Bully Trailer Hits the Web

GGLucas writes "Contrary to the rumours that have spread about the Rockstar game, Bully, and it's storyline, the game's trailer as released by IGN today spins in a completely different direction, anti-game critics will not be happy. From the article: 'Bully puts players in control of 15 year-old Jimmy Hopkins — a boy who has just begun his first year in the New England-based Bullworth Academy, and a guy who's charged with the mission of ridding the school of a number of its undesirable elements.'"

Comments

To the anti-game critics:

[Jerk City Troll]

How about we put the burden of raising children on the parents who chose to had them. How about instead of futilely trying to childproof the world we let people decide for themselves and their own children what's appropriate.

If a kid has $50 bucks to blow on the new hotness their either have their parents permission (ill considered as it may be), too much for an allowance, gainful employment, or an entry level position in a criminal enterprise. None of these is the problem of developers or retailers.

Besides, none of the GTA games come close to the sex and violence of the bible. Babykilling and incest? Check. I want to see Rockstar do a Bible game like GTA, where you can wander around brutally killing and raping anything.

Re:To the anti-game critics:

[andrewman327]

THe bible does nothing *but* glorify rape and violence.

You have to admit that the content of Rockstar games is entirely different from that of The Holy Bible, both in content and presentation.

Re:To the anti-game critics:

[arodland]

If you read my original post on this subject, I asserted that videogames are not the cause of youth violence. The Bible is by far a better influence, however.

Well, the most important thing that the Bible teaches children is that it's not necessary to make moral decisions by thinking about the consequences of their actions; logical thought should be replaced with the supposed will of an invisible, imaginary being in the sky, as interpreted by some incredibly wacked-out people.

Instead of teaching that when you see a contradiction, you should reexamine your premises because one of them is wrong, it teaches (by example) that contradictions are everywhere, and can be resolved by a "search for a higher meaning" (divinely inspired, of course, which means making things up and stopping when it sounds good).

Instead of teaching responsibility by showing that who you are in the world is defined by your actions, it teaches that "works" are worthless, and the only thing that matters in the end is an intangible "faith" -- believe and ye shall be saved. Except when it doesn't, but see the previous point about contradiction.

When Christianity is really working its mojo, it's just as good as any other well-known cult at creating "empty" human beings, who are completely unable to function outside of its confines. But more often, it simply causes a really wicked case of "cognitive dissonance" as its adherents do their best to reconcile their "beliefs" with the reality of the world. This makes itself known as a profound sense of anguish, and the most common response is for people to submerge themselves even deeper into the religion as a response, moving further away from the real world. But a really good Crusade now and then will help, too.

Rockstar

[MM_LONEWOLF]

Yeah, the bible does have a lot of that, but come on. What do you think is going to capture a teenagers attention more. Reading the bible, or going out wit your homies and capping some ballas? Rockstar knows that their games capture the attention of teenagers, I should know, i'm 14, and thats how they sell their games. Should they be allowed to make these games? sure. If the parents don't want their kids playing them, then don't buy it for them. The big M on the box doesn't stand for mild.

Re:Doesn't seem too bad

[darkitecture]

How bad can a game about a kid countering a bully possibly be?

I can't tell whether that was meant to be a rhetorical question or not. There might have been sarcasm or you might be being fatuous, I'm not sure. But just in case you were being serious, let me highlight something:

It could be said that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (responsible for the Columbine massacre) were 'countering' the bullies that harrassed them at school. An extreme example for sure, but never underestimate human flaws when it comes to such powerful emotional forces as retribution.

With that said, I've bought several of Rockstar's games which have been considered 'violent' and probably plan on buying this game too if it seems any good. I'd like to think of myself as a successful late-20-something who has played countless violent and disturbing video games, watched graphic depiction of violence in numerous movies and tv shows and also was the victim of bullying in school (weren't we all?). Yet I'm still a well-adjusted member of society, an upstanding citizen, have never committed a crime, vote, am involved in charitable works, have a good sense of morality and have no qualms with allowing my children to play violent games with morally dubious goals and watch violent movies - as long as I've deemed they're mature enough for such things. I find it is my duty to keep a constant vigil on my childrens' moral/ethical maturity and to screen/judge their input accordingly. I appreciate there being an ratings board for games and the like, but I think this should be considered simply a guide and that parents should take some god damn responsibility and take charge.

