Jimmy: I said you could've fooled me, this place is full of bullies and maniacs.
Dr. Crabblesnitch: Nonsense. That's just school spirit. High jinks. Why, in my day, we felt nothing of castrating the new boys.
Dr. Crabblesnitch: Nonsense. That's just school spirit. High jinks. Why, in my day, we felt nothing of castrating the new boys.
In Real Life, school bullying happens when a child knowingly tries to destroy another child by using various means (insults, bashing, rumours...) The Bully manipulates perceptions of adults and often manages to make them believe that their target is to be blamed. This can last for months, sometimes years, can be really traumatizing and often leads to PTSD or suicidal thoughts. The term 'bullycide' defines what happens when these suicidal thoughts caused by bullying are put into action, and this is before considering the scores and scores of victims who reached this point but were able to be brought back from the brink. Some kids may be bullied even though they have a black belt in karate, have a lot of friends, are very beautiful or have a great sense of humour (in fact, comedians have higher rates of suicide, since comedy is usually used to cover pain).note
Occasionally, there'll be a lighter, softer take on bullying, often in children's shows:
- [X] bullies [Y] because [Y] is nasty, socially awkward or ugly. The viewers are supposed to side with [X] because [X] is better-looking or the narrator. Sometimes the bullying just stops just after [Y] stops "being difficult", "being weird and creepy", or gets a makeover.
- [X] bullies [Y] but it turns out that [X] is secretly in love with [Y] or envious for any reason. [Y] decides to have a talk with [X] and at the end of the episode, [X] and [Y] become best friends forever.
- [X] bullies [Y] until [Y] decides to learn kung fu or just says, "Stop bullying me, I don't like it." Then [X] gives up bullying forever. "If you stand up to bullies, they'll back down, because they're actually cowards." Note that [X] never uses [Y]'s decision to take a latter stand as ammunition for more bullying, nor does [X] follow [Y]'s attempt to fight back by responding with even more force, escalating with greater and far more brutal acts of violence or psychological abuse until [Y] is simply too injured or traumatised to continue to defend themselves.
- [Y] mentions that they were bullied at school and was made stronger by the bullying. [Y] never suffers from any kind of trauma.
- [X] harasses [Y] not out of sheer malice, but rather because [X] views it as a game or harmless teasing and genuinely doesn't see what they do to [Y] as a bad thing. On the plus side, however, if [X] ever realises that what they're doing is wrong, they may try to patch things up with [Y] and they may or may not end up becoming friends for real.
The most common counter argument against bullying accusations, aside from Blaming the Victim, is that no bullying, in fact, is taking place. People using this line of argument will state that a given situation is simply a case of:
- "Survival of the fittest" — i.e., the strongest, fastest and savviest were always more popular due to their abilities to accomplish and get results. There is some Asskicking Leads to Leadership in this. It also ignores that, regardless of how popular someone is, you should still be civil to them.
- Someone exercising the right to choose whom they wish to be friends with. Often, particularly if a classmate is awkward, is part of a minority group that the bully is prejudiced against, doesn't have the same interests, or simply has personality conflicts with the bully, the accused bully themselves will claim that requiring them to be civil to another human being and tolerating their existence is an unfair burden being forced upon them.
- The "victim" simply being jealous they did not share the same successes as more gifted classmates, were not part of elite or "popular" social circles in a community (or, in some cases, were not even part of the community's social fringes), were not invited to birthday parties involving popular kids, did not have a date request from the most desirable boy/girl in class accepted, or had otherwise did not obtain desired outcomes. Of course, if that really was all that was taken place, that in and of itself wouldn't be bullying. It is okay to not be friends with someone, not invite someone to a party, reject someone who's asking you for a date, et cetera. But it definitely is bullying when you don't just leave that person alone and instead start encouraging everyone else to also not be friends with them, invite them to parties or date with them.
- The victim is just too sensitive. It was just a joke. It's just a prank. Of course, while some people do make hurtful jokes without meaning to hurt the other person's feelings or without even knowing that the jokes would be considered offensive or inappropriate, a lot of bullies use the "just kidding" excuse in bad faith to pass off their verbal abuse as just being a form of humor.
