The Bullying Meme
The Detroit papers have been pretty much in lockstep the last two days, leading with quotes from Lewan and Schofield about UM getting bullied during recent games between the teams and the need to be tougher this year. Wojo also considers this theme in today's column.
There's a lot to be said on the topic (and MSU fans are saying some of it on message boards and in comments right now). But. . . simple question: will such rhetoric prove productive for Michigan, psychologically or otherwise, for this or future games?
October 29th, 2013 at 10:15 AM ^
I see it as a statement that Lewan and Schofield aren't going to let their team get pushed around and intimidated. There are a lot of young players on Michigan's team and the two senior tackles have to set the tone.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:16 AM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 10:17 AM ^
Not productive. Bullying implies that one person is stronger, older, tougher, taking advantage of someone weaker, frailer, younger. That is not an accurate image anyone at UM wants to associate with MSU. Playing dirty has nothing to do with bullying.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:22 AM ^
Bullies are actually cowards with terrifying feelings that are buried deep inside and their method of coping is physical confrontation.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:43 AM ^
Not always man. Some people are just pricks and will confront people their same size as well as smaller prey, but it's only when they confront smaller targets that they are considered bullies.
What is almost always the case is that the bully is physically more imposing, or mentally tougher than his target, otherwise it wouldn't be considered bullying.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:51 AM ^
If you think big people don't get bullied...
One of the best clips I've seen online was some middle school bully taunting a big, passive looking kid. The kid all of a sudden just smashes the shit out of the bully. I know it's wrong to fist pump when a middle school student gets KO'd, but I'm not the most PC guy out there.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:53 AM ^
And it was completely awesome and the kid totally earned it.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:57 AM ^
i saw that one too. it was badass. but then afterwards, some even bigger kid intervened to prevent the kid from completing the ass beating.
October 29th, 2013 at 3:15 PM ^
Pricks are pricks for a reason. At some level, whether they wanna admit or or not, they're hurt, scared, and/or insecure.
October 29th, 2013 at 9:19 PM ^
And sometimes the reason is that they are a prick. It's rare. It sucks. But it happens; some people are just born that way.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:24 AM ^
I remember there was a wave of psychology research looking at bullies and bullying behavior about 5 to 10 years ago (could still be going, it just wasn't my field of interest) that found that the concept of bullying as caused by deep seeded insecurity to be wrong. That most bullies actually act out out of sense of feeling superior to others that, if anything, they feel is somehow going unrecognized or unappreciated. Essentially, the superficial dynamic of the bully feeling bigger and stronger and making those they perceive to be smaller and weaker recognize that difference is pretty accurate.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:42 AM ^
+1 informative!
October 29th, 2013 at 11:46 AM ^
Take it with a grain of salt, because it's been a while since I read any of that research. But I remember being kind of surprised at the time. It's important to remember that if true, the research is focused on self-perceptions, not any kind of objective or neutral sense of strength or superiority.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:52 AM ^
Perception is reality.
If a person perceives the world in a certain manner, their actions will reflect that perception. Everyone is different, but in essence each person has thier own reality.
Most of us are better at realizing that our perceptions fail us and that it is ok to accept input from others.
Bullies are trying to impose thier reality onto others.
October 29th, 2013 at 12:30 PM ^
Absolutely agree. I think sometimes it's hard to remember or even wrap your head around the "each person has their own reality" idea when discussing social behavior and social dynamics.
And from what I remember of the work, the "Bullies are trying to impose their reality onto others" pretty much sums it up perfectly.
October 29th, 2013 at 1:51 PM ^
Chris Lasch) has made that much more the case. This is a curious outcome of internet democracy and consumerism--people feel their opinion carries as much value as the next person's, whether they are informed/qualified or not. Knowledge is devalued, the idea of value itself devalued, by sheer quantity of info.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:44 AM ^
There's also recent research that shows most bullies don't see what they do as bullying or themselves as bullies. Additionally, a good percentage of teenagers and young adults don't recognize bullying as such when they see it, but rather as "kidding around." It's difficult to confront a problem when the people doing it don't believe they're doing anything wrong.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:51 AM ^
I can definitely see that. There's a difference between protecting and sheltering, and I can see there being a lot of difficulting in parsing that out.
October 29th, 2013 at 12:24 PM ^
I read in some research paper somewhere that little brothers, particularly those with a pathological inferiority complex, have a higher incidence of acting out violently and attempting to be bullies than their more well-adjusted counterparts.
October 29th, 2013 at 12:14 PM ^
kid plays a role in the social dynamic giving rise to the siuation but none of them, alone, are entirely responsible for the environment created. I think the biggest misperception many people get about "bullying" is that it is like one kid pushing another inside a locker and closing the door until a teacher gets them out. Bullying is systemic and involves not only the participants but those tasked to oversee them. Many times teacher and parents themselves unknowingly ratify or even participate in the system or are sometimes even bullied in a way as well. It creates an environment where no one person is actually doing anything that remarkable but it is still very much happenning, leaving the victim extremely confused as well, ie. "Am I crazy,?" "why is nobody else seeing this?
October 29th, 2013 at 12:57 PM ^
That's the kind that happens in the workplace regularly. I've seen it myself.
