence could come to light at any time that overturns the current thought.
 

Dick

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This is a fascinating thread which includes issues of parenting, peer pressure and peer abuse, teenage resilience... But, Mike, I guess my comment would be that, if SWK is suffering due to the elaborate and mean-spirited "pranks" of four peers, they should face consequences. Part of the good parent child-rearing you dwell on requires that kids be accountable for stupid decisions and thoughtless behavior, otherwise they will becomes sociopathic to a lesser or greater degree as they've not been taught to empathize, and that their actions affect others emotionally. You have clearly taken sides in this matter against the victim and with the perpetrators, in the name of "Boys will be boys" and "Kids need to learn to take the abuse." You advocate that it's okay for the victim to suffer, but that punishing the kids (and their parents) who posted the video is not appropriate. But why should anyone sit still for abuse? That lets the perps off the hook so they can continue on their merry way toward worse behavior down the road, while looking forward to little or no opposition to their cruelty. It is evident these kids were truly trying to make SWK'S life miserable, and did. Now they must pay a price. Perhaps they should all be sentenced to a year of community service, working with peers who have learning disabilities or physical handicaps. Something that will instill in them the concept of empathy and that all actions have reactions and therefore consequences. Just an observation.
 

andrew markworthy

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When I first saw the video a few months ago, I thought it looked funny, but this situation has gone way out of control. I've had a change of heart, and now I think I'll defend this guy.

Okay, the guy in the video is not the most athletic I've ever seen, but I'd sooner have the world populated with folks like him who are at least trying to be creative (regardless of how successful they are at this) than folks who sit round sneering at anything not in their little clique or mindset.

The treatment this kid has received is stupidly out of hand, IMHO. I think asking an adult to be brave about this would be asking a lot, but a teenager ... sheesh! Before we get any more advice about how he should just face up to this, just stop and *think*. This isn't just facing a few kids at school, it's a worldwide community. I seriously doubt if anyone on this forum would stand up to this pressure without feeling adverse effects.

In short, why don't you guys try a little *sympathy*?
 

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