- The victim is actually the real bully by calling out the behavior and ruining the bully's reputation. Or the victim is thought of as a "difficult" person for rocking the boat, and for bringing it up when people just want to have fun and not think about it or teachers don't want to put in the work of repeatedly disciplining unrepentant bullies.
Also see Kids Are Cruel and The Bully. Contrast with Bullied into Depression, Bully Brutality, and Revenge on the Bully. Compare/contrast Self-Righteous Bully for when bullies see themselves as the good guys, which can overlap with this trope if the narrative paints the bully as correct.
As stories about bullying appear more and more often on the news and online, particularly ones involving cyberbullying (which takes the abuse far beyond the school itself), this is becoming more and more of a Dead Horse Trope except that stories of Type 2 can and do happen, as proven by British magazines, i.e. so it's in limbo between Dead Horse Trope and Undead Horse Trope. In any case, works in the 21st century give a much more honest take on bullying, often with advice that can actually help.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Defied with a literal vengeance in Gun-Ota ga Mahou Sekai ni Tensei Shitara.... The main character, Lute, and his best friend were viciously bullied throughout their teenage years due to being "otaku" fascinated with the military. Lute considered this bullying perfectly "normal". While he was transferred to another class, his best friend wasn't as lucky, and when he stumbled across his friend being brutalized by the bullies' ringleader, Lute turned away in a Moment of Weakness. The victim commits suicide, leaving Lute with Survivor Guilt... while The Bully, having his life destroyed from the fallout of his own acts, blames Lute for everything, tracking him down and stabbing him to death as he's headed home from work. And Lute believes he deserves it!
- In My Hero Academia, Izuku Midoriya (The Hero) starts the story having endured the constant bullying of his former childhood friend mad current bully Katsuki Bakugo for ten years straight, constantly getting hit with attacks from Bakugo's Quirk (the capacity of sweating nitroglycerine and setting it off at will), being called names (his nickname "Deku" is (at first) a Malicious Misnaming Pun on the kanji of his name that means "puppet" (in the 'you're as useless as...' sense)) and in the first chapter even a Suicide Dare, all of this brought up by Fantastic Ableism (Midoriya being Quirkless in a world where Everyone Is a Super) and Bakugo's absurd sense of superiority. Throughout the whole story Izuku absolutely refuses to consider Bakugo as nothing else but a friend and even shrugs off some of his behavior as "Kacchan being Kacchan", and even when Bakugo endures Character Development into a more standard Jerk with a Heart of Gold, the idea of asking for forgiveness for such a long period of being a bully is never even hinted at by either boy, even when they eventually have their colossal rival-on-rival fight including Izuku telling Bakugo that he's not afraid of him anymore (the reason? Katsuki wants to commit professional seppuku for being a big part in the Disaster Dominoes that forced All Might to retire, and Midoriya is gonna be dragged down with him unless he makes Katsuki get the hell over it. Again, the bullying is never brought up). It takes three hundred and twenty-two chapters for Bakugou to finally ask for forgiveness for his bullying, in an attempt at finally calming down Midoriya when he is in a hard-core Martyr Without a Cause spree that the entire class literally bludgeoning him while telling him that he is not alone was doing jack to stop. This may in part be due to Japanese attitudes toward bullying and it becomes clear that Izuku does have some deep-rooted psychological issues, but they are less linked to Katsuki per se and more toward the failure of the people around him (including unfortunately his mother) to properly help and cope with Quirklessness. As for Katsuki, it's revealed that part of his beef toward Izuku is out of a warped belief that Izuku looks down on him (or rather, that he lashes out at anyone he perceives as looking down at him; Izuku just got the worst because Izuku never stopped associating with him and being Quirkless rubs salt into it). However, later implication shows that Katsuki actually fears Izuku or rather his potential, that the so-called "Quirkless loser" is worthier of being a hero than him.
