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RIP School Survival Forums
August 2001 - June 2017
The School Survival Forums are permanently retired. If you need help with quitting school, unsupportive parents or anything else, there is a list of resources on the Help Page.
If you want to write about your experiences in school, you can write on our blog.
To everyone who joined these forums at some point, and got discouraged by the negativity and left after a while (or even got literally scared off): I'm sorry.
I wasn't good enough at encouraging people to be kinder, and removing people who refuse to be kind. Encouraging people is hard, and removing people creates conflict, and I hate conflict... so that's why I wasn't better at it.
I was a very, very sensitive teen. The atmosphere of this forum as it is now, if it had existed in 1996, would probably have upset me far more than it would have helped.
I can handle quite a lot of negativity and even abuse now, but that isn't the point. I want to help people. I want to help the people who need it the most, and I want to help people like the 1996 version of me.
I'm still figuring out the best way to do that, but as it is now, these forums are doing more harm than good, and I can't keep running them.
Thank you to the few people who have tried to understand my point of view so far. I really, really appreciate you guys. You are beautiful people.
Everyone else: If after everything I've said so far, you still don't understand my motivations, I think it's unlikely that you will. We're just too different. Maybe someday in the future it might make sense, but until then, there's no point in arguing about it. I don't have the time or the energy for arguing anymore. I will focus my time and energy on people who support me, and those who need help.
-SoulRiser
The forums are mostly read-only and are in a maintenance/testing phase, before being permanently archived. Please use this time to get the contact details of people you'd like to keep in touch with. My contact details are here.
Please do not make a mirror copy of the forums in their current state - things will still change, and some people have requested to be able to edit or delete some of their personal info.
"free speech under the constitution only guarantees the government won't stop him saying it and does not guarantee his right to say things and have no consequences at all as a result. also i completely doubt that he is motivated solely by "i'm saying it because i can" and is probably motivated by a more shitheady motive like "i think it's funny to annoy people and Rustle Le Jimmies and is just hiding behind the first amendment to try to deflect any consequences or make you realize that being allowed to annoy people is a superior moral right. you can still disdain someone for doing things for dumbarse wankery purposes and you have evne more right to ban and insult them for it" ~Trar's friend about Potato.
Thanks for the diploma… can I have my childhood back?
I’d love to have a battle of wits with you… but I hate to fight the unarmed.
11-21-2013 12:11 AM
Thanks given by:
James Comey
Banished Oldfaf in Exile
Posts: 6,500
Joined: Aug 2013
Very good roundup on bullying. Kids often become bullies not necessarily because they want to be bullies, but they feel they must put their abuse on others, which is unfortunate.
Glad to see a fellow nerdfighter on SS! That was an awesome video, I was busy today so I missed it. Thank you!
The voice over was a little weird though, lol.
For the YouTube tags to work, you need just the video code after v= between the youtube tags.
But yeah, this is a very good video, and it's worth discussing. I liked the voiceover approach. People tend to spend a fair amount of time thinking or reflecting at times, where the thoughts never get recorded or put into a format for discussion.
Anyway... where to begin?
Why must the cycle of misery continue? Note that John Green didn't specifically address the problem of school itself (beyond bullying) in much detail. Maybe that could be the topic of a future video. Note, he said he wasn't such a great student.
For many of us, one of the biggest sources of misery in school is the boredom, grades, and punishments that come from some combination of school structure and parents, all based on this one-size-fits-all, do-what-you're-told model of education.
Bullying is a huge problem, as well, but it's just one part of the equation for many people.
Meanwhile, as some of the comments indicate, some people liked their experience of school and growing up, and have trouble imagining why others are so miserable. I think this gap is one of the biggest blocking factors to change: a lot of people just don't understand the level of distress and alienation many others feel.
And yet, it's almost a cliche to hate school, and many people consider it something you just have to do, which is worth it in the end.
How can we break out of this cycle, though... where people are growing up, retaining their memories and criticism of school, and making the reality of the various problems even more clear than ever?
I can imagine a lot of those people that loved school probably weren't socially awkward and had personalities that could easily blend in the school environment.