Study Reveals Why "Nerds" Get Bullied

[nohorsetown]

I was bullied relentlessly from grade school up through freshman year of highschool, but I fixed it. Not sayin' that it's the nerd's fault, but at least in my experience, the nerd *can* prevent it.

Half of it was superficial. Over the summer, I cut my hair and got new clothes. Sure, I shouldn't have had to do that, but that's how the world works.

The other half was confidence. Instead of being defensive all the time, I embraced my nerdiness and poked fun at myself. I learned to jump into conversations even if I didn't feel secure. If I came up ignorant on some front, I'd just admit it and plainly ask to be filled in. By my junior year, I was one of the "coolest" kids in highschool, and still unabashedly nerdy in my pursuits/hobbies.

Ya just gotta be comfortable in yr own skin. In retrospect, even the superficial makeover was a good thing. I realized that I was more obsessed with not-fitting-in than the other kids were with fitting-in. Turns out having a reasonably savvy fashion sense is actually kinda fun.

 

[Lullabye]

Funny, I always thought that my near complete ignoring of non verbal social cues affected my ability to make friends rather than my chances of being bullied. Though, I o ignore them on purpose usually, there are times when people give a cue I have no understanding of and am left to feel stupid.......As for bullying itself.....well, i haven't been bullied to bad in recent months. I dunno, I think it more depends on the bully rather than the victim.

 

[purplepixie]

That is utter crap.

I'm a Psychologist, believe me I am better than most at understanding social cues and 'getting' people. Still didn't stop me from having years of mental abuse at the hands of some stupid kids who seemed to think that I was less human than them because I had a different accent and wore glasses.

I'd like to see where they got their stats and how exactly they came up with the 10% as how they measured and coded bullying would really affect the number.

 

[Doug]

Bully's bully because they are naturally born arseholes who I'd love to see get flogged for making the lifes of their fellow classmates worse.

 

[felixader]

Bullshit! Sorry but the only reason that bullying happens is cause so called cool kids are putting down on others to make them self look, better cooler etc.

Kids who are NOT bullys, and god thanks there were some in my schools days, mostly girls (thanks girls you made my life a bit better), are actually caring and trying to get into contact with the new or even as nerdy tagged kid.

One reason for bullying is, simple and plain, cause no one tells those (sorry for those words of hate from my past ^^) fuckers what is wrong and what is rigth.
And lot of those parents were mostly "MY son would NEVER do such a thing!"

And it doesn't helps when teachers suggest if i can't try to get out of there way.
Are you nuts? As if i WANTED to be bullied and beaten up!

That there is isolation and thus problems with learning the signals of social communication is something that FOLLOWS cause of that. Not the other fucking way around!

I mean, that IS BLAMING the bullied person for beeing bullied!

 

[PyroZombie]

The hell is wrong with scientists today?

First Canadians studying what to do in a zombie-apocalypse, coming up with "kill all zombies"

Then that scientists study and figure out that sociopaths play video videogames

now this? I request a new topic, preferably about how the scientific community is wasting funds by studying garbage like this.

 

[Sneaklemming]

meh. Maybe in America. I think that bullying has alot to do with social status.

 

[Lemon Of Life]

What, bullies hurt nerds because they seem weak and vulnerable. Maybe the reason they became nerds is because of their inability to interact socially, but this isn't always the case. Bullying can be spontaneous, because someone holds a grudge or because of jealousy. You can't just say it's because the nerds didn't understand what scowling means.

 

[Therumancer]

Sounds like academic BS trying to find a solution to a long standing problem coming into the limelight more and more after incidents like "Columbine". A solution that hopefully won't involve any sudden, radical changes. Sadly that is impossible.

Like many other attempts this seems like a situation where the nerds are the ones being singled out and yet again told they need to change. Basically the authorities engaging in the same kind of problems as the bullies when you get down to it, albeit in a differant fashion.

The overall issue comes down to dominance. That 10% of people being singled out and picked on exists to validate the other 90% of the school population. Face it, taking pleasure from tormenting someone is a human reaction, especially for children. Everyone realizes this as being wrong, and something that can be controlled *BUT* at the same token nobody wants to take the steps to avoid it.