- Deconstructed in Is It My Fault That I Got Bullied?: Aizawa endured such horrific bullying during his time in middle school that he dropped out and became depressed. He witnesses the same thing happening to Shiori, a student from his homeroom — and, ironically, the daughter of his bully. He completely tears this idea to shreds when he gives Shiori the means to disseminate evidence of her bullying to the world, making the abuse she endured such a massive scandal that the school's administration could no longer cover it up. A subsequent attempt by one of the bullies to discredit him backfires when Aizawa turns the media circus her mother gathers in his favor by revealing his background as a bullying victim, coming forward with how he used hidden surveillance and spyware to gather and distribute evidence of Shiori's abuse, and turning public opinion in his favor even as he loses his job. Ultimately, not only do schools begin to install more surveillance cameras in the weeks following this, but the lives of three of Shiori's bullies are all completely destroyed, forcing two to drop out and one to move to the countryside (the bully who escaped the worst of it was the only one who showed remorse and publicly apologized, and while she will have to deal with the stigma her past actions carried, she is making a concerted effort to atone).
- Completely Deconstructed in Suterareta Yuusha No Eiyuutan: the victim, Katsuragi Daichi, is not only blamed for the bullying he receives, by the bully ringleader, and the rest of his class, but is ignored by the teacher, with the teacher actively making the bullies' job easier by dragging him to class when he tries to hole up in his dorm room, for fear of his life. When the tables are turned after getting to the world of Randolia, and the bullies find themselves on the receiving end, they suddenly realize his trauma wasn't so "harmless" after all.
Comic Books
- The softies in Dennis the Menace (UK) are constantly targeted by the Menaces yet usually brush off their harassment and rarely fight back.
Fan Works
- Danganronpa: Yakuza Arc: Natsumi spent years bullying Mahiru and Sato, and is bullied in turn by Hiyoko. When Hajime convinces her to start reforming, she finds that her efforts to atone don't magically fix the effects, and not everyone is willing to forgive how she treated tehm.
- Comes up in the Feralnette AU: While Sabine and Tom knew that Chloé had been bullying their daughter for years, they treated it as no big deal, simply something Marinette would have to deal with on her own. In Speak of the Devil, Sabine is shocked to learn that Chloé destroyed one of Marinette's sketchbooks, declaring Marinette should have informed them of this escalation immediately... and is taken aback when Marinette just gives her a flat stare, having long since learned that her parents wouldn't do anything.
- Friendly Foreign Exchange Student Spider-Man!: One of the Culture Clash issues that Peter runs into is how Katsuki's bullying isn't seen as a serious issue. As far as Peter's concerned, Katsuki's just an arrogant thug whose Bully Brutality is evidence that he shouldn't be at U.A., rather than a sign that he's 'strong-willed'.
- Happy Birthday, Miss Bustier: Caline Bustier casually ignores all of the bullying and other issues running rampant in her class, attributing any problems her students being "overdramatic" and blowing things out of proportion. When she does deign to act, it's by Blaming the Victims, expecting them to Turn the Other Cheek and "set a good example" for their tormentors.
- In Mudsnake, the Headmaster has this viewpoint. When Snape confronts him about Ron mocking Hermoine behind her back, he lets Ron off easy because he's just a growing boy. He also tells Snape that he needs to get over the bullying that occured to him twenty years ago.
- Parting Words:
- Deconstructed in the third chapter of the story, which takes place right after the end of the canon episode "One Bad Apple". Part of the reason why the bullying the Cutie Mark Crusaders (and to an extent, Babs) have suffered through has gotten as bad as it has is that the adults didn't do anything to really help the kids because they didn't think the bullying could possibly be that bad; it was just harmless teasing and a part of growing up.
- The Great Alicorn Hunt continues building upon these themes, introducing Babs' bullies and emphasizing just how frustrating and dispiriting it is when adults simply can't be bothered to help. It's also revealed that Twilight was heavily bullied as a young filly, hence "Magic Kindergarten" being a Trauma Button for her.
- Rate this (Trust is Hard to Come By): Miss Bustier firmly believes that this is the case; despite being fully aware that Marinette's Fair-Weather Friends have turned upon their "everyday Ladybug", she refuses to do anything about their increasingly brazen bullying. She only becomes concerned about it upon learning that Marinette has been secretly recording everything happening in her classroom — but even then, she tries to reassure herself that the school board will agree that it's just "kids being kids". (They don't, and she's fired for her Betrayal by Inaction.)
