He kind of has a point. Bullying is a part of life when you are a teenager, and when you are different -- because you are smart, or gay, or black, or the only Jew -- you pretty much have to deal with it. School is a jungle, and kids are animals.

However, that shouldn't excuse school officials who look the other way when it happens. He could have tempered his comments accordingly.

I got shiat in gym class freshman year because I was the only kid in my section in the gifted program, I had (and have) the athletic ability of your average grandmother, and everyone else in my section of gym class were a bunch of knuckle-dragging jock neanderthals. What pissed me off wasn't so much the idiot jock students, it was the idiot douchebag has-been jock coach who smugly watched them and let them bully me day after day, and then dropped a detention on me when I finally snapped and flipped them off.

gilgigamesh: and then dropped a detention on me when I finally snapped and flipped them off.

Shut up and serve your time. You're a loser and you always will be. Now hand over your lunch money, Pointdexter.

What kind of middle name is "Easton," anyway?

So, would Ellis agree that if someone is a s**ty writer who relies on predictable shock tactics and ham-handed emoting because he can't create a decent plot or believable characters, he should just man up, quit writing and do something you might actually be good at, like blowing hobos for crack money?

Petit_Merdeux: gilgigamesh: and then dropped a detention on me when I finally snapped and flipped them off.

Shut up and serve your time. You're a loser and you always will be. Now hand over your lunch money, Pointdexter.

Needs more spelling errors, and wedgies.

He penned American Psycho? That certainly explains a lot.

VikingQuestFan42: Completely agree with Ellis. Killing yourself doesn't solve anything. Stop whining and man-up

/Not being a troll, truly believe this
//Kids today are farkin soft

Ayup. But, learn how to fight back, as it were. Not with fists or weapons, but with your brain. So much bullying these days comes over the interwebs: good opportunity for a battle of the wits, where everyone can get an opportunity to say, "Oh, snap!"

HappyHarryHardOn: TOTALLY AGREE... We are raising a generation of wimps who are quick to curl up and die in front of anything challenging

Granted there is extreme cases of bullying, but really: There is nothing wrong in teaching your kid to MAN UP AND STAND UP FOR THEMSELVES. It s a valuable lesson that is going to be helpful in the real dog eat dog world

If someone carjacks you, I expect you'll just learn your lesson and move on. Only a wimp would call the cops. Man up; it's a valuable lesson.

Lollipop165: What I remember about it mostly is looking at the adults in the area who OBVIOUSLY knew what was going on and just chose not to get involved. In fact, I remember once being admonished by an adult (I'm pretty sure it was a teacher) for getting involved. I'm sorry, but I'm not just going to sit there and let a helpless kid get bullied. I never understood why those adults chose to look the other way at bullying.

I feel like most of the bullies had some manner of "powerful" parents -- either money and influence or were simply bullies themselves, so the teachers looked the other way so as not to rock the boat for the wealthy/powerful and end up in trouble with the administration, or simply to not have to deal with the bully parents themselves.

When I think back to some of the things I went through in school... well, it's no wonder I'm so screwed up as an adult.

All the adults who looked the other way and essentially implied consent for what was going on? Thanks for that.

SundaesChild: Gym coaches are the worst of the worst.

When I was in 8th grade, I was 4'10", and I had a bully who had about six inches and 50 pounds on me (he had repeated a grade at least once). The coach watching over our gym class saw everything, and did absolutely nothing to stop it. Beyond the normal taunting and stuff (which I was accustomed to and shrugged off), the following happened on his watch:

1) The bully tackled me in flag football because I caught a punt he apparently wanted to catch. The tackle was comprised of him grabbing me from behind by my neck and driving my face into the turf. The coach punished him so severely for the infraction that his arms were kind of tired after all 25 of those push-ups he had to do. I got a trip to the doctor's for a sprained neck.

2) The bully was apparently upset that he had to do push-ups because I had the audacity to get injured from his attack, so when I was cleared to participate again (and we had moved on to street hockey), he came running up behind me and swiped at my head with a farking goalie stick. I'm very, very lucky I heard him running at me, and that my reflexes have always been almost absurdly fast. Again, the coach saw him... and so he bawled me out for bringing this on myself. Apparently, "walking to the asphalt tennis court" is a provocative act, and anyway a thirteen-year-old should take a principled stand against a psychopath wielding a weapon. That said, the coach put him on a team I wasn't playing for or against to keep us separate. What a gentleman. But...

3) The bully's toady was on the team I was playing against. During the game, he tackled me to the asphalt, and--funny thing--it turns out that human heads aren't designed to collide with pavement in an accelerated manner. I don't know how long I was knocked out, but the concussion was a lot of fun, I assure you.

The school administration finally got clued in when my parents went screaming to them, and the school moved the bully out of my section. That was the extent of the punishment, and so far as I know the coach was never disciplined for not doing anything himself to stop the psychotic shiatstain who was doing all this to me.

Karma did catch up with him, though. It turns out the coach was fired later in the year for stealing from the department's petty cash. I have no idea what became of the bully, though I wouldn't be surprised if he was currently serving in San Quentin.

/Apparently, I should have "manned up" and stood up for myself against a psychopath who had no compunctions with trying, literally, to kill me with a blunt object.

tgregory: You can't stop other people from being mean and/or insensitive.

But you can stop from letting others get to you.

If someone hits you with a baseball bat, just don't let it get to you; if you weren't so sensitive, you could just brush it off.