There's this whole buzz about bullying on the internet among parents these days.

For example, in online journal communities [Like Live/DeadJournal], they create these exclusive 'communities' which you need to fill out an 'application' in order to 'apply' to these communities. [It's not really required by the website itself, it's just how the people who developed the communities decided to run their message board.] When an application comes in, the existing members are encouraged to publically make harsh judgements and iscolate applicants for not being 'up to par'. In many instances, being 'up to par' involves being good lucking, having similar political views, having a good attitude, or having certain likes/dislikes in music or movies. Existing members may reject your application for whatever reason they desire, all mundane reasons included. The entire point of this is to 1. Make new friends that are similar to them and 2. To be mean and hostile to those who may not be. Sounds like a fraternity to me....

Yahoo! Answers is bad, too. People will pose questions, and others will reply with hostile answers...Or the other way around. What kind of question you pose makes no difference.

I've found that on Facebook, people become particuarly agitated if you don't agree with an opinion of theirs. Oftentimes, when students debate with one another in groups, especially on hot button issues, students will frequently make irrevelant personal attacks on one another.

I think people are very different online than they are in person. Most people tend to act signifigantly different when they are face to face with you...Meaning, they're suddenly not as confrontational. The internet gives them the freedom to have complete autonomy, so they can't be truely held accountable for being an %#@&#!.

Getting caught up in all of that is really, really pointless. Personally, I believe people online are 'pretend' people, because you don't truely need to 'deal' with anybody like you would have to in real life. Unlike with most real life bullying, it's easy to get away from online and ignore. You don't 'have' to have any type of relationship with anybody online, you can simply decide to X 'em out and that's it. You don't need to worry about communicating with anyone face to face on a regular basis, you won't be confronted by anyone about how you owe them an explanation for how you feel [if so, delete!], and you certainly don't need deal with any of the awkwardness of trying to avoid them around your neigborhood. That's the beautiful thing about the internet, those bullies can disappear once you leave the website. You can pick and choose who you want in your life with a click of a button, while in real life you just have to deal with it. Even though people are more hostile online, who cares? Deciding you don't want to have a relationship with someone online is a hell of a lot easier than in person, you can just X 'em out with no hesitation...And then they can go get on someone else's nerves like they probably will.

You just gotta find the right community, like in real life.