- Played With in Remnant's Reclaimer: Rose notes that the only reason why Team CRDL hasn't been punished for their bullying ways is because Beacon is a school for aspiring warriors: students are expected and encouraged to stand up for themselves. So the faculty typically only intervenes if it looks like somebody's going to get seriously hurt.
- In Shadow of the Dragon, the school faculty refuses to take any reports of Satomi's bad behavior seriously, assuming the stories of him robbing, vandalizing and raping are all just threats. It's only after Sakura lets the Mirror Card castrate Satomi following his Attempted Rape of Tomoyo that Teikei is willing to take action.
Kiriha: You're not going to take care of this quietly?
Teikei: Trying to take care of a "minor bullying issue" quietly and carefully got us multiple rape victims. This school has gotten out of hand. We need to reign in the trouble. Make sure the students know we're serious about the rules, or else they will grow bolder and cause even more damage to the school and themselves. - The Sleeper Hit AU deconstructs the My Hero Academia example above: since Bakugou's cruelty goes unchallenged and unexposed for so long, he never changes his ways, even after becoming a Pro Hero. When his closeminded notions finally are challenged, he's completely unable to handle it, doubling down to the point that he insists that it would have been better if Midoriya had taken him up on his Suicide Dare.
- Strange Potter: Part of the reason why Hogwarts has always had a bullying problem is because Dumbledore believes this trope. Sirius has to point out to him how bad the bullying really was before Dumbledore is willing to listen.
Sirius: How many got away with too much and believed they could do more? How many slaps on the hands helped give Voldemort more recruits? [Pulls out a list.] Here's your answer. It's a list of students, all who were in school with me, who joined him and are now dead or in prison. [...] I can name almost everyone one of them. They all were known for terrorizing first-gen students and anyone who dared to stand up to them. They never learned actions have consequences here and that needs to change.
Literature
- Big, Beautiful Fun: A few weeks into sixth grade, Elaine soon becomes incredibly nonchalant about people continuing to pick on her, even on that one occasion when rocks are thrown at her. By the same token, she no longer cares if and when people yank her glasses off her face. Jermaine always tries to defend her, but she advises him to stay calm and not become angry with her bullies. However, in an aversion, she never hesitates to stand up for him when he's teased.
- The Discworld Assassins Guild Diary takes the "survival of the fittest" view. Since the purpose of the Assassins Guild School is, of course, to produce killers, this is presumably not intended as an actual endorsement by the authors. Especially since it implies that if bullying is resolved by the actual death of the bully, that's survival of the fittest too.
- Doom Valley Prep School takes the Social Darwinism angle. Yes, the bullies are utterly horrifying monsters, both figuratively and literally in some cases, but the teachers don't give a damn, at best, because it's the victims' own fault that they are too weak/stupid to find an effective way to fight back.
- Harry Potter:
- Done weirdly with Harry James Potter, who deals with bullying in his own school fairly easily, but only because he had experience with major trauma from his abusive and unhappy childhood. Harry does have a great deal of empathy for other bullied kids, to the point where he's shocked when he sees his father and godfather screwing with Snape in a Pensieve Flashback. When queried on it, Sirius mostly writes it off as adolescent idiocy though he’s also ashamed of it and Lupin feels guilty about it.
- Luna Lovegood just smiles and shrugs it off when people steal her things or give her nicknames, though her bedroom reveals that Harry & co.'s friendship is a bigger deal than she let on.
- Played With regarding Severus Snape. On the one hand, he maintains an unhealthy vendetta against James Potter, who shared a mutual hateship with him as an adult, long after James is dead. On the other hand, Snape's issues stem further from his Abusive Parents and he in turn was a bully (by proxy) and became a Sadist Teacher growing up.
- The behavior of characters such as Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson could also be considered bullying and Rowling has received letters before from fans that said that something they read in the books helped them to deal.
- Harry's abusive uncle Vernon Dursley is a firm believer in this, which isn't the least bit surprising, and he enrolls his son Dudley in the same all-boys school he went to; Smeltings, where the uniform includes a knotted stick the students are encouraged to use to assault each other with. It's apparently considered valuable experience for adulthood.
