Eric and Dylan weren't bullied because they were straight

And straight kids don't get bullied. Only gay kids do. Everyone knows that.

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Quote :

I wish that Moore had drawn a clearer line between his comments about Turing—a man who was persecuted and prosecuted for his homosexuality—and his “it gets better” message to teens who are merely weird and different. For one thing, overemphasizing the connection between queer teens and suicide can be dangerous. But it’s also important to note that being gay simply isn’t the same as being a “geek.” Moore may see them as comparable (and, though he has identified himself as straight, his affect may have opened him up to homophobic bullying), but the truth of the matter is that the social force behind anti-gay prejudice is far stronger and more pernicious than the animus against social outcasts. Moore’s heart was surely in the right place, but I wish he hadn't conflated these identities.

In other words ... the jocks hate gays more than they hate freaks. So if you're a freak - if you're "merely" weird and different - don't say that you have it bad. Gays have it worse than you.

Yes, gay kids get bullied. Yes, straight kids who are not gay get bullied because they seem gay. (Eric and Dylan weren't gay, and yet some assholes said they were and gave them shit for it.)

But to say that "non-gay bullying doesn't count" is deeply offensive. It's a slap in the face to all the kids who suffer because they're not at or near the top of the totem pole.

I believe that Eric and Dylan were bullied to some degree, and that the bullying they received contributed to their anger and their feelings of alienation. And I am not going to let people say that non-gay bullying doesn't count, or that it doesn't count as much as gay bullying. It counts, and it hurts, and it messes kids up.

I'm tired of white straight male geeks telling me that they are just as disadvantaged in society as actually underprivileged groups.

I'm white and straight and was bullied horrifically by many people for years. Yet a ton of people these days do not care about what happened to me or will even acknowledge that it was as bad as it was because I'm not gay or transgendered. Where is the fairness or rightness in that?

VeronicaisnotDead wrote:

I'm tired of white straight male geeks telling me that they are just as disadvantaged in society as actually underprivileged groups.

I am sorry if I sound rude but this is naturally a sore spot with me.

Straight white males can be bullied too. And they can suffer from it. I see nowhere in this post where anyone is talking about disadvantaged groups in society and how white straight males are one of those groups. LPorter was simply commenting that bullying hurts deeply and is immensely damaging no matter what gender or sexuality you are.

I should have started with this:

Quote :

But to say that "non-gay bullying doesn't count" is deeply offensive.

This is a straw man.  At no point does the author of the article say this at all. It's saying that nerds are not an oppressed group. Which, in my opinion, is a very true statement.

VeronicaisnotDead wrote:

I should have started with this:

Quote :

But to say that "non-gay bullying doesn't count" is deeply offensive.

This is a straw man.  At no point does the author of the article say this at all.  It's saying that nerds are not an oppressed group.  Which, in my opinion, is a very true statement.

You're entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to mine.

Talking about "oppressed groups" is beside the point. The bottom line is that some kids are treated horribly because they're different. Some of those kids are gay. Many if not most of them are not.

Bullying kids who are different is wrong, regardless of whether they're gay or not.

What I object to is the notion that bullying is a "gay" issue, or that gays suffer from it more than anyone else. It affects lots of kids.

Veronica, you seem very hostile. I don't know what your deal is, but no one here is making excuses for what Eric and Dylan did. We're trying to understand why they did it.

LPorter101 wrote:

Talking about "oppressed groups" is beside the point.

How is it beside the point when that's what the article is about?

The author is not saying that bullying doesn't count unless you're gay.  I don't know where you're getting this from. I think you're misinterpreting the article.

Currently reading the comments section.  Christ at the amount of people who seem to think that nerds are some oppressed minority.  This sentiment seems to have gained a lot of momentum since Gamergate and Shirtgate.

sergeant hartman wrote:

Currently reading the comments section.  Christ at the amount of people who seem to think that nerds are some oppressed minority.  This sentiment seems to have gained a lot of momentum since Gamergate and Shirtgate.

Well, that is the name of the game, isn't it? Everyone is an oppressed minority these days. Everyone wants to get the goodies that oppressed minorities get.

VeronicaisnotDead wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

Talking about "oppressed groups" is beside the point.

How is it beside the point when that's what the article is about?

The author is not saying that bullying doesn't count unless you're gay.  I don't know where you're getting this from.  I think you're misinterpreting the article.

Think whatever you want.

Quote :

Moore may see them as comparable (and, though he has identified himself as straight, his affect may have opened him up to homophobic bullying), but the truth of the matter is that the social force behind anti-gay prejudice is far stronger and more pernicious than the animus against social outcasts.

In other words, "Gays have it worse than social outcasts - you can't compare the bullying that gays get to the bullying that social outcasts get." You can quibble about the semantics all you want, but that's what's being said.

