Slashdot Mirror
Catching a breath...
Heads Up. This is in the Be Careful What You Wish For Dept: A bunch of reporters and producers are trawling the site looking for geek kids to put on TV and radio, and to interview for newspaper stories. Journalism has suddenly discovered that this story is a little more complicated than violent video games and geek monsters.
Be careful, especially those of you who are younger. Some of these reporters get it, some don't. Some will worry about your best interests, and others won't. I've declined to give any e-mail addresses of kids relaying the realities of life in High School to reporters, since in some cases, radio and TV exposure would make their lives worse, not better.
It's an individual choice, but think about it. If you need guidance, please feel free to e-mail me, as I worked in newspapers and for a TV network before becoming a cyber-gasbag and writer.Update: 04/28 02:03 by H : Doug has also put up ListenToUs. This is a gathering place for us to communicate with each on social issues, especially in light of Littleton.
To any of you high school-aged kids that may have the opportunity to speak on this subject to a mass-media outlet, please think very carefully before you speak. We have already seen messages from youngsters that chose the wrong words when expressing their feelings and were removed from school, sent to counseling, or contacted by police. Many, many of use can relate to what these kids in Littleton were possibly going through, but expressing this view with the wrong words can make you a target for some "authority" to make an example out of you and show people that they are doing something. Please, don't let it be you that is used by people out to promote themselves.
I had a similar reaction from my wife and father- just a "whatever". My dad was more interested in writing a letter to the editor on gun control than discussing the root causes.
Likewise in high school, I ended up having to suck the stuff up and take it. This whole discussion with so many coming forward with their experiences has been unexpectedly theraputic.
It is very true the persecution was experienced by a variety of people- the strongest/most aggressive/"best socialized" on top. I wonder how/if this could be changed as it seems intrinsic in the structure of the schools. Maybe its a consequence of the individual school's administration- good administrators, good teachers wouldn't put up with this crap- but PHB school admins are another story. Frankly, how could you trust any Principal to stop people abusing you, when you've been brought up to fear talking to him/her. Sure, "their door is always open", and "they just want to be your friend"- but how can that trust exist when they have such power (some real, some imagined) over you? Even if they do something, and stop some jock from punching you in the stomach whenever you walk past- why then, he and his buddies have a reason to torture you.
The media coverage on this issue has been nauseating- they resemble a bunch of vultures feeding on the corpses. "Gee, why don't you poor kids give us a group hug so we can put it on the front page." This can only increase their irrelvance.
I hope there are enough media people with a concience and some particle of integrity to push some of the other aspects of this story.
Gregm
This is my life, and t his is my story. My life has begun, and has seemingly ended with the net. I'm 25 now, and I have nothing to show for what seems like a patethic life. Anyway, I want to tell my sad story, in the hopes that someone out there, a Good Samaritan as it were can at least point me in the right direction.
.58 average. My parents gave me the choice of going to a local community college, or getting kicked out of the house. I went to school. I hated it.
I am a Cuban-American, which is a nice way of saying I'm an American Citizen who doesn't identify with being American. I learned to spean Spanish first, and I never properly adapeted to being American. My formative years are very confused and very blurry, I think I remember being intelligent, but I was always getting into trouble with authority figures, wheter by calling them names, or having this need to make them feel stupid. I distinctly recall various events leading up suspension, and many, many, many frantic calls by tortured school administrators to my parents because I was "difficult" I was never evaluated or tested for any type of learning disability so I don't know... Maybe that's part of it.
High school was, difficult. If you've seen "Something about Mary". You know her retarded brother Warren? That's what it felt like to be me. I cried for a month after reading Ordinary People, because I thought that suicide was the best way to go. I didn't want to live, and I knew nothing was worth it. I never got around to actually killing myself primarily because I couldn't find a graphic enough way. I wanted something with explosions, that were guaranteed to work. None of this choking to death or shooting myself nonsense. I wanted something dramatic...sensational.
