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So, let’s talk about something no one else on the internet is talking about: bullying.
Psych. I am actually internet-savvy enough to realize what a hot topic of conversation of bullying has become in internet-land. Makes me really happy, actually. This was a subject that was not discussed often when I was in growing up, and one of the best parts of the social media explosion over the last twenty years is the awareness people have this issue. Now we have viral videos by people like Wil Wheaton on the topic (BTW, he said all that in Denver…all the best stuff happens in Colorado, you know), and the It Gets Better project, and blogs from authors like Cody Kennedy and his young reader, Timmy, on the subject. Cheers to talking about things rather than slipping them under the rug. In fact, this subject is so much a part of internet-land these days that I wasn’t that surprised when The Onion got in on the act recently and published “Parents Surprised Cruel Daughter Hasn’t Pushed Classmate to Breaking Point Yet.” Okay—I’m sure at least half a million people were disgusted by this article. I could practically hear the haughty response coming through my computer monitor as I read. How dare they satirize something as serious as bullying? I usually like The Onion, but they went waaay too far here. Wait, are they saying that parents aren’t responsible for their kids’ behavior? What are these writers trying to imply? For me, though, the article highlighted something that’s become a concern for me lately: that with all this important discussion and awareness of bullying, our society is turning bullying into a single story. Or actually, a few single stories. The concept of the single story was first introduced by Chimamanda Adichie, who talks about it in a Ted Talk you can see here. Basically, the concept of the single story is this: when you assign only one vision to what something or someone can be, you simplify it or them down to parts that are so basic that you miss the important and nuanced pieces of it/them. Essentially, it’s stereotyping at its most dangerous. The students I teach live in a version of the world where there is conversation around, strict rules against, and great thinking around the subject of bullying. And just to be clear, this is a VERY GOOD THING. But all this talk has, I think, left the public with a few dangerous “single stories” about what bullying is—single stories that I think The Onion was right and very forward-thinking to highlight. SINGLE STORY #1: PARENTS AND TEACHERS NEED TO TAKE MORE RESPONSIBILITY AND HAVE BETTER AWARENESS. IF THEY DID, ALL BULLYING PROBLEMS WOULD DISAPPEAR. Um. Said NO TEACHER OR PARENT EVER. Which is, of course, what The Onion was trying to get at in this article. I have never met a parent who woke up in the morning and said, “Wow. I really hope my son goes out and intimidates people into liking him and calls people names when they don’t like him that much.” But I sure have met plenty of parents who want their kids to be self-confident, able to stand up for themselves, expressive, and true to themselves. Sometimes the line there can get a little gray. Relationships looks different in different places. The person I call a bully might be someone you consider to have inspiring self-confidence and leadership skills. Things are just not that simple, folks. The problem is, I think, that lots of people still seem to be operating under another single story about bullying: that it’s simple to identify and therefore simple to stop. Since Mean Girls appeared on the scene years ago, kids and adults today seem much more aware of the many different versions of bullying that take place--the gossip, “power-rumoring” (as I like to call it), and verbal abuse that can all constitute acts of bullying. Social media itself has opened up a whole new conversation about what it means to bully on Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr and Gchat, and we as a society have conversations about it regularly. But I still read SO MANY books where acts of bullying are portrayed very simplistically: the big kid beats up the smaller kid, or the pretty girl tells the ugly girl she’s disgusting and will never get a prom date, or one person says nasty things about another on Facebook, etc. Obviously these acts do happen, and should be written about and filmed and talked about. But I’d really like to see more discussion about the other types of bullying we see in schools and communities, because those are often the hardest to define. You ever try telling a parent that their kid is a bully because they won’t be friends with someone they don’t like? Yeah, good luck with that. But that’s actually a huge part of what is sometimes referred to as “mean girl” bullying: that power grid that locks into place when a bunch of teenagers ostracize another, leaving that person as an outcast. It might look and sound like bullying, but it’s not so easy to explain to parents. I mean, if you had a teacher telling you, “Look, Laurie’s refusing to hang out with Julia, and so her