Bullying & Cyberbullying

Bullying is a serious issue. It makes people feel bad, makes them do things that they might not necesarily want to do, and forces people's hands. Cyberbullying is worse - it takes all those things, puts them online in blogs or journals or social networks, and ramps it up a level via emails, Twitters and text messaging, and instant messages.

This past Monday, we saw one example of cyberbullying in synopsis came from Lisa Stone of

But, like I noted, we are supposedly adults that should act as adults. In this instance, the adults have lost to the immature and anonymous.

At MySpace comments, IM, and text messaged threats. There is no escaping Cyberbullying, as it follows you from device to device - it is the true idea of presence, taken to a horrific level with horrific results. Cyberbullying takes what we did as children, and ramps it up to a whole new level. That "take their cookies" mentality - one that I still subscribe to - is different, as it is not about being tough, but about pushing the other child down in the dirt as much as possible and pushing them over the brink.

What happened is a travesty and embarasing as a male and a long-time blogger. It was an adult-on-adult bullying, but that is the point: we are adults, and should recognize that too big a part of blogging is sandlot bravado. As a PR person, that is part of my counsel to clients: be prepared to defend your line in the sand, and sometimes you need to be prepared to be attacked and defend.

This crossed the line, but are we going to see a backlash where the sentiment is going to be "get a thicker skin"? While that is not the right answer, the blogosphere is fluid, and unfortunately, at times it can be cruel. But, at least we have the hardened years of adulthood, and can sigh a breath of relief that we are not growing up in a world where cyberbullying is the norm.