Take A Stand!
Cyberbullying Rhetoric Misses The Mark
Bullying as True Drama
By DANAH BOYD and ALICE MARWICK
Published: September 22, 2011
THE suicide of Jamey Rodemeyer, the 14-year-old boy from western New
York who killed himself last Sunday after being tormented by his
classmates for being gay, is appalling. His story is a classic case of
bullying: he was aggressively and repeatedly victimized. Horrific
episodes like this have sparked conversations about cyberbullying and
created immense pressure on regulators and educators to do something,
anything, to make it stop. Yet in the rush to find a solution, adults
are failing to recognize how their conversations about bullying are
often misaligned with youth narratives. Adults need to start paying
attention to the language of youth if they want antibullying
interventions to succeed.
Jamey recognized that he was being bullied and asked explicitly for
help, but this is not always the case. Many teenagers who are bullied
can’t emotionally afford to identify as victims, and young people who
bully others rarely see themselves as perpetrators. For a teenager to
recognize herself or himself in the adult language of bullying carries
social and psychological costs. It requires acknowledging oneself as
either powerless or abusive.
In our research over a number of years, we have interviewed and observed
teenagers across the United States. Given the public interest in
cyberbullying, we asked young people about it, only to be continually
rebuffed. Teenagers repeatedly told us that bullying was something that
happened only in elementary or middle school. “There’s no bullying at
this school” was a regular refrain.
This didn’t mesh with our observations, so we struggled to understand
the disconnect. While teenagers denounced bullying, they — especially
girls — would describe a host of interpersonal conflicts playing out in
their lives as “drama.”
At first, we thought drama was simply an umbrella term, referring to
varying forms of bullying, joking around, minor skirmishes between
friends, breakups and makeups, and gossip. We thought teenagers viewed
bullying as a form of drama. But we realized the two are quite distinct.
Drama was not a show for us, but rather a protective mechanism for
them.
Teenagers say drama when they want to diminish the importance of
something. Repeatedly, teenagers would refer to something as “just
stupid drama,” “something girls do,” or “so high school.” We learned
that drama can be fun and entertaining; it can be serious or totally
ridiculous; it can be a way to get attention or feel validated. But
mostly we learned that young people use the term drama because it is
empowering.
Dismissing a conflict that’s really hurting their feelings as drama lets
teenagers demonstrate that they don’t care about such petty concerns.
They can save face while feeling superior to those tormenting them by
dismissing them as desperate for attention. Or, if they’re the
instigators, the word drama lets teenagers feel that they’re
participating in something innocuous or even funny, rather than having
to admit that they’ve hurt someone’s feelings. Drama allows them to
distance themselves from painful situations.
Adults want to help teenagers recognize the hurt that is taking place,
which often means owning up to victimhood. But this can have serious
consequences. To recognize oneself as a victim — or perpetrator —
requires serious emotional, psychological and social support, an
infrastructure unavailable to many teenagers. And when teenagers like
Jamey do ask for help, they’re often let down. Not only are many adults
ill-equipped to help teenagers do the psychological work necessary, but
teenagers’ social position often requires them to continue facing the
same social scene day after day.
Like Jamey, there are young people who identify as victims of bullying.
But many youths engaged in practices that adults label bullying do not
name them as such. Teenagers want to see themselves as in control of
their own lives; their reputations are important. Admitting that they’re
being bullied, or worse, that they are bullies, slots them into a
narrative that’s disempowering and makes them feel weak and childish.
Antibullying efforts cannot be successful if they make teenagers feel
victimized without providing them the support to go from a position of
victimization to one of empowerment. When teenagers acknowledge that
they’re being bullied, adults need to provide programs similar to those
that help victims of abuse. And they must recognize that emotional
recovery is a long and difficult process.
But if the goal is to intervene at the moment of victimization, the
focus should be to work within teenagers’ cultural frame, encourage
empathy and help young people understand when and where drama has
serious consequences. Interventions must focus on positive concepts like
healthy relationships and digital citizenship rather than starting with
the negative framing of bullying. The key is to help young people feel
independently strong, confident and capable without first requiring them
to see themselves as either an oppressed person or an oppressor.
Danah Boyd is a senior researcher at Microsoft Research and a
research assistant professor at New York University. Alice Marwick is a
postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research and a research affiliate
at Harvard University.