friends aren’t hanging out with Julia either,” is your first reaction going to be “OMG, my daughter is a bully?” Or would it be, “Huh. Maybe my daughter doesn’t like Julia.” And while we’re on the subject of single stories? We should stop calling that “mean girl” bullying. Guys do it too, you know. Obviously, the conversation is a lot bigger than which girls like/hate each other and why, but the single story problem remains the same: as long as people largely see bullying as something easy to define and identify, it gets harder and harder to have conversations about all the different nuanced ways bullies can behave. Case in point. I consider myself to have been bullied in junior high. I was one of those naïve, nice, nerdy (the N trifecta) kids who got teased a LOT by the popular crowd—particularly by a group of boys who thought it was hilarious that I have hair on my arms—and I had a best friend who liked to show off how much more popular and important she was than me. Every now and then she’d stop speaking to me for a day or two, and she and all our other friends would hang out together without me, laughing and taking and generally ignoring me and whispering things while they looked in my direction. One day (and I remember this vividly) after this exact scene had played out for a 30 minute bus ride, she walked by me and said, “Have a nice ride today, Johanna?” The next day she was my best friend again, just as if the whole thing had never happened. Sure, I realize now that this was a form of bullying. But I didn’t then. It just felt like my best friend was mad at me. And even if I had realized this exchange was all about power, what was I supposed to do? Go up to my teacher and tell them that Lisa should get in trouble because she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore? And as a teacher now, who does deal with nuanced situations of bullying like this, I can tell you that having power and control over someone does not necessarily constitute being outwardly cruel to that person. This makes proving bullying behavior, and explaining it to parents, incredibly difficult. If not impossible. So let’s stop simplifying this problem down to “parents and teachers need to be more aware.” Well, yes, we do need to be more aware. But we need to be more aware of what constitutes bullying, how to talk about it, and how to really stop it. Because honesty? Some teacher suspending Lisa for not being my friend wasn’t going to do anything in that situation. That moment of bullying was so much more complicated than a simple response like that. SINGLE STORY #2: ALL ACTS OF CRUELTY AND MEANNESS CONSTITUTE BULLYING I’d really just like to put this single story to bed. Now, if possible. Lately EVERYTHING seems to constitute bullying in someone’s eyes. Authors who get bad reviews on Goodreads are bullied. (Wrote another blog about that topic recently, if you want to read it here.) If a student doesn’t get into a certain club or sport, he or she is probably being bullied by someone. I’ve had teachers tell me they thought there were being bullied by some of their students, and vice versa. Look, in some of these cases, bullying might actually be happening—sometimes. But by attaching the title of bullying to ever single hurtful, painful, or confrontational act that ever takes place in our lives, we dilute what that word really means. According to my pal Merriam-Webster, bullying is defined as “to treat abusively” or “to affect by means of force or coercion.” Bullying is SERIOUS. Abuse is SERIOUS. Coercion is SERIOUS. These days, these acts come with serious consequences—as they should. We need to use these words carefully, and only attach them to actual situations of abuse, force, and coercion. I’m sorry, but that person who doesn’t like your book and says so respectfully and with their reasons why is not bullying you. That team captain who cut you because your serve isn’t that good is just being honest. Let’s use this word carefully and keep the meaning behind it important. Otherwise it risks become a term that means nothing to any of us. SINGLE STORY #3: ALL KIDS WHO IDENTIFY AS LGBTQ ARE BULLIED A few years ago, when I first stated bringing more and more LGBTQ literature in my classroom and curriculum, a principal I was working with made the following plea to me: “Please don’t just bring in stories where the gay kids get beat up and bullied and commit suicide all the time. I feel like that’s all kids see these days. I want them to know that not everyone’s story is like that.” I started to think about it, and I started to track the stories I was bringing into my classroom. I realized she was right. So much of the literature out there focused on how incredibly negative and violent schools and communities become when a teenager “comes out.” I’m not saying these stories SHOULDN’T be there, and neither was my principal. These stories are vitally important to those students who need to see the worst possible consequence of this type of behavior. They are vitally important to those teenagers who have had such an experience and need to know they are