I'm fat, that describes me. High school was a fat person's hell. I mean, I wasn't Jabba The Hutt, but I was close. I was at least 60 pounds overweight throughout high school. The football people loved it. I was perfect to beat up in the locker room. I played for a single season, I did a lot of tackles, and I suffered through 2 weeks of football camp. I would always be last place in the running times, last place in number of tackles, and last place in anything. I ended up crying to the head coach, and I don't remember much more. I was curled up under the covers afraid to come out at that dreadful place. At the end of all that, 3 months later. I was barely able to keep up with the slowest runners on the team. And I got very good at accepting physical abuse. Fist fights in the locker room, headbutting lockers, that was easy. It was easier than dealing with reality.
Anyhow, that didn't last long. I had already discovered girls, and oh, great was my woe. I was under this mistaken impression that girls would like someone who was fat, if they were good at football. People on the team even told me as much. Anyhow, freshman year came and went without a single date, or even anyone I could even ask out. I pined for what I thought was the promised life with some girl, somewhere. It never happened. To this day, I still pine for Karen Ficken.
I did a lot of shop-lifting that summer. I stole every single Science Fiction book out of Waldenbooks near me. Whole bookshelves worth. I got caught by Mall Security near August, and they let me go with a warning. I at least had a friend, in Marilyn, a grammar school classmate who was somewhat antisocial, and we viewed this as our escape. She was a friend, and romanticism never blossmed. A couple of weeks after school started in September, she disappeared to Florida. Supposedly to be with her Lesbian lover, Tara.
I got a job, working in some Dental Office somewhere. Part time, after school. I sould suffer through the humillation in the hallways, and being a social outcast and I thought that if I had money, "chicks" would dig me. Never happened. I don't remember much besides setting up a BBS (you know, a Bulletin Board System), those quaint things that people did back then. I was rude, and obxnoious, and had a lot of other rude, online friends, who thought the same way. We did the usual pranks, lit up pentragrams in gasolines in school parking lots. That type of thing. I lost touch with all of them later on. I never knew what happened to any of them, I guess it was better this way. At least they couldn't pin down anything on me.
A couple of months went by, BBSing day in and day out. Never going out on weekends. I mean, sure, there was the occasional attempt to go to a dance, and try to talk to someone, and get laughed at or something. But I always went back to it.
Anyway, Sophmore year ended, and I worked in a factory over the summer. That was fun. I got yelled at, and beat up in the parking lot by these big black guys because I was making them look bad. I would hide in the rolls of shelves, and take naps in the scaffolding of a 3 story building. Hiding 20 feet above the ground seems to make you invisible.
That summer, I hacked my way into some local college, and discovered Usenet. Whoa, and IRC-ii. On what was to become EFnet's #bondage, I discovered many friends. Inanna, Kiran, Justice(JRJ), Crimson, Elf, Akasha, (I know I have my times mixed up here, because I was on for a while). I can barely remember the names of them all. People I talked to, almost daily. They were more real to me, than life itself. Their stories, their history, I lived my life through alt.sex.bondage. Downloading the newest story was the highlight of my week. Reading something new was, more important than any political story, or news article. Truth be told? I did an awful lot of sexual self-discovery through the wonders of alt.sex.binaries.erotica. I remember lots of fights, and people fighting about one of the bots on channel. Something about the "Great Banning of the Five". Who the five were? I only remember Inanna. I remember her being very high-strung, temperamental, and passionate about people she liked and cared about. She didn't really talk to me that much, and I tried to stay out of her way. I guess with practice, being meek comes easy. So does impersonating someone's email address. Live a lie, long enough, and you become the lie. Days, Weeks, months passed.
Junior year came and went. People did drugs in school, Mesc, and Pot, were the drugs of choice. I became known as the piss-drinker. I mean, sure it was diluted and all, but the reptutation persisted. People would point at me, and laugh. It doesn't matter where I would sit, people would just laugh. I discovered smoking, and booze. Soon, every day was a good day to drink. Sure, go to class bombed? Fun fun fun! I mean, sure I was still on IRC, but...well... I thought I was cool.
The year came and went, I didn't bother anymore. I read, and I was online. Meeting real physical people was a pretty big waste. I had a senior prom. I drank 2 liters of Absolut. I puked all over someone else's limo. I had to have a friend fix me up with someone, because obese old me, couldn't get a date if the future of humanity depended on it. I remember being so happy to graduate.
Ah, but then the story takes a morbid twist. I applied to school after school. My acceptance letters all came late. A college in Tennessee, and 2 local schools. Not a single school I wanted to go to, replied. I found out later, that my parents simply didn't mail checks with all the forms. They figured spending $50 for UCLA was pointless. I mean, sure, we can't afford it, so why bother.