LPorter101 wrote:

sergeant hartman wrote:

Currently reading the comments section.  Christ at the amount of people who seem to think that nerds are some oppressed minority.  This sentiment seems to have gained a lot of momentum since Gamergate and Shirtgate.

Well, that is the name of the game, isn't it? Everyone is an oppressed minority these days. Everyone wants to get the goodies that oppressed minorities get.

... going to give you the benefit of the doubt here. What do you mean by this?

sergeant hartman wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

sergeant hartman wrote:

Currently reading the comments section.  Christ at the amount of people who seem to think that nerds are some oppressed minority.  This sentiment seems to have gained a lot of momentum since Gamergate and Shirtgate.

Well, that is the name of the game, isn't it? Everyone is an oppressed minority these days. Everyone wants to get the goodies that oppressed minorities get.

... going to give you the benefit of the doubt here.  What do you mean by this?

This is the age of whining. The fat are victims of weightism. The short are victims of heightism. Everyone's problems are someone else's fault. It gets to be a bit much.

And when I say "goodies," I mean, "Society owes me this and that because ... I had a bad childhood! Other kids were mean to me!"

I don't have anything against gays. But I do get tired of hearing about their problems. Yeah, some of them have it rough. So do a lot of other people.

And the fact that some (not all, or even most, but some) gay people act as if they're the only ones who get bullied in school, or that their bullying is worse than anything that anyone else has ever had to endure, is petty and offensive.

My high-school years were okay. I was a fairly big guy - fat, but solid-looking - with horrible acne. Few teased me. But a lot of people were nasty to me, sometimes in passive-aggressive ways. They ignored me when I tried to speak to them or moved away whenever I sat down near them. There was this one kid who always tried to get me in trouble for things I didn't do.

And I had one teacher who told me, essentially, that she wouldn't let me audition for reading the morning announcements because I was fat and ugly. The morning announcements were her turf, and she didn't want me representing her group.

So if I wanted to go around blaming all of the problems in my life on the way I was treated in school, I could do so very easily. But I don't. At the time, I said, "Fuck it - what matters is that, one day, I'm going to have the things that I want." I have goals and I pursue them. I've achieved some of my goals, and have yet to achieve others.

If I have ever benefited from "cis" privilege, I've yet to notice it. No one has ever cut me any breaks. So many doors have been slammed in my face, and yet I've survived and tried to thrive. I don't blame people for being assholes - they are who they are.

I find it funny to watch two "oppressed" groups - say, feminists and trannies - go at it. Some feminists are angry because some guys who want to become female want to keep their penises, but also want to use women's bathrooms.

(Personally, I side with the feminists on this one - if I were a woman, I wouldn't want to share my bathroom with penis-havers.)

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Thanks for sharing and I agree with everything you said. Great post!!

I wrote about this on the old foums many times.

Did Eric and Dylan encounter some sort of bullying? Yes, probably some. Was it more than the average kid in school? No, we do not see much evidence of that.

Was the jock vs tenchcoater conflict bullying? Nope, it was a fight between two cliques. Jocks pestered TCM, but TCM pestered them back. Either way, most of this was already old news in 1999. The vast majoity of the original TCM (and the "original jocks" mind you) had already graduated in 1998.

Dylan and Eric NEVER make any clear reference to being bullied. On the contrary, Eric makes a clear and obvious comment on himself bullyign another kid. Eric goes to great lenghts in one of his "mission briefings" about how the kid is a loser and how everyone hates that kid. Then during the actual "mission" Eric, Dylan and a frend throw rotten eggs at said kids house, throw toilet paper around and destoy rees (or were those bushes?) in the kid's garden.

Eric and Dylan were not top dogs in the popularity pyramid, but they were not on the bottom.they were in the middle - average guys. They had their circle of friends, they were not ostracized. Quote: "People liked Dylan".


The whole bullying thing is a product of amedia misconception hatched shortly after the shooting. It afaik started from a few interviews with some students who did not know Dylan or Eric personally and just sem to hve heard some rumours about some of the old TCM people who already graduated in 1998.

Sorry, and I don't want to start an argument but I don't agree with what has become known as the "Cullen" perspective on this. I think if you put everything together there is plenty of evidence to prove they were bullied badly.Even if for argument's sake it wasn't as bad as they thought, they THOUGHT it was. They FELT it was.They obviously felt persecuted and badly treated.They actually said so in the basement tapes and because they did not write about many specific incidents of bullying doesn't mean that it didn't happen.Their journals weren't much of a record of their daily lives.They really wrote very little when you think that the journals both spanned a decent period of time. Everyone is free to believe what they like but I will never believe these two young guys threw away their lives and the lives of others just over evilness and craziness which are usually the two things their actions are laid upon.Just putting my thoughts out there about the whole thing.

Sabratha wrote:

I wrote about this on the old foums many times.