not alone. But they are not the only story. There are also plenty of teenagers out there who live every version of on the spectrum of coming out stories—from full acceptance and support of an entire school and community, to no acceptance and horrific violence and bullying as a result, to everything in between. When I was writing Every Inferno (not that many days until it comes out! Wahoo!), I made a very conscious effort to create a high school that leans more towards the end of the spectrum of acceptance and inclusion. One of my main characters, McKinley, is a gay 16-year-old who enjoys huge popularity and would certainly never call himself a victim of bullying. I’ve worried at times that people will tell me that the school I created in Every Inferno is unrealistic. But you know what? It’s my prerogative, as an author, to write my own ideal vision for our world. And I know that McKinley’s school is not far from reality—plenty of teenagers live the story McKinley lives in that book. And their stories matter just as much as anybody else’s. SINGLE STORY #4: IT GETS BETTER Actually, this is an important single story. For most of us of who have experienced bullying of some kind (any kind), it has gotten better. But that part of this single story that seems to get left out a lot is that we had to make it better. I am still a naïve, nice, and often nerdy person. No apologies. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned how to navigate the world so that my personality traits work for me rather than against me. I’ve learned how to identify those people who will appreciate me for who I am, and how to avoid people who won’t. I’ve learned how to be confrontational when it’s necessary. It did get better for me, and some of that was situational. When I left my junior high of 40 8th graders (we have some really small towns in Vermont) and went to a high school with a freshman class of 200+ students, life opened up more opportunities for me to avoid the negativity that had surrounded me in earlier years. But I still had to learn how to navigate this new life and world. Freshman year was still a very lonely time for me, as I discovered how to seek out like-minded people and avoid those who wanted to have power over me. Things did get better. A lot better. But it wasn’t just something that happened to me—it was something I had to actively take part in. Okay, a bazillion words later, it’s probably time to wrap this up. Final thoughts? Let’s keep talking about the subject of bullying. But let’s stop simplifying it into formulas and basic variables and definitions. Let’s have nuanced, deep, meaningful conversations about it. Let’s raise real awareness, not just feel-good talk. And mostly? Let’s all listen to each other a little more and a little better. I think most of the world’s problems, and especially the problem of bullying, could be solved if we just did that.
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So, this was a tweet I posted yesterday. (Yes, I am just self-indulgent enough to blog about my own Tweeting.)  Here’s the thing: I AM ON VACATION THIS WEEK!! People, it is amazing. Five whole days of nothing to do but clean my house, think about cleaning out my closet, write, and READ.
I am woefully behind on my reading list. So I jumped into a new book this week. And it ended up being that book. You know, that book you pick up because everybody is talking about it and everybody says it is awesome. It has some crazy-high rating on Goodreads (like way over 4), and everyone on Amazon says it’s just the best, and your friends are all reading it and they all love it. And then IT happened. YOU know. IT. That moment when you realize you absolutely detest the book everyone else in the world loves so very, very much. For the record, this actually doesn’t happen to me very much. I am incredibly forgiving when it comes to books, and I can almost always find something that I connect with in a book. I have sat through the most ridiculous, over-the-top plot lines just because I loved the characters so much. I have endured horrific writing, and sometimes horrific editing, because a plot line or a theme was so intriguing. I don’t even bother to rate books on Goodreads anymore because there’s almost no point—my ratings are almost all 4s and 5s. But every now and then, even I manage to happen upon a book that I can find nothing redeeming in. And this was one of those books. The characters were all either absurd or so annoying that I wanted nothing to do with them. The themes were so preachy I wanted to vomit. The writing wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. And the plot? I can’t even talk about it. I was so stunned by my own reaction to these author’s words that I actually looked the book back up on Goodreads just to make sure I hadn’t somehow imagined those ratings. Nope. Still waaay over 4. And from a LOT of other people, too. No one else even touched on any of my concerns. Okay. So there are a lot of moments in life where we find ourselves wondering: is it them or me? As such, I was forced to ponder this question. Was