- Sweet Valley High plays with this. It's averted among the tertiary characters, showing how it affects not only the victim but the perpetrator— by the time he reforms and wants to make amends, no one wants to be his friend, and no one believes his sincere efforts at redeeming himself. But it's sometimes played straight with the main or secondary characters—Jessica and her friends often get called out for doing this to others—but rarely explicitly punished, whereas behavior from Elizabeth that could be considered this is rarely even acknowledged.
- The Taffy Sinclair series plays with Type 1. Taffy is implied to be the bully, as she's blonde, pretty, hit puberty earlier than most of the girls in her class, and is a bit stuck-up. It is assumed that the reader will side with Jana and her friends regarding their hatred of her, because most people can empathize with feeling inferior or intimidated by somebody more attractive, particularly during those awkward puberty year. Except that Jana and her friends have outright formed a club called "The Against Taffy Sinclair Club" which is devoted to embarrassing Taffy in any number of ways. Not until Taffy's mother and Jana's mother confront the girls about this do they have a Heel Realization and realize that they are the bullies in this case—Taffy, for all her admitted bitchiness, has never really said or done anything to them to warrant their ill treatment.
- Deconstructed in Yaqui Delgado Wants To Kick Your Ass, which specifically targets this assumption (and related ones, like Bystander Syndrome, Slut-Shaming, and the idea that transferring schools due to bullying is cowardly/an invitation for more ridicule) in its look at school bullying. Even though the ringleader is punished and the main character is able to transfer schools in the end, she's never the same afterwards and has clear signs of PTSD, taking school bullying very seriously.
Live-Action TV
- Deconstructed in 13 Reasons Why. The bullying and harassment Hannah received over a long stretch of time (which included Slut-Shaming and being blamed for her own rape) and the lack of help she got from the adults that didn't think it was anything too bad drove her past the Despair Event Horizon and ultimately kill herself. Most of the thirteen people she held responsible for driving her to do this are forced to own up to their actions and are put through the emotional wringer in the process.
- The Big Bang Theory:
- Penny is revealed to have been a bully in high school, but doesn't realize it until she's an adult and Bernadette and Amy talk about their experiences being bullied. She decides to donate clothes to Goodwill to feel better about herself. By the end of the episode she doesn't seem too bothered by it and is instead stealing clothes from Goodwill. Another episode has her casually mention having bullied a kid, saying it was his fault since he was wearing a bow tie.
- One episode had the male characters bullying a jock by saying things in the course of their conversation that make him feel stupid. As soon as he realises this, being a Nice Guy, he never retaliates, but he is clearly offended. Penny tries using the If You Taunt Him, You Will Be Just Like Him! argument on them, but they claim it's okay since they're weaker than him and are not abusing him physically (though they do realise their mistake and go apologise shortly after).
- Deconstructed in Cobra Kai. The bullying (both in-person and online) that Miguel, Aisha, Eli, and Bert have had to deal with has been largely ignored or written off by the other adults around them who didn't think the bullying was anything worth worrying too much about, even though the kids are hurting and are desperate for some kind of solution. When Johnny reopens the Cobra Kai Dojo, several kids sign up in the hopes of learning ways to defend themselves because they see the classes as the last resort they've got to resolve their problem that they have to take into their own hands. Even when some of the kids go into He Who Fights Monsters territory, the narrative makes it clear that they're still good people who've just been pushed way too far. Beyond that, it's also implied that Daniel has PTSD from the bullying he had in his childhood.
- Deconstructed a few times in Criminal Minds:
- In the episode "Elephant's Memory", the unsub is a victim of bullying who's become an "injustice collector", a type of serial killer who goes after the people who have wronged him. Not only was the school staff aware of the bullying he and his girlfriend faced, so were the police. Reid, who endured similar bullying in school, relates heavily to the unsub and blames the community for his actions.
Police Officer: Look, boys have a way of sorting these things out.