I ended up going to a state school. I met Jenifer, there. She was a nice girl from Conn, we talked a lot. I tried to hit on her endlessly. To no avail. I don't know. Maybe there was a reason for it. I ended up meeting a Matthew-Sweet lookalike, who I hung with a bit. He was uh, great with ladies, and I was terribly jealous of his skill. He had dates, and was always going places. Me, I'd try to join a club, and be too timid to even apply. No, my nights were spent to a higher passion, reading stupid computer books, and figuring out how to play games. A few months later, I discovered I could lie, and stay home and be online all day and never go to class. I was able to do it for almost 2 years. Wow, I did a lot, and talked to a lot of people. None of them probably remember me anyway, so it's probably a blessing. Thankfully Deja News has none of my work archived (Whew). That would be really embarassing.
Around the same time, I started to hang out with my Sister's boyfriend a lot. He treated me like a brother. He showed me how to drink, how to smoke. I don't know, for a while there...*Gasp* I might have almost been cool. I had friends, places to go on weekends. It was probably the happiest time of my life. I did pot, I did coke. I went nightclubbing. I even bounced for a while. I vowed to make everyone in high school pay for the crimes they committed against me. My war against humanity was in full force. I vowed to see them drop, man, woman and child bow before me, as I sliced their throats. Death, Happiness, and rage filled my days. Liquor, and carnal pursits my nights. I worked in a go-go bar. I pitifully flirted with the dancers, while I secretly plotted their demise.
Anyhow, my sister broke up with him, on August 9, 2 days before my birthday. I ended up crashing my car after driving 65mph in city limits, and I nearly killed some other drunk driver. I was able to remain friends with him for nearly another year. I can remember after that, how the doors would come crashing down, and people wouldn't return my calls. I sank into a pit of misery and depression. Too apatehetic to take over the world, too lazy to even clean my room. I wallowed. I was kicked out of college for having a
I ended up meeting my first girlfriend. She was, a lot of things to me. She was white, she drank a lot. We faught a lot. I had sex. I used her for sex at first, and came to lover her after time. I tied her up. I got to do all the kinky things that festered within me for 20 long years. I abused her, I poured hot wax on her. I spanked her, I gagged her. I beat her, and I liked it. I enjoyed causing pain on her, and the fact that she liked it too, was kinda cool. Slowly, I started to come out of my shell, but I never became the person I wanted to be. I stayed with her because I was afraid, and I loved her. Afraid of being alone again, and Afraid of never finding someone else like that.
We grew, she moved. I changed her. I became a hardcore shoe fetishist. Money was no object for shoes. I downloaded pornography all day long. Gigabytes of it. Entire collections of buxom-beauties. 20, 30, 40 years old. It didn't matter. I tried to fill the hole in my heart with empty pictures of long dead women. Betty, Eva, and Whitney were close to me.
I changed jobs, and we stayed together. I discovered new torments, and Armbinders, and ball gags, and spreader bars, and everything else. New things waiting to be discovered. But the closer we became, the more she complained about how I felt empty. That I didn't romance her, that I didn't feel like I loved her. And it's difficult to feel like you can love someone when you can't even accept yourself. We faught a lot, nearly constantly. I hated a lot of what she did, she loved me through and through.
I changed jobs again, and got a job working for a major telco with a substantial salary. Technically my skills were without peer. Professionally? My attitude sucked. I couldn't get anything done that involved any sort of people skills. I lavished her with expensive gifts, and shoes. At one point her shoe collection was over 200 pairs. I brought shoes weekly. I lusted after them. I would follow women around, and ask where they brought them. I would buy any magazine that even showed a pair I hadn't seen before.
But through it all, we stayed together. Now, she went to the same community college I went to, and things went downhill. We never saw each other. I'm feel like I'm being dumped, but she explained that I needed the time to find myself. She didn't want to waste anymore time with me, if I was so fucked in the head.
I'm angry and I'm sad. I'm crying daily. Just hearing the sound of her voice brings me back to being fifteen. I mope, I'm angry, I'm rude. I'm cursing people on the way to work. I've been picking fights. I haven't yet gone to a cop and tried to get shot, but I think it's coming. She's still there for me, as a friend, but I feel so hurt. I could go on, but I'd rather not break out into a crying plea for her to take me back.