October 29th, 2013 at 3:41 PM ^
I have friends who are bullies
October 29th, 2013 at 2:13 PM ^
of their own story.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:53 AM ^
with that. I think it is a learned response to social pressures, one past down from parents/caretakers. The bully him or herself may not feel consciously or even subconsciously inferior to the victim, but they are coping with their own insecurities and inadequacies through bullying the same way that they saw their parent(s) do it with others(and the bully as well). In that way, the bullies are doing to the victims what the parents did or are doing to the bully.
October 29th, 2013 at 12:22 PM ^
Just passing along some empirical research I remember reading a few years back. I found it interesting particularly because it goes against what has become the prevailing popular understanding of the motivations underlying bullying behavior. And it's also interesting because it paints a simpler portrait of the behavior (motivations are what they appear to be, there is no deep-seeded ulterior subconscious motivation), and it is also one that is generally more cynical and less comforting from a social standpoint (i.e., there is no, "the bully is secretly really unhappy" message).
I don't know the state of the research today, not my expertise, but not agreeing with research doesn't somehow make it not true. In the words of Neil Degrasse Tyson, "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe it." (Though, that does seem to ignore the self-correcting nature of the scientific method, but that's a whole other discussion.)
October 29th, 2013 at 12:37 PM ^
not disagreeing that the research was conducted or that the result were what they were, only that I am not quite sure the research proves or disproves what it purports to. No, I don't believe bullies are more unhappy or that they have more substantial deep seeded demons than anybody else, just that they deal with the ones they do have, in part, through bullying. Some people keep demons away through acheivement, some drink, some gamble, Tiger Woods does whatever the hell that was, and bullies bully. Bullying does not reflect the presence of demons but instead a malignant way of dealing with them.
October 29th, 2013 at 1:03 PM ^
Bullies can be tall, short, thin, bigger. come in all shapes and sizes. Bullies are the worst. Beat the Bullies!!
October 29th, 2013 at 10:24 AM ^
won't have any effect. The "bullying" talk is not coming from the players but is a media driven "angle" they are taking on the game. Lewan is answering stupid questions with vanilla soundbites, that is all. Not one player on Michigan's team said a word about State's physicallity in 2011. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Hoke said "it is football" and Denard did not even acknowledge what happenned. I was not pissed in 2011 because the team got "bullied," this is not 6th grade, State can take as many 15 yard personal fouls as they like, thanks "Bullies."
This team does not care about 2011, and quite frankly, they can bully all they want. it is the scoreboard that matters. They are not even really related.
October 29th, 2013 at 2:48 PM ^
In 2011 we lost and the press, always looking for angles to explain what happened, came up with the "bullying" one because of all the thuggery and personal fouls by MSU. If we had won, the bullying angle wouldn't even have come up.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:25 AM ^
M is going to win.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:36 AM ^
Thank you.
I'm sick of the talk of people even entertaining the thought of a loss.
It's Michigan. Nobody is good enough to even strike any fear into us. That's how it should be.
Even last year before the Cowboys Classic, I believed in my team and program.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:42 AM ^
I guaranteed a M win this season after we beat them last year. I think their defense is good, but not the best in the country. They have played some awful offenses this year, which pad their stats. Their offense is also bad. I'd feel better if the game were in Ann Arbor, but I still think M wins this game. I really hope some M fans bring another "bow down, little brother" sign to show the country after M wins.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:59 AM ^
How do the Akron, UCONN and PSU debacles enter your equation.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:35 AM ^
When you try to prop one seriously flawed team over another.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:40 AM ^
Like the way you think.
October 29th, 2013 at 3:46 PM ^
Many things with our proud program lately are not as they "should be."
October 29th, 2013 at 10:26 AM ^
I hope they at least match MSU's intensity, but do we want to see a throat-punch for a throat-punch on Saturday? Is that what Wojo is getting at? I'm not sure. As the rushing game generally dictates the winner of this game, I'm more concerned with the offense and how we're going to get positive yards on the ground. Is there any chance we'll be going pass-first on Saturday?
October 29th, 2013 at 10:26 AM ^
MSU = Debo
Michigan = Craig
October 29th, 2013 at 1:23 PM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 10:32 AM ^
this.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:35 AM ^
I love the picture and your signature, ryanfourmayor.
October 29th, 2013 at 12:14 PM ^
It took me a second to figure out the sig, but then I LOL'd
October 29th, 2013 at 10:28 AM ^
I ventured over to old RCMB a few minutes ago to try to get the vibe. Things are getting ugly over there right now in terms of the tone of the posting. That place is always a dump truck but it is really an impressive display of douchbaggery right now.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:36 AM ^
They banned me from the RCMB. I wasn't even being mean when posting, they just don't want M fans on their forum. It's probably for the better.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:07 AM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 11:36 AM ^
And our players will get herpes
October 29th, 2013 at 12:15 PM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 10:29 AM ^
The Washington Post picked it up as well actually - HERE
“They bullied us,” offensive tackle Taylor Lewan recalled Monday. “That’s tough for me to admit because I don’t like getting bullied.”
Schofield added:
Michigan offensive tackle Michael Schofield was asked what seniors say to younger teammates to get them ready for what they will face on the field at Spartan Stadium. “Sixty minutes of unnecessary roughness,” he said.