I played some brutal games and watched some horribly graphic movies while I was a kid but I had good enough parents that they knew that although those games and movies weren't the most palatable inputs, they weren't having some sort of detrimental inpact on my growth, my education or my general health/wellbeing. They understood that *I* understood the difference between movies/video games and reality. They understood that although I might be ripping someone's spine out in Mortal Kombat, I was still writing A+ history reports and still knew my sines from my cosines. I might have been going on a Redneck Rampage with my shotgun but I still volunteered at the local Salvation Army thrift store on the occasional weekend and took out the trash and brushed my teeth before bedtime.

Ratings boards should never be considered a substitute for good parenting.

Lighten Up

[MBC1977]

Come on stop taking everything that comes out so seriously. Games are for entertainment.
How many of us (at least I know I did) have that one individual who got on your nerves, lol.
Its a fun and harmless way to blow some steam, that's it. Don't read into it like it deserves
a philosopical, psychological, socialogical (or whatever) analysis. Its entertainment. Simple.

Regards,

MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Good Guy!)

ATTN, Jack Thompson

[DragonTHC]

NOT ALL GAMES ARE FOR KIDS!

I agree with game ratings and enforcement of those ratings.

I don't think 15 year old kids should be playing bully.

but I'm 30 years old, and I want to play it.

Stupid

[Znrch]

Once again everyone gets all happy about a trailer featuring... *GASP* cutscenes. How about a video featuring actual gameplay for once? Cutscenes tell me absolutely nothing.

BTW, the humor was decidedly childish, which may be the point, but it seems to be a pattern oft repeated in most Rockstar games anyways.

Re:Porn vs. Violence

[BorgCopyeditor]

Do I think children should be able to buy porn? Sure - why not? Kids are gonna get their hands on it anyway - whether from the net or other friends - and I think that it being freely available will make exploring sexuality less stimatizing.

You seem to be assuming that porn teaches something about sex. I (sort of) agree, but what it's teaching is not very ... realistic, and what it's leaving out is important. If the goal is to make discovering sexuality less traumatizing, why not insist on good sex education? Keeping it locked away from curious eyes doesn't keep kids from finding it, doesn't keep them from having sex if they want, and seems to just be a pointless burden for retailers.

Sure, they'll almost certainly find it; but with good education (and maybe a more sexually healthy culture?), it would not be as compelling and I expect the demand might well fall. As for the last point, I could care less what is a burden for retailers who want to sell porn to minors. Seriously, have you been in some of these shops? I don't plan to have kids, but I wouldn't send them into one.

Re:Duh

[LordofEntropy]

Bad analogy, the secretary and your boss are both human, whom with you have physically interacted with. You can verify the secretary's note with your boss face to face.

"God's" word was written by men who say they talked to god(not a human), but noone can verify by talking to god directly, for the whole not a human reason People who talk to god and claim he responds directly are considered heretics or touched--if the Christian church could still get a way with it, said people would be burned at the stake. The church doesn't want other people delivering a message that hasn't been edited through the appropriate channels.

Re:Doesn't seem too bad

[nametaken]

"I played some brutal games and watched some horribly graphic movies while I was a kid"

You're in your late 20s?

I'd say, Double Dragon, Ninja Gaiden, Kung Fu and Punch-Out weren't exactly like the stuff we're looking at now. Banging a hooker in a stolen car, then jumping out of the car, beating them to death with a baseball bat and taking your money back? Maybe that OTHER Konami code let you do that stuff, but I think I would have cried myself to sleep if I saw that coming from my NES. :)

Re:1999: My Life *was* hell; then Columbine

[tsa]

Well I'm sorry to tell you that most children above the age of four years know the difference between good and bad, and know that harassing other children by kicking them, spitting on them or whatever is very wrong and intolerable. When they do it anyway they NEED punishment to show them that they are being watched and people care about what they do.