I need help. I need I don't know. Everything. The chance to erase my life and start over. I need therapy, and maybe more. I don't know. Drugs, Prozac, Thorazine, and maybe Ritalin. I don't know. I'm angry about everything, but I know that I don't fix myself, I'm going to die. Either Die a lonely and bitter man in 70 years, or I'll die in a brilliantly spectacular death somewhere on a highway somewhere.
I'm kinda lost on therapy. I know I can't afford it, but I can get it through my insurance. I'm posting a list of all the people on my plan. Hopefully someone who's scene aware can read it, and tell me if any of these quacks can help me. I understand that I'm a deviant, but I'd like to be able to go to someone, who can understand that I'm kinky. I don't know. I want to be normal, but I want to be kinky. I want to be skinny, and not fat. And while I'm working on the fat, I can't let my soul rot. I can't go online like this, and I'm turning to the one audience that helped me before in my time of need. I really don't know what else there is to say, except Thank You.
anonymous_loser@yahoo.com
After reading the cover of the latest Time, The Monsters Next Door, I thought "oh no, more persecution". Imagine my surprise to see a balanced look at the issues:
- The Curse of Cliques
- Page 2 of the cover story goes over the daily treatment received(bottles/rocks thrown at them from moving cars, persecution from jocks and teachers, etc.)
- Coverage of the Goth scene in We're Goths Not Monsters
- Flash: movies don't kill people from Bang, You're Dead
- The computer age may be giving kids a new outlet for their dark fantasies, but that hardly means it is turning them into killers. from Digital Dungeons, an article covering software.
I suggest that Time is commended by our community for covering the truth behind the issue.I just wanted to briefly thank Jon Katz for all of the hard work he's done on this story. Millions of kids across the nation know the pain of being abused by their peers and thanks to Jon and Slashdot, this message is finally getting out.
For those of you in High School, be careful but vocal. Don't let other students trample over your rights. Physical and mental abuse is something that shouldn't be tolerated in any environment, espically by young people. Hopefully by getting the word out, we can make a change.
United we stand, Divided we fall.
>Anyone have their familiy not get it or actually
:>
>turn on you for telling them the truth?
It's kind of funny that you mention this. I personally haven't talked about it with my girlfriend (of 4 years), as I'm not really sure what to tell her.
Like a lot of people, I guess I was kind of living in a shell throughout most of my school career. School was hell, but I eventually got out of it.
When I met my gf, I had finally snapped out of it. No, I didn't take on jock-like characteristics by any means, but I learned to be pretty happy with who I am, to accept who I had become, etc. She never knew the 'old' me, really.
From her perspective, I'm just a guy with geekly leanings. I admit it, we both laugh about it from time to time, it's no big deal. She wasn't the most 'popular' kid in her school, but by no means was she a geek. She was well liked and for the most part made it through with no hatred toward her or those like her. I don't think she would understand that part of things.
Sure, she knows I spend WAY too much time in front of a computer, but at least I get paid for it. She knows I prefer reading to a lot of TV, and science fiction impressed me more than the average romatic comedy Hollywood spews out. Yeah, I even used to play RPGs (gasp!) on occasion. No big deal. She loves me anyhow, which is great - but she doesn't know what it was like way back when, either.
Strangely enough, though, after I left high school everything changed. I had slain the worst demons of bad self image, and that was the end of that. Now I'm a 20 year old part time college student with a '96 Eclipse, a beautiful girlfriend, and a job that I enjoy (please don't consider me a yuppie, as I'm not - honest! *grin*). I see these shmucks on a regular basis and realize that they'll never leave this town. In a way, that is the greatest revenge.
To those of geekly leanings still in school - hang in there. Your time will come. You'll "fill out" as a person, become more attractive (even if just in spirit), and learn to live with yourself and even enjoy being who you are. For the time being, find some people outside of high school who can understand you - they're out there. The denizens of Slashdot have real life counterparts, you know. Ride the rough seas of high school and you will eventually be just fine. Trust me.