One of the big issues of course being that in order to correct the problem would require taking action against or seriously controlling the behavior of 90% of the school enviroment. It's easier to try and target the 10%, which is what this study is about. Not to mention the fact that this kind of behavior winds up being encouraged by the authorities especially in certain highly competitive high schools. Being able to torment others is one of the "perks" of being successful. Nobody in a big football school is going to seriously expel or seriously punish the football team, especially when you consider that team probably brings in money and perks for the school via prizes and sponsorship from local businesses and such.

One of the things that makes Columbine and other incidents a big deal, is that they are the results of what is recognized as an increasing problem with more intense bullying as each generation tries to outdo the last. For all the judgements made of the killers, it also points a lot of fingers at the system itself and the entire attitudes involved that generated this level of hate, and disrespect for the authorities which were maintaining the system. People are realizing this (hence studies like this one) but ultimatly trying to beat around the bush in radically changing the school system and enforcement. All principles aside there are lots of schools that doubtlessly resist the idea of being made to expel valuable students based on bullying and other behavior for example. Losing the star quarterback could mean the loss of a potential $50,000 prize donate by businessement, scholorships, and of course unacknowleged kickbacks to the school administration when they find ways to skim the prizes. As odd as it sounds, school can be a BIG business, even public schools.

 

[Mcface]

I've never been bullied..
I play a shit load of video games though.

 

[lwm3398]

Or there's the much more popular, much more sense-making theory:

Some people are dicks. Nerds play games. Games are not excepted. Dicks decide to be dicks.

I also wonder if anyone told this man what the difference is between a "nerd" and "socially un-skilled child".

 

[The Candyman]

This explains why I stopped getting picked on. It might help that I could throw anyone who does halfway across the room, but I feel that my social skills have improved a lot over the course of a couple years. This doesn't mean I'm not a nerd, just means I'm a cool nerd who can talk about things other than the Boomer that fell on me in L4D2.

 

[Snotnarok]

My best friend in most schools was my sketchbook, that being said I was a nerd. People were all assholes in my schools, I'd get bugged by people I never met or knew. I was sitting in the back of a music class (something I wasn't interested in at all) and 5 guys that I never met or spoke to, walked over and started talking trash, lifted my desk and dropped it trying to scare me, I was just trying to bloody draw.

The teacher SOMEHOW didn't notice till I stood up and said "back the fuck up already and leave me alone". I got in trouble, and they didn't.

It wasn't till the end of high school that things went better, turns out I was well known in my school for a lot of things, go figure.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

It's a good theory, but I don't think that it takes into account the people bullied because of race/hobbies/sexuality/friends/music/family...

Incidentally, I probably would have been bullied, since I was always had my nose in a book, but I had the advantage of naturally being bigger than all of the possible bullies.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

What there's really no justification for is automatically assuming something's bad just because it hurts people's feelings :V

No, I'm pretty sure that's bad. That's one of the criteria for determining if something is bad: "Will this cause emotianl damage?"

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I remember people tried to bully me in elementry school because I was friends with a fat kid. I found it funny that the other kids where too stupid to realize that someone who's bigger than you are can generally kick your ass.

 

[ethaninja]

I'd say people get bullied because people are mostly stupid as well as assholes. I kinda feel like news at 11 on this article. There isn't a justification for bullying.

There really isn't. Bullys can become such because of the most common cause being bad parenting, and others. But it still gives them no right to take their problems out on to others.

 

[GeekFury]

I know damn well why I was bullied in High School, I was in a school full of chavs as one of the few smart people, I as in high school six foot ( Now a few inches taller. ),I have red hair wich has always been longer than the chav regulated skin head, wore dark clothes and listened to anything but rap about bitches and ho's. I was singled out for being diffrent not for being unable to read social signs. All those Escapists for the UK can rest assured though that most the bullies you had in high school are either in bad jobs or locked up in jail, justice is served!