Re:1999: My Life *was* hell; then Columbine

[DesireCampbell]

See, that's the problem - children don't understand anything fully. This is key now: they are not fully developed. Their brains cannot process high level abstract though. I'm not saying children shouldn't be reprimanded when they do something wrong - I'm saying that a zero-tolerance policy on ANYTHING is stupid, and will only harm more than it helps.

Re:Doesn't seem too bad

[Shaper_pmp]

How about ripping out people's spines, freeze-and-shattering them, pulling out hearts or immolating them alive at the tender age of 13?

And I, also, am a fine upstanding member of society who almost never actually tears someone's head off and poops down their neck-hole.

Gentlemen, it's a freaking game...

[Wiseman1024]

...and as a game, I find it very fun to punish undesirable schoolmates. I would not limit it to school but release a whole series where you have to fsck with/beat up/kill bullies, jerks, crackpots, gangs, etc. all around the world. It is fun, therefore a game that meets its ultimate purpose, therefore a good game, end of the story.

Best anti-bully strategy

[192939495969798999]

Befriend the biggest, strongest kids in school. Generally they don't have a reason to bully anyone because they're so big, so they'll probably be your friend. If you have a bully, use the even bigger kids as intimidation. I didn't have much trouble with physical bullies by implementing this strategy. I did have plenty of kids give me a hard time, though, but I wasn't willing to compromise my few freedoms/priveleges at school (I was pre-columbine all thru high school, can't believe some kids being bullied didn't shoot it up based on how bad it was, in case you're wondering how bad it was back then) in order to beat them up in retaliation.

Re:1999: My Life *was* hell; then Columbine

[twistedsymphony]

You just have to level the playing field. I was picked on quite a bit for being a nerd when I was young. Picked last in gym class, called names, had people steal my books, notes, backpack, etc run down the hall and throw them the nasty cafeteria garbage. Interesting enough it was a New England Prep School.

One day my father suggested I start going to the gym with him to work out, it was a powerlifters gym, if you wanted aerobics you ran outside, everything inside was freeweights. I started lifting and advanced FAST, applying my studying habbits to learn proper techniques and eating habbits. I gained about 40lb of muscle over the course of my sophomore year. I had to get a new custom made school uniform because my sholders were so wide.

I was still a nerd, I still played card games with the other 2 or 3 nerdy kids in the cafe during our study halls, I was still a member of the chess club and the math team but after school I would go and lift weights. I even entered a few powerlifting competitions and took 1st place a couple of times. It really turned my life at school around. My junior year I remember early on one of the football players started picking on me and my friends so I stood up and he got in my face... soon realizing that while shorter I was much wider in the shoulders then he was. I told him I'd arm wrestle him and if I won he would have to appologize to my friends and leave us alone for the rest of the year. I put him down so fast he brused his knuckles when they hit the table. Needless to say none of us ever had any problems with the bullies in the school ever again. Despite the fact that I still enojyed doing all of my nerdy things I had earned a lot of respect from a whole lot of the people who used to pick on me.

Nerds are smart enough, get them on a training program, martial arts, weight lifting etc. Bullies pick on your weak spots and typically the week spot of a nerd is their lack of physical prowess... you fix that and the bullies will pick on someone else... or find something better to do.

Re:1999: My Life *was* hell; then Columbine

[fudgefactor7]

Dude, I feel your pain. I really do. I was picked on in school as well--and I'm shorter than you, so there you go. What did I learn? Simple. To get bullies to stop you have to--now pay close attention--KICK THEIR ASS! One kid in school dumped ketchup on me at lunch--he thought that was pretty freaking funny...until I choked him and threw him across the lunchroom. Another kid got bodyslammed by me for being a general dick to anyone smaller than him (and I, naturally, fit the bill.) (Fat kids who bully are easy targets for bodyslamming, they don't tend to be nimble enough to get out of the way of a fast moving short person.) In essence, if somone bullys you, beat the crap out of them at that very moment they start. Don't kill them, just beat them down and let them know that the next time it happens you won't be so lenient. Bullies fear being bullied themselves, and they also understand the concept of "respect."
 
When I have kids, I'm enrolling them in a martial arts class at the earliest opportunity, and I'm going to tell them straight up--and I'll let the school know too--that my kid *will* defend themself and it won't be pretty. And what do I do if my kid is doing the bullying? Same thing--beat him like a redheaded stepchild. I didn't break the cycle to have it started by us.