I somehow missing something? Had I misjudged this author’s thematic weaving? Was there something in their characters I wasn’t understanding? Which got me thinking about my own book reviews, and the nature of the book reviewer/reader/author relationship. As a new author, this has been tricky water for me to navigate. I have cried my eyes out at more than one horrific review for my first book. I have actually lain awake at night, terrified of the reviews that will soon be emerging for my next book, which comes out in July. I have followed the Twitter chatter discussing whether Goodreads is a place of “bullies” who attack each other out of a need to hold power over one another and destroy the self-esteem of others. I have followed the arguing chatter that Goodreads should be a place where people can speak their mind about a book, free of being accused of the incredibly serious (and I do think bullying is a serious accusation, make no mistake) crime of bullying when they write a scathing review. In the end, reading this book was a nice reminder for me. It was nice reminder of a very important sentiment I often seem to forget: “not every book is for every person.” This quote is shamelessly stolen from author Amy Lane. Lane writes fantasy books for young adults, as well as romance novels for adults, and her blogs about the convoluted and confusing world of book reviewing have gotten me through more than one bad review. If you’re ever in the spot of needing to be talked down off the ceiling because someone’s just called your writing “utterly pointless,” you can find one of her blogs on the subject here. It’s a quote I think we would all do well to remember—whether we’re writing an angry review on Goodreads, reading a book we think could hang the moon, trying to figure out why we hate the book that the entire rest of world loves, or just wondering why someone would so detest something we took the time and energy to create. After all, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, right? Those nasty review on Goodreads usually aren’t bullying. (Though I’m sure there are outlier examples that do fall into that category, because this is the Internet, after all.) They’re just people trying to express an opinion, which is often not the same opinion everyone else has. And when we can’t figure out why everyone doesn’t share our opinion, we tend to go a little overboard convincing everyone else just how right we are. On the other hand, is there really that need to express extreme hatred for someone else’s work just because you didn’t enjoy it? What’s so wrong with stating your honest opinion, without vitriol, and moving on? No worries if you’ve lost me, because I have an anecdote ready and waiting to illustrate this point. (Yes, I know, you thought this blog couldn’t possibly get any longer.) Not that long ago someone wrote a fairly unhappy review of my first book, Here’s to You, Zeb Pike. The review was honest. It said exactly what the reader found to be problematic with the book, who might still like it, and it moved on. When someone else commented on the review, it was clear they wanted to play on any potential negativity in the review, even though they hadn’t read the book. They said something to the extent that they hadn’t read my book yet, but they could see exactly how many things they would hate about it. (Here I would like to reiterate that they HADN’T EVEN READ THE BOOK.) You know what the reviewer responded with? They acknowledged the responder’s concern, and then mentioned how many others had liked those aspects of the book. They didn’t engage with the negativity. They even ended their own response by noting how many people seemed to disagree with their opinion of my book. Wow. I have never been more stunned by internet maturity. And you better believe I hope that same person will review my next book. Because even if they hate it, I can trust that they will review it with honesty AND honor for that all-important-adage: "not every book is for every person.” As I mentioned earlier, I don’t write Goodsreads reviews, so I wasn’t forced to quell an urge here to prove that I was right and that everyone else was wrong by writing an angry and disgusted review of this book. If I had decided to write a review, though, I like to think I could have done so with honor for that adage. I like to think I would have written a review that would have steered those who think like me away from the book, thereby saving them the trouble of reading a book they probably wouldn’t like. I like to think that same review would still have made it clear that there are obviously people who find many aspects of the book to be incredibly valuable, thereby not steering the entire populace away from the book out of spite. I like to think I would written a review that does what a review is supposed to do: get the right books to the right people. Because maybe it's them. Or maybe it’s me. Or maybe it’s just the simple fact that we’re all wired differently, and that’s what makes the human race so beautiful. |
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