Reid: They sure do. Right now, Owen is out there sorting it out with an assault rifle. - The episode "Bully", unsurprisingly enough, though the killer in that one wasn't the main victim of bullying in high school, but rather the best friend of the student who was. Said student committed suicide after one particularly brutal and humiliating incident where the principals solution was to force the victim to shake hands with his tormentor as a way of "settling the issue" rather than actually punishing the bully or helping the victim. The killer spent the years since school turning himself into a hulking brute through working out and steroids so he could reenact the bullying before beating his victims to death with his bare hands.
- The episode "The Anti-Terror Squad" again features a bullying victim lashing out against the bullies in his school. And their families. The episode's title refers to a group of victims who named themselves because the bullying they experienced felt like terrorism, and the BAU team actually agrees. In this case, at least one adult (the school's guidance counselor) did take the bullying seriously and attempt to intervene. Unfortunately, he fell hard into Adults Are Useless territory, because no one took him seriously.
- In the episode "Elephant's Memory", the unsub is a victim of bullying who's become an "injustice collector", a type of serial killer who goes after the people who have wronged him. Not only was the school staff aware of the bullying he and his girlfriend faced, so were the police. Reid, who endured similar bullying in school, relates heavily to the unsub and blames the community for his actions.
- Ashley from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is bullied by another girl. It turns out that the bully had misunderstood her and they just exchange a few words and reconcile. Their parents, on the other hand....
- Friends: Ross, Chandler and Monica all mention they were bullied growing up in various capacities. It's played for laughs, even though some of the stuff sounds horrible and they suffer lingering affects.
- Supernatural:
- One episode showed a group of two boys who bully another kid and think it is harmless until they accidentally drown him and it comes back to haunt them 35 years later when his ghost starts killing off their loved ones.
- Also "Wishful Thinking" had a bullied kid gain Super-Strength and decide to turn the tables against his tormenters. It's hard to feel bad for them, even when it's clear the kid is well on his way to becoming a supervillain. Eventually he loses his powers, but Dean pretends he still has them just so the other kids will leave him alone.
- Yet another episode, "After School Special", dealt with a character that was a victim of bullying and a bully himself, who had committed suicide, and spent a majority of the episode possessing victims of bullying and causing them to enact bloody revenge.
Music
- Scratch 21's song "The Rhyme" directly calls out this trope. The title is a reference to the rhyme "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."
"But what they forgot was/That you don't need to break my bones for you to break me"
Newspaper Comics
- One early Dilbert Sunday strip played with this. Dilbert and Dogbert encounter by chance a former classmate of Dilbert's who used to bully him. Dilbert has a chat with him and at first it seems like it's a Type 4 with Dilbert claiming that the bullying made him the man he is today... a bitter adult, obsessed with thoughts of revenge. He and Dogbert then proceed to mock the former bully.
Video Games
- Invoked, naturally enough, in Bully (2006) — Principal Crabblesnitch characterizes bullying as "hijinx" and "mischief". Gym coach Mr. Burton encourages bullying as a means to toughen up weak kids.
- Physical Exorcism: Case 01: Deconstructed. Not only is Black Driven to Suicide because of school bullies, the school does little to stop the bullies. One teacher, Mr. Lee, tried to tell himself that because he personally survived bullying, Black should be able to do so as well, only to be proven wrong. According to Lucy, the leader of the bullies, school bullying is a microsm of the dog-eat-dog tendencies of society.
- Psychonauts 2: Played with. When Raz enters the Psychonaut internship program, his fellow interns steal his clothes. When he gets new ones from Sasha, Sasha downplays the theft as ordinary hazing, and the thieves become Raz's allies after he rescues them on a mission. This is slightly more forgivable than other examples because a) this game is set in the 1970's, when such attitudes were more commonplace, and b) the game is a dark comedy.
Web Originals
- Taken to an absurd degree in the response to "To This Day Project
". Not necessarily because of any of the above reasons, but because detractors criticize the program for not focusing on so-called real problems such as starving children and war... yes, really. It's sadly not too hard to find similar criticisms towards pretty much any anti-bullying program.