Re:1999: My Life *was* hell; then Columbine

[argStyopa]

Interesting, but more interesting the number of people that can't seem to get past it.

People have been 'psychophysically tortured' for, well, ever. That doesn't excuse it, and doesn't mean that it shouldn't be dealt with aggressively where possible. But it's like complaining about the rain or gravity. It seems to me an almost-essential characteristic of the early socialization of the human animal: very basic concepts of dominance, social order, and the coping of the various individuals to their places therein. Social ontogeny recapitulating social phylogeny?

I too (this is an empty truism, just about EVERYONE can say it) was a victim of such abuse. From beatings, to humiliation, to psychological 'abuse' throughout my elementary and junior high school years, including yes, frequent principal visits and school changes.

But you know what?

I'm *convinced* that a great deal of it has to do with a 'victim' mentality. Around 10th grade: 5th school in 5 years, I determined that I was NOT going to meekly take it anymore, regardless of the consequences (to my physical well-being, to my performance in school, etc). And the abuse stopped. And before you say it: there's a GIGANTIC step from 'resolving to no longer be a victim' to 'cheerfully murdering fellow students'.

Part of the socialization process is understanding and learning social norms. It's *just* possible that you're not being picked on because you're "too smart" (a frequent excuse...if you're that smart, why haven't you figured out how to avoid the abuse?). Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes you're being picked on simply becase you're a wierdo and adolescents haven't always learned that we tolerate benign wierdos - like chimps or apes, they act to drive oddballs from the group. I don't condone that, but again, it's a fact.

I recommend instead that you carefully consider how much your 'individualism' is worth - at a certain point it's just narcissism anyway.

Too many people use this sort of life experience as a crutch to blame everything else on. Exaggerating the experience suggests to me that this is mentally where you're at - inflating and dwelling on it as an emotional airbag for all the shitty stuff life hands us. (You said it stopped when you were a Junior. Unless you repeated a lot of grades, you were what, 15? 16? Even assuming the 'torture' started day 1 of kindergarten, that's 10-11 years...not the "better part of 2 decades".) I'm not going to blame my lack of success with women on being bullied (is anyone as successful with them as they want to be?). I'm certainly not going to tell you my IQ as some sort of ego-assuaging self-justification for my misery.

You can blame bullies, you can blame your parents, you can blame society; whatever. YOU are the one that has to cope with your life for all 70-some years you get on this Earth, and no amount of chemical assistance or directed blame is going to change that YOU (alone) need to get along every damn day.

Re:1999: My Life *was* hell; then Columbine

[SatanicPuppy]

You laugh, but that will work. Fight quick, fight dirty, don't stay down until you can't get up. People stop picking on you pretty quick; it's just not worth it.

I took a lot of crap in school from various people, and I worked my way through it eventually, but it was hard as hell.

Columbine didn't horrify me. I could see it, you know? I had recourse when I was in school. I'm not a little guy, and physically I was in pretty good shape. I could fight back. But what about people who couldn't? What do you do with all that hate and rage?

A bunch of people at that school dumped a lot of crap on those guys, because they knew that there was nothing they could do about it. What were they going to do? Come in and gun down random classmates?

It's a good lesson. Everything we do has consequences. Make sure, when you shit on someone, that they have something to lose. Because, if they have nothing to lose, they may decide to take you down with 'em.

Re:1999: My Life *was* hell; then Columbine

[Amouth]

i had the issue with bullies.. until i hit back.. i ran a kids face down a chain link fence.. cut him up really good.. (they called the EMS) no one pointed to me and he surly didn't want to say he got messed up buy the geek so i was off scott free.. and he/they never messed with me again..

if you never stand up for your self then you will get walked over.. that is how life is.. even if you remove the bully part once you get out in the real world if you can't stand up for your self.. you might as well give up.

Re:1999: My Life *was* hell; then Columbine

[Guppy06]

"It seems to me an almost-essential characteristic of the early socialization of the human animal: very basic concepts of dominance, social order, and the coping of the various individuals to their places therein. Social ontogeny recapitulating social phylogeny?"