Anyhow, I now carry on my quest to show my gf the beauty of the geek world. She's taking May 19th off with me (why, you ask?!?), loves video games (mostly RPGs), and is learning HTML as we speak - without a wizzy-wig editor. Much can be said for a 'late bloomer'.
I guess being a geek really is an outward manifestation of the best things humanity can offer. Tolerance. Curiosity. Creativity. Passion. Rest assured, these are not qualities to be ashamed of... Be proud, be safe, and be yourself.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
Once a reporter has interviewed you, you lose control over your words. What you say and what gets printed can easily get misrepresented, misunderstood, or taken out of context. The printed/aired story becomes "Truth".
I've been interviewd twice - once as a teen by the local paper after I won an award to attend a science honors program at Columbia, and once as an adult regarding a subject area and program I worked on. The local interview was OK, although I didn't like how I was described ("flippant"? - I'd have to ask my parents for the clipping if they've kept it for 30 years!).
The "professional" interview quoted me at length, made me appear to be an authorized spokesman for a government program (I wasn't), and never told me I was being quoted vs. providing general background. After the story ran in an industry newsletter, I was almost fired at our customer's request, which would have permanently ended my employment in that industry! Fortunately, I was able to convince my bosses that I was taken advantage of, and my track record with them backed up my claims. (The "reporter" later called me to ask how I liked the story he had printed! Fortunately, yelling and cursing on a phone call in 1988 was not then a felony)
There is much to be said for annonymity over noteriety. If you DO get "lucky" enough to be interviewed, I'm sure John can offer specific advice; here's my 2 cents:
1. Get the topic and "slant" of the story before agreeing to be interviewed.
2. Make clear what is for quotation and what is not.
3. Present yourself as you want to hear/see/read about yourself.
4. Keep your own record of the interview and have someone else present (a parent or trusted adult if you are a minor).
5. You lose all control over your words the instant the interview ends.
6. The reporter is interested in getting a story and benefiting themselves, not in helping you. This is reality, not cynicism.
7. Be helpful without becoming vulnerable. Some of these people WANT to be educated and will listen to reasonable words.
Good Luck!
You know, just like alot of you my school years up until university were utter hell. I can't begin to describe the overwhelming emotions of fear, anger, hurt and bitterness that consume me when I think back on them. I learned to harden myself and I pushed all of those emotions down deep. It never affected me and I didn't think it would because, like I told everyone "I don't care what people think about me." After such a long time of keeping that burden pushed down inside of me I thought nothing of it.
However, after reading all of the postings and the hellmouth articles it finally started to hit me. Those emotions finally rose up and I can honestly say I shed a few tears. In post after post I found people I could finally relate to and who were feeling what I was/had felt. Call it geek therapy, or whatever, but it was nice to not feel like an outcast.
The part that hurt the most is that my wife and I don't see eye to eye on this issue. She bought into the media hype and fanatacism and not only tries to justify it but defends it too. So I printed out the two articles and some of the comments and took them home for her to read. I really needed her to understand. First of all I had to almost force her to read it, secondly she got only past the first page and a half and said that that was too much reading for her for one day. I felt like saying "What not enough pictures for you?" She promised to read more of it later, but I doubt that she will. That made me feel even worse.
I guess that's what you get when Mr.Geek marries Ms.Popularity.
Anyone have their familiy not get it or actually turn on you for telling them the truth?
********************************************
Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
One thing that it seems "visitors" may be taking away from all this on Slashdot is the idea that the connection works both ways: Just because people can understand what might drive those kids to commit mass murder and might even admit to having those feelings themselves does not mean that they're defending what was done or saying that murder is ok.
Just like I could say I respect Hitler's leadership abilities without being a Nazi or that I can understand why immigrant Irish workers and sharecroppers hated blacks without being a racist, I can say that I understand what might drive those kids to kill without having a trace of the urge myself. These were not normal people. As many people have pointed out, they were in many ways like us, but they were not us.
Many people here may spend countless hours looking at the pentagrams id shows us, but the vast majority of these people don't worship the devil. These kids, however, had the racist feelings to stand behind their swastikas and the guns to back up those feelings.
As one of the emails to Katz showed, some people think we're defending what was done or saying that it's understandable. It's not. It's the emotion behind the actions that's understandable. I would hate for visitors to Slashdot to think that we all think what was done was somehow justified.
