Staci's Place:
Dealing with Online
Bullies
Peace ... Peace ... Peace ...
Peace.
Such a powerful word, isn't it? Online, it may be hard to find it,
especially if you have been the target of online abuse.
I am writing this particular page because I
know that some of my advice is going to outrage some victims, and possibly
some advocates. I want to explain how I came to offer this advice, and why I
think the most effective way to deal with online bullies is to ignore them,
filter them, or walk away from them.
"But it's not fair!"
That is the lament I often hear when I tell
a victim to walk away from his or her abuser. Well, you are right, it is not
"fair". Life isn't fair. I can't argue on the basis of "fairness". What I
can argue on is what is effective or not.
Sometimes the argument also looks like:
"But the bully will win!"
I define "winning" as "an online life
reasonably free from abuse and personal attacks". Most victims who object in
this manner define winning as "punishing the bully for their bad behavior".
When that is done, the victim can lock him or herself into a pointless,
often childish, escalating series of tit-for-tat personal attacks that
accomplish nothing at the best of times, or escalate into violence at their
worst. Online, the bully has the advantage of anonymity, of spite, and often
of indifference by the authorities. Choosing to fight this battle is a
hopeless cause. It is Don Quixote tilting at windmills. The bullies almost
always win this battle.
If you want to truly "win", walk away with
your head held high, knowing that you refused to allow yourself to be pulled
down to their level. I didn't always feel this way. One of the very first
experiences I had online was of being bullied by a group of strangers on a
BBS. I wanted to make them see how unreasonable they were being. I wanted to
argue my way through it. I thought that if I were just eloquent enough,
persuasive enough, I should be able to convince anyone of the rightness of
my position.
<g> .... how naive.
I was at one point in my career nominated
for a national writer's award ... and I was never able to convince those
abusers that they were anything but justified in making my first few months
online as hellish as possible, solely for the sake of their sick, pitiful
need for some childish entertainment. The consolation I have had for all
that time wasted has come many years later in discovering how many others
have made the same mistake.
Luckily I had a patient and understanding
mentor who guided me through this experience. Later on, he introduced me to
Ross Quinn, who provided me with
some of the emotional tools I had been lacking in facing these kinds of
challenges. I can't tell you how much happier I am, and how peaceful and
rewarding my online life is now compared to then. And it all happened when I
decided that these little online battles were just not worth fighting. As
Scott Adams said in
Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel "If you spend all your time arguing
with people who are nuts, you'll be exhausted and the nuts will still be
nuts".
If you can't see this, you are contributing
to your own pain. When you are at your wits end and are about to give up ...
just try walking away and ignoring them. It took a near nervous breakdown
for me to come to that point. Don't let that happen to you.
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