But that doesn't make it right or, more importantly, just. In fact, it seems rather antethetical to the just society we're supposed to be creating; if kids aren't allowed to see what justice looks like, why would they pursue it as adults?

"I determined that I was NOT going to meekly take it anymore, regardless of the consequences (to my physical well-being, to my performance in school, etc). And the abuse stopped."

I take it this was before today's "zero tolerence" rules.

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes you're being picked on simply becase you're a wierdo and adolescents haven't always learned that we tolerate benign wierdos - like chimps or apes, they act to drive oddballs from the group. I don't condone that, but again, it's a fact."

No, your "it's just a fact" stance passivley condones it. Regardless of whether or not you feel the victims should just suck it up and deal with it, unprovoked attacks should not be happening in schools my tax dollars pay for.

"I recommend instead that you carefully consider how much your 'individualism' is worth - at a certain point it's just narcissism anyway."

What's the point of a republican form of government if deviation from social norms cannot be tolerated? "All individuals have rights unless they look different?"

"Too many people use this sort of life experience as a crutch to blame everything else on."

"Too many?" Got numbers?

"I'm not going to blame my lack of success with women on being bullied (is anyone as successful with them as they want to be?)."

Perhaps, but does everybody who wishes more success with women have the trust issues that a bullying victim is left with? Do you yourself push women away the more they seem interested in you, while trying to figure out what her "real" motives are, what kind of trick she's planning?

"no amount of chemical assistance or directed blame is going to change that YOU (alone) need to get along every damn day."

I see contradictions. If being too much of an individual (your view) is what causes a person to be bullied to begin with, why is showing more of this hated individual initiative the solution? And then you you pay a lot of lip service to building social structures and "belonging," but what's the point of social structures if these problems must be solved by the individual?

Really, if anybody here is having trouble dealing with past bullying, it's you: you're trying to apply irrational standards in an effort to justify the injust. Stockholm Syndrome, anyone? After all, if everybody must be responsible for what happens in their own lives, why must the victim be responsible for the actions of their assailants?

I, too, often tell myself to "suck it up and deal with it," but the results of doing so is something I would not wish on another human being, and I'm not as prepared as you are to treat it as a "one size fits all" solution to individual victims of social ills. With your admonishments of "it can't be helped," it seems that you, and not the parent, are the one taking the defeatist, "I'm the victim" attitude.

Re:Bad marketting

[Doctor O]

Not to offend you, but I think you don't get what GTA is about. The "sex sells" part is definitely there, but frankly the point about GTA is that they give you a world you can wreck all you like, run around doing 'crook stuff' and let off some steam doing so. "Rockstar Games" definitely has the notion of letting you feel like one - and to be honest, it's quite amusing to see yourself in slow motion, cinema aesthetics, sniping drug dealers and blowing up their whole ship.

Rockstar's games are like movies where you play the main character, and they're great fun at that. The sex might be there, but IMHO it's not an essential part, just adding to the whole atmosphere. Actually I find that the people my age (30+) enjoy the GTA series more than the teenagers and young adults I know, exactly because of the movie feeling of the series. You know, sex isn't that much of a topic if you regularly do it, and to most people I know, the sex parts of the GTA series are mildly amusing at best.

As for the hot coffee part - in my opinion as a programmer that's just an easter egg. I have lost track of all of those I left in my own projects over the decades. And a game without easter eggs just isn't complete.

Re:Porn vs. Violence

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The fact that porn is not legal for minors to buy is stupid - as sexual education is a good thing, ignorance, is a bad thing.

I agree that the government has no place in restricting pornography. They certainly have no place writing laws with such dubious and interpretable clauses as current US pornography laws that judge whether something is restricted based upon the public opinion of some undefined "community" which has even less meaning on the internet.

That said, I think it is a fallacy to equate pornography with sex education. Most pornography is sex education in the same way that "Rambo" is survival and firearm safety training. In some European countries where pornography is commonly available, real educators are having to deal with the results of this. Boys have to have it explained to them that they aren't incredibly small and they are not physically damaged if they can't last for 3 hours straight. Women have to have it explained to them that a lot of women actually don't like anal sex or find it enjoyable and that they don't have to pretend to in order to seem normal. Also, that most women don't have a dozen orgasms.