It's really tough having to live through all the persecution, and I can really relate and I feel sympathy for every one else who had to suffer the same. It's easy to blame the schools, because they turned their backs, looked the other way, were understaffed, and were too jaded to care. It's not that they didn't care, actually, but that there were too many issues, too many problems, and no real solutions for them to do anything but give up.
I don't want to justify their behavior in creating this kind of situation, but I would like to explain some of the their reasoning in all this.
At least in my schools, there were overcrowded classrooms, aged and retiring teachers who just didn't have the energy or youth to deal with us, and and not enough funds to do anything they would have liked. In order to handle and deal with a class, conformity was stressed over performance, individuality, or creativeness. How could a teacher handle 20 wildly independent, unique, creative, inquisitive students? Whether intentional or not, they managed to convey to us the idea of conforming, of not rocking the boat. They were happy and excited whenever one of us showed initiative or intelligence, but they did not actively try to push us towards that goal.
Kids picked up really quick; they became the enforcers of the norm, and if you were different of race, of behavior, of attitude, of anything, they'd target you for this.
This was a school system which actively recruited for GATE students, but didn't have the resources to actually do anything with/for us once we were identified. They actually used us to gain more funding for stuff such as books, repairs, maintanence, etc. They didn't have the training or resources to manage a handful of gifted students, so we were left to our own devices, and then resented for it by all the other children.
This goes on all the way up to high school, in which I finally figured out how to look cool, how to act cool, how to be cool. I also happened to gain a foot in height and 40 pounds of bulk, so I guess people didn't figure I was such an easy target either.
Something does need to be done to change the system. We live in a society that does reward innovative unique and creative people, but the system we use to train and manage the kids tries to destroy and contain these things because they cause too much trouble.
I was talking to my dad about this, and he mentioned that even private schools have this fascist need to maintain conformity, except that they raise the bar and expectations much higher than in our public school. Are there any real solutions available?
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I am not a Sociologist nor Ethnologist i.e. I am not a scientist specifically trained to analyse an alien culture. But I am a scientist (Phycisist) from Germany and part of my motivation to come here is to understand the American culture.
The most scary thing I observe in the mainstream culture is a disdain for intelligence: "Dumb is good!" a slogan I saw in the TV movie "Brave new world" could be almost the banner for mainstream (white) America (may be a little bit different for the black American culture). I talked to a white American psychologist about it (a professor of mine at business school) and he told me he perceives a teen attitude that equates "being smart with being uncool". What a weird culture. In Europe being a university student means to be someone special, somebody with the potential to outstanding intelectual achievment, somebody who favors scientific truth over a big paycheck. Copmpare this to the frat boy as student role model.
I was a geek as kid. And I was an oddball but I had some respect from my peers, because I didn't suck up to the teachers, and I helped them out when I could. I don't know how many geeks had experiences like this in the US. This good geek school experience seems to me rather the rule than the exeption in my country. I hated school just because I wasn't free to do with my time what i wanted.
My fiancée is kind of an American geek girl who went through school by escaping into permanently reading SF. She hated Junior High and High School, and I think it did some severe damage to her. If we have children we don't want them to go through the American non-academic school system.
I try hard to figure out what is going on in this culture and why it is so different from Europe. Since I haven't gone through the US school system I don't know what it is from the inside but it seems to me to be a prime problem of the American society. I am aware that this is certainly no new insight, but it is concerning to see that nothing seems to be done about it. I remember that Bush senior put it on the agenda when he ran for presidency. I know that Steven Jobs, in an interview I once read, was delighted about the idea of organizing public schools privately, but I don't think he had the time to follow up on this.
In Europe it is good common political practice to compare your own national society with other Western countries in order to learn how to improve. That is something completely missing in the US (political) culture. Why invent yourself if you can copy good practices? The open source movement showed that this works for all sorts of matters. Nevertheless the US are just roasting in their own juice. The US society might figure out something the hard way, but it will produce a lot of unhappy American geeks along the way (and some dead students).
That in the midst of all the kids being stripsearched for wearing black and expelled for not parroting back group think, concerts being cancelled and movies being blamed, not ONE, not ONE case of a school instituting an zero tolerance for bullying. Not even a prominent voice. Just our scream of anguish -- and for all it is loud to us, it is barely heard in the wider society, which sees only flowers, sorrow and comprehension of thirteen and not of two.