Did Eric and Dylan encounter some sort of bullying? Yes, probably some. Was it more than the average kid in school? No, we do not see much evidence of that.

Was the jock vs tenchcoater conflict bullying? Nope, it was a fight between two cliques. Jocks pestered TCM, but TCM pestered them back. Either way, most of this was already old news in 1999. The vast majoity of the original TCM (and the "original jocks" mind you) had already graduated in 1998.

Dylan and Eric NEVER make any clear reference to being bullied. On the contrary, Eric makes a clear and obvious comment on himself bullyign another kid. Eric goes to great lenghts in one of his "mission briefings" about how the kid is a loser and how everyone hates that kid. Then during the actual "mission" Eric, Dylan and a frend throw rotten eggs at said kids house, throw toilet paper around and destoy rees (or were those bushes?) in the kid's garden.

Eric and Dylan were not top dogs in the popularity pyramid, but they were not on the bottom.they were in the middle - average guys. They had their circle of friends, they were not ostracized. Quote: "People liked Dylan".


The whole bullying thing is a product of  amedia misconception hatched shortly after the shooting. It afaik started from a few interviews with some students who did not know Dylan or Eric personally and just sem to hve heard some rumours about some of the old TCM people who already graduated in 1998.

PaintItBlack wrote:

They actually said so in the basement tapes and because they did not write about many specific incidents of  bullying doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

We do not have the basement tapes, just soem disoganized info from people who seen them. I do not recall anyone mentioning that either Eric or Dylan say on the tapes taht they are bullied.

PaintItBlack wrote:

Their journals weren't much of a record of their daily lives.They really wrote very little when you think that the journals  both spanned a decent period of time.

Actually, Eric's journal/memoir writings start 1 year before the shoting.

PaintItBlack wrote:

Everyone is free to believe what they like but I will never believe these two young guys threw away their lives and the lives of others just over evilness and craziness which are usually the two things their actions are laid upon.Just putting my thoughts out there about the whole thing.

Ok, fine with me. But there are no evidence of any of them writing or saying taht they ahve ben bullied. Only 1 thing comes closes, which is Eric writing "I dont forget people who wronged me."
But later on he writes: "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don't fucking say, "well thats your fault" because it isnt, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no dont let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh fucking nooo."

Thus while we can't be sure what he meant by "people who wronged him", everything else he wrote suggests he means people leaving him out of things or not showing him the respect he believes he deserves. Not people bullying him. In fact the word "bully" or "bullying" never appears in any of their writings and afaik nobody ever reported them use said words in the tapes.

They do speak about being bullied in the basement tapes or in least the quotes that were reported in the media.. They talked about friends who didn't defend them, Eric talks about how people made fun of him constantly" my face, my hair, my shirts."
Dylan said "I'm going to kill you all. You've been giving us shit for years. " I can't guarantee the truth of these quotes but they were reported by Time and the DP as quotes said in the tapes.
I don't have any doubt they were really spoken but all must make up their own mind.

Eric also wrote once that people make fun of him constantly, therefore he gets pissed.

Such things along with the reports of friends like Brooks and Devon Adams etc. are enough to convince me they were badly mistreated and seen as pretty low in the eyes of many students.
I feel I have found over the years the proof I need for my point of view. Others have a different point of view and don't think they were bullied much or treated badly by other students. My main point in my earlier post was that even if they weren't treated badly, they definitely perceived they were and that's what they believed. Ones viewpoints are very important as that is a large part of what drives a person through life. And I believe it was their belief they were mistreated that created the conditions that started their planning this and it remained a motivation for going through with it.

Sabratha wrote:

PaintItBlack wrote:

They actually said so in the basement tapes and because they did not write about many specific incidents of  bullying doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

We do not have the basement tapes, just soem disoganized info from people who seen them. I do not recall anyone mentioning that either Eric or Dylan say on the tapes taht they are bullied.

PaintItBlack wrote:

Their journals weren't much of a record of their daily lives.They really wrote very little when you think that the journals  both spanned a decent period of time.

Actually, Eric's journal/memoir writings start 1 year before the shoting.

PaintItBlack wrote:

Everyone is free to believe what they like but I will never believe these two young guys threw away their lives and the lives of others just over evilness and craziness which are usually the two things their actions are laid upon.Just putting my thoughts out there about the whole thing.

Ok, fine with me. But there are no evidence of any of them writing or saying taht they ahve ben bullied. Only 1 thing comes closes, which is Eric writing "I dont forget people who wronged me."
But later on he writes: "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don't fucking say, "well thats your fault" because it isnt, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no dont let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh fucking nooo."

Thus while we can't be sure what he meant by "people who wronged him", everything else he wrote suggests he means people leaving him out of things or not showing him the respect he believes he deserves. Not people bullying him. In fact the word "bully" or "bullying" never appears in any of their writings and afaik nobody ever reported them use said words in the tapes.