I just thought it was important to clear up that point.

Re:Mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the problem, we'd rather have a pompous windbag who at least pretends to take his office seriously than an intellectually diminished leprotic terd.

Re:Doesn't seem too bad

[spyrochaete]

Respect to you for mentioning Phantasmagoria. That was indeed a spooky and slow-paced game, so in the ending sequence when the protagonist can get her head split open in graphic fashion it REALLY comes as a shock. Sure it's just a rubber prosthetic, but a mix of high production values and low resolution graphics make it rather convincing. Plus there's that toggleable rape scene about halfway through, and nudity in the opening sequence.

I played that game at about 16 and lived to tell the tale. I think well-parented kids like I was can take a game about bullies.

Please, no karate

[tacokill]

...When I have kids, I'm enrolling them in a martial arts class...

Pu-leeeze. Where I went to high school, saying you had martial arts training was the surest way to get your ass kicked. It's not that people hate martial arts. It's just that mentioning it sort-of challenges others to "test" you. And we did. I can safely say that 99.9% of the martial-arts people I saw fight, lost. And usually lost badly. Don't forget you are going up against other people who "street fight" and don't fight to choreographed moves. It is my belief that martial arts unfairly makes people believe they are better fighters than they really are**.

From reading the posts, I'd say I was on the other side of things. I never got picked on much but I picked on a few people and I regret doing so. But, the GP was dead-on.....fighting back is really the only way to get out of it. Even if you only get in one good punch (make it count!). Almost always, a mutual respect will be earned and you will at least get them off YOUR back.

But martial arts is not the way to do this. Perhaps consider boxing or wrestling instead.


(**note: I realize there are SOME martial artists that are bad-asses. But the vast vast majority of high-schoolers are not in this category and unless you are, martial-arts won't help you.)

My first reaction was "Huh, I expected it sooner."

[Maggott]

Amen, brother. I too was among the favored "victims" of my school. Hell, Columbine may have happened in 1991 if my parents had owned any serious firearms. The way students treated each other went beyond uncivilized and into the realm of barbarism. In fact, part of the reason things were so bad was that the stories the students told were so horrific that the faculty decided they had to be ficticious. It took a few dozen people being shot to death to make the world realize that maybe it was real after all.

I knew that if any other schools in the nation were anything like mine, it was only a matter of time before somebody cracked and blew someone else's brains out. I also predicted, rather cynically (this was back in 1990-92, remember) that the media would place the blame squarely on other parts of the media, rather than on the students' brutality or the wholesale negligence of their caretakers.

If you're going to claim--as some others in this thread do--that the fault doesn't lie with the "innocent children" who were raising their fists (and sometimes worse) against their peers, then you've got to accept that the blame lies with the schools who had taken up the duty of protecting them from each other. And then all you're saying is that the Columbine folks should have shot more faculty and fewer students.

I'm a nonviolent person. I'm all for "Never start a fight, but always finish it." But having gone through what I did, I greeted the news of Columbine with gratitude and relief. I knew the massacre was so impossible to ignore that maybe--just MAYBE--it would get the schools' attention and they'd start listening when a fat kid in black clothes says he's sick of having people hit him in the back of the head every day. Most of you don't understand just how much of a difference the lives of those who died at Columbine might make in the lives of those who come after them. I'd love to be shot to death if it means that other students won't have to go through what I went through.

Klebold and Harris didn't start the fight, but--we can hope--they finished it.

And if that sounds insensitive, well, let's just say I had some really good teachers.

Re:1999: My Life *was* hell; then Columbine

[ArmyOfFun]

But why did they do it?

That's the billion dollar question.

I think for most people, "negative" media can act as a healthy valve for daily stress or at least as a diversion from it. In most cases, individuals are the best judge of what a healthy amount of escape is for themselves.

I think where you start to see a problem is when someone immerses themselves in a particular culture and avoids or supresses contact with anything outside of that culture. So, the angry person immerses themselves in violent media, the promiscuous person in pornographic media. Their reference point will shift from a more balanced one, to the culture they're drawn to. Instead of viewing a violent rampage in GTA as a breather, they start to view violent acts as acceptable solutions to bouts of anger. Instead of watching some hardcore porn to get a little stimulation, promiscuous and frequent sex starts to be seen as an acceptable answer to sexual urges.