Western Animation
- American Dad!:
- Stan is a type III, citing his own bully Stelio Kontos having made his life miserable enough to toughen up, though he intends to do it more out of Tough Love compared to what Stelio did to him. After getting fed up with what a spineless wimp Steve is, Stan decides that the bullies at Langley High aren't bad enough, and starts bullying Steve himself in an attempt at forcing his son to toughen up. This is all played for massive hypocritical humor, as Stan never stood up to his own bully due to Stelio moving away, and Steve ends up tracking him down on Facebook and hires him to beat Stan half to death in the schoolyard.
- This goes double for Roger. When Roger hires Stelio to beat up Steve before the new bully can get his hands on Steve, the two bullies team up on Steve at the behest of Roger, who plays Stelio's theme music over the beatdown.
- Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot: When a girl named Madison keeps bullying a girl named Kaylee, the Care Bears advise her to tell Madison how she feels and even give her tips on body language. When Madison still refuses to stop the bullying, the Care Bears use a Care-Bear Stare and Madison is forced to cool down and explain why she's been bullying Kaylee. It turns out it was a case of jealousy. They agree to be friends, but if not for that Care Bear Stare...
- Danny Phantom: Much of Dash's bullying and physical assault towards Danny is either Played for Laughs or simply treated as a minor annoyance towards the latter. Due to Adults Are Useless, none of the teachers do anything about it, and Dash even gets special treatment from Mr. Lancer due to being a star football player. In the Halloween Episode "Fright Night", Danny even got in trouble just for simply getting bullied and without even fighting back. During the few times where Danny actually does fight back, he's treated as a bad guy for it.
- Family Guy:
- Meg's harassment by Connie D'Amico, a blonde, petite popular girl at James Woods High School, is Played for Laughs. Deconstructed whenever Connie ends up getting her comeuppance (usually because of the overkill involved into said comeuppance—like getting Quagmire to meet her).
- When Peter briefly had his own kids show on public access in "You Can't Do That On Television, Peter", he made an episode where he talked about bullying to avert this, but when the kid he was talking to admitted to wetting his pants as a result of being bullied, Peter turned on him for "being too old" to wet himself, kicked him over, and told the other kids in the audience to finish him off.
- Lois seems to believe this as well, having been a bullying Alpha Bitch herself in high school. She threw Chris to the wolves when he started freshman year in high school and got caught in the "tradition" of all the freshman students being paddled by older students (and even some of the adults), and when Chris is understandably traumatized and refuses to return to school, she just tries to give him a lesson about "not running from your problems".
- In the French animated show Lou!, twelve-years-old Lou has been bullied by the same girl since kindergarten. However, Lou doesn't suffer from any kind of trauma and her best friend is the only person who noticed anything. One day, Lou decides to tell the bully how fed up she feels, and the bullying stops, even though the girl is One Head Taller than Lou.
- The Simpsons: School bullies Nelson Muntz, Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney are more or less allowed free reign at Springfield Elementary and throughout the town, with no adults even trying to stop them (it's implied in a few episodes that the adults can't stop them, as the bullies are tough enough to take on grown-ups, as seen with them harassing Principal Skinner on occasion). Bart and Milhouse are often targeted, though pretty much all the children of Springfield are fair game.
- On TOTO (This One and That One), a short-form series featuring two young cat-people, This One and That One, airing on-demand on a service called Kabillion on some U.S. cable/satellite providers. When a bully takes This Ones's sandwich, he and That One brainstorm ways to beat the bully, but are overheard by their Mom. She explains that the bully is worried because he might be about to fail math and is trying to make himself look tough. This One and That One reveal that they know his secret and offer to help him with his math, and it works. It can be watched officially, for free, here.
Real Life
- This satirical opinion piece from 2002 argues that bullies giving their victims wedgies makes for a good life lesson.
It's time to give the wedgie its due. (Give the wedgie a fond tug.) Somewhere out there, freshmen boys are keeping the lowest possible profile in the hallways, hoping to avoid senior football players, who seek to wedgie them or worse, and this is a good thing, in that it's a firsthand lesson in the human condition: Sometimes life stinks.
- Various podcasts such as Behind The Bastards and Vaush have made quips about how certain people weren't bullied enough when they were younger.