In Australia:
Call mates "cunt."
Call cunts "mate."
According to a recent survey, Australia leads the world in cyber bullying. According to everyone else, "What the fuck is cyberbullying? Just block that person on Facebook." Actually, that is the advice given out by one of anti-cyber bullying 'experts' in an Al Jazeera documentary:
We give the advice 'block and delete.' Much easier said than done when you rely on the technology to stay in touch with your friends who aren't bullying you.
Really? It's hard to block one aggravating asshole on Facebook because you need Facebook to stay in touch with your non-aggravating asshole friends? You're not signing out of chat completely. You just don't friend people who aren't your friends, and you block the few people you need to block.
The story that the video centers around is Catherine Bernard, a 17 year old girl who committed suicide. She had long been having problems with her parents, had just moved and changed schools, and killed herself after getting online and talking to her ex boyfriend.
Without any sort of specific role that bullying played, the case is considered one of three suicide in Australia in the last year "linked" to cyber bullying.
In a second story, a 19 year old guy discusses how he was the subject of negative comments on Root Rating, a Facebook group that allows people to rate the performance of their sexual partners.
Pretty mean, but it's not bullying. It's people talking shit behind your back, and it's nothing new.
And of course, the documentary talks about trolls, "People who intentionally post provocative statements just to get an emotional response from the reader." Could that be a more broad and inaccurate? By that definition, you know who counts as a troll? Walt Whitman. (Although really, calling yourself just "Walt" in a period when people were using all three of their names? Trollolololo!)
Just as icing on the cake of how ridiculous the cyber bullying hysteria is, the survey that placed Australia on the top said that 90% of parents reported their children were on the receiving end of cyber bullying. 90%. Granted, many parents have more than one child, so it's not necessarily 90% of kids who are bullied, but still. 90% of Australian families have internet access at home? Talk about first world problems.
And just how many bullying victims are telling their parents about it? Probably not many, because people who do have that sort of relationship with their parents aren't likely to be troubled too much by bullies.
So, just how could 90% of Australian parents report that their kids had been bullied. Simple: Australian parents are bullying their children.
That's what happens when you give computers to a bunch of criminals and savages.