For most people, we have daily routines and support structures that would probably conflict with any extreme world view. The angry person encounters situations in which violence would only make a problem worse. The promiscuous person encounters situations where sexual displays are prohibited or will lower their social standing. Young people in particular should have a family support structure which reinforces what is acceptable behavior and what is dangerous or unaccpetable behavior.

For people like Harris and Klebold, their support structure was not enough to pull them out of the culture they immersed themselves in. If they witnessed or were victims of violence in school most days, and then went home where their parents permitted them to consume an unlimited amount of violent content. Then they were drowning in violence for most of their waking hours and their world view shifted to accept violence as a reasonable solution to most problems, including life itself.

Re:1999: My Life *was* hell; then Columbine

[SatanicPuppy]

Self esteem is a weird thing. People focus on the thing about themselves that they see as valuable. I focused on my brain, and on the fact that, even when I lost a fight, I made sure the other guy didn't enjoy winning.

In retrospect, being an intellectual snob and a tightly wound ball of unfocused aggression didn't do much for my social life in high school. I got over it though. I learned to lie about how I felt (I always felt bad, but when someone asks you how you feel, you can't say "My life is pain" and ever expect them to ask again), and I learned to pretend to be interested in things I felt to be beneath me, and I learned to project an emotional vibe other than hostility.

It sounds stupid and fake, I admit. The thing is, when I became more bearable to other people, other people stopped actively shunning me, which made it more natural not to be a bastard all the time. This appealed to people, and some of them (against all possible previous experience) started actively seeking me out, and including me in social things.

The great social secrets for the socially inept are as follows:

1) Listen, don't talk. If you're really inept, it'll show the instant you open your mouth. Watch how other people do it. Everyone loves to talk about themselves, so ask a couple of stupid social questions, but don't just barge up and ask 'em...You need an opening. THIS IS REALLY HARD TO RECOGNIZE WHEN YOU'RE SOCIALLY INEPT. Ask for directions, or for helpful information. "Hey baby, what's your sign?/You come here often?/Etc" are all far inferior to "Hey, I've got a peanut allergy, you think this stuff is safe?/Do you know how late (insert place) stays open?" People love to be helpful, and that sort of thing is socially non-threatening.

2) Be socially non-threatening. Keep up a minimum of personal grooming, try to achieve a socially acceptable wardrobe...I know it shouldn't matter, but it does...You don't have to be super well dressed, but be above the minimum, and stay away from aggressive themes and overly-starched stuff. Casual casual casual. Don't try to lock people in a conversation; let them move off if they want to...It's much more likely that they'll talk to you again if you don't latch on to them. Remember the listen thing. Don't get too personal to quick...You may think you're connecting with a person, but don't burden them with your whole life story within an hour of meeting them. It's too intense, and they'll avoid you after.

3) Don't be afraid to screw up. It's really hard not to get keyed up when you really are desperate to talk to anyone. If you find yourself shaky and babbling, move on, and come back when you've cooled off a bit. It gets easier, and, unless you do something freakish, they won't hold it against you (or if they do, fuck 'em). Check the fringes. There are plenty of people who are also inept, and if you're not scary/overbearing/stinky they'll be glad for someone to talk to. Understand that the average person isn't any more socially adept than you are...They just lucked out and ended up being bland. Bland fits in everywhere.

4) Try not to take yourself seriously. This is hard.

5) Empathy. Try to figure what the other person is feeling. This tends to be nearly impossible for hardcore left brainers; just not wired correctly for reading other peoples emotions. This is okay. But you still need to recognize (if only on a conscious level), basic body language. The only way to do this is to watch...Reading a guide on body language is like reading a guide on art.

Social skills are 100% conformity to a standard. They're a semi-open communication protocol. Once you figure it out, you can talk to most people. Understand that you need to talk about things that interest the people you're talking to...This is hard for geeks, especially because other people seldom talk about things we're interested in. DON'T EXPECT EVERYONE TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. You can't be the alpha geek if you're talking to non-geeks...You're just going to piss them off