Oh, there's the occasional article discussing cliques, but they are almost invariably wrapped up by quotes from smug little experts going 'oh, it's all a part of growing up, it's *good* for them'. Here, shall I show you the scar on my head from the time (one among hundreds) that someone tripped me on the way to my seat and I smashed my head against the corner of the desk? Go on, tell me how good it was for me. Or perhaps we'll seat you, Mr. Expert, in a room with 25 other people and have them whisper abuse and throw things at you for an hour a day. Oh, and you can't skip, or we'll arrest you. Go on, tell me how it improves your self esteem.
Fuckers. And they wonder why we feel alienated from the majority.
Laura
Over the past few days, people here on
Do you really think that the primary reason for the ostracism of these two kids was because they were especially intelligent or geeky? How many geeks do you know of who are car theives? How many Nazi geeks do you know of? Even if you knew a car-stealing-racist-Nazi-geek, do you think you would be especially compassionate towards them? I try to be compassionate to everyone, but for kids such as these, I don't think I could even muster that. There had been reports of these kids walking down halls yelling "nigger" at any black person they saw. If I was faced with this (I am black), I have little doubt that I would be downright hostile towards them. I was ridiculed for many things back in highschool, but whenever someone insulted me because of my race, I could always count on 99 percent of the rest of the school to stand behind me in my defense. Although the students of Columebine HS probably regret it now, I'll bet that many of them acted similarly.
I seriously doubt that these kids were really geeks. I find it pretty odd that so many of you here consider them as such merely because they played Doom and had a home page on AOL; even my mom has played a few video games and is working on a homepage on AOL -- of course her page isn't likely to be filled with death threats, pentagrams, and/or swasticas. So many people here have objected to the fact that the schools are now (after the killing) "cracking down" on geeks because they think they may have homicidal/suicidal tendencies. I'm sure I don't have to remind any of you here, but geeks tend to have FAR more self resect than that. Despite the ridicule geeks receive daily, most geeks I know carry a huge amount of dignity with them; some are even a little egotistical. As far as I can tell, these killers hated both themselves and everyone around them. A person who is confident in their ability to eventually succeed isn't going to shoot up their schoolmates and kill themselves. If you want the schools (both the administration and other students) to stop scapegoating geeks, you should emphatically remind them that geeks have absolutely NOTHING in common with someone who is capable of amassing a stockpile of weapons, walking into a crowded room, and shooting anyone present.
These two killers have been described by other students as being "freaks." Only the media has tried to portray them as "geeks." Which account do you believe?
This is going to be a interesting week.
:)
The first week after the Littleton killings, we were blasted with all the standard cut and paste tragedy news in the mainstream media.. All the "the community is coming together" crap that always happens after a tragedy such as shit. But this is different. This really struck a nerve in the geek population, because many of us relate to the killers. As sick as I am sure it makes us all feel, its true. There is a little bit of them in a damn large population of us. We are doing someting about it, as a community, we _have_ come together.
Week one was everyone putting the peices together. I was watching it on several dozen mailling lists I administrate. I was actually waiting for someting along the lines of what was going on there to happen here on Slashdot. It has, and the Slashdot effect in its own little way is taking effect, but not on someone's website today, but alot of people's minds. A place were we are all happy to see the load averages cranking up.
"Thinking about these things can't help but make you smarter." -- Jello B.
It applies, big time. Although, this goes even farther. Jon is right, we should be carful what we ask for. Actually, scratch that. We would be _aware_ of what we ask for, and be ready for it when it comes.
On the Internet (as Jon put it at some point), a story rides is its own merit. This one has some real issues behind it, people are intrested/scarred/concerned/effected.. The action here WILL have an effect. Even if it is just to show some of the people truly effected by this that they are not alone.
As I see it, no matter what happens here, we win. As a community. The role the Internet has teken in this... is good.
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. "The future masters of technology will have to be lighthearted and
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. "The future masters of technology will have to be lighthearted and
. intelligent. The machine easily m
So, while geeks seem to be the target of the recent witch-hunt in schools around the country, and we are right to feel indignant, remember that we do NOT corner the market on alienation.
No sig.