He’s always wore sketchers. Like since he was 4. Recently, he got really emotionally taking about shoes he wanted for middle school. He said if he doesn’t get Nikes he’s going to get teased. Great fucking marketing work Nike.
Kids are very materialistic.
When I was in middle school, I was probably the worst for me with the bullying. I came from a family that didn’t have a whole lot of money. Like even the cheap stuff we had to cut corners with. And well I was fully aware, that there was no real difference between what I had and what they had, it didn’t stop the consistent bullying. And the teachers never cared. The other students didn’t care in fact some of them would chime in too. And when that’s your life for several hours a day 5 days a week… You eventually just get to a breaking point.
I’ll never forget the day I basically had a complete emotional breakdown because we were doing back to school shopping at Target, and I saw one of those trapper keepers. With a weird designs on the outside. They were all the rage. And it was like eight bucks I think. My mom did end up buying it for me, but only because her soon-to-be 5th grader, collapsed in the isle crying. I don’t remember what I told her, but all I could think about was having that was going to make life just a little bit easier for me.
Kids can be real assholes to other kids.
I’m sorry you went through that. I’m glad you got your trapper keeper, though. Your mom made the right call.
It’s not a Nike thing. It’s a kid thing. Kids are dicks, sorry
Is that why Apple has got the US by the balls because people want to avoid the dreaded green bubble in iMessage? I’m not from the US so that might be me misunderstanding the situation, but I’ve been told that even many adults in the US view that as a valid reason to avoid anything that’s not an iphone, because of some social stigma attached to the green bubble.
Green bubble shaming is real and I felt it in middle school but more so in highschool from my own softball team. Hated that shit, but I loved my Moto g7 play so those bitches can fuck themselves.
As far as I hear every time: Yep
- A european
As an American I’m still not convinced.
Apple successfully sold themselves as a better choice, the “in”thing - to adults. Most adults I know have iPhones and the ones who don’t seem self-conscious about it. It might have partly to do with Android phones originally sold as the budget alternative. We’re the shallow ones.
Kids can take their cues from adults: they see iPhones as the “better”, more desired choice. But also take it to the next level, with teasing and bullying.
I find it hard to believe anyone cares about the color of text bubbles, especially since kids don’t use iMessage, despite all the media making that claim. It’s just an excuse, but the social stigma is real
You can call it social stigma but it’s really just that there’s more you can do when texting someone else with an apple phone. A lot of the time the same messaging has a totally different vibe than when both people are on iPhones. Things can be lost in context etc.
Some of that has disappeared with RCS support, fortunately.
But yes, Apple successfully positioned their texting app as a rich formatted chat app when used between iPhone users, behaving more like WhatsApp or KakaoTalk or other chat apps than like traditional texting. But when messaging people without iPhones, it was just standard texting (worse, since they would degrade the quality of MMS images more than necessary, as I understand). To the uninformed, this seemed like everyone else were the ones lagging behind. “How could your phone be any good? Images you send are terrible. I can’t name chats that have you in it. If I react to your messages it spams the group chat.” Etc.
Brilliant, but absolutely evil, move by Apple. Unfortunately it worked. The only reason I use an iPhone today is that years ago I got tired of being left out of conversations and media sharing by my family and my wife’s family, who all use iPhones. So when my OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren Edition died an early, watery death (rest in peace, king among phones) and nothing else really wowed me in the Android space at the time, I bit the bullet and went to the dark side. I enjoy the iPhone, but I’m still bitter about why I got it.
Yep. Agreed
Most of my immediate family are on Android and use Signal. I’m happier this way.
When I was a kid, there was a phase where everyone was obsessed with red flannel. Went on for like 3 months.
Imagine a pro dominantly black/Latino school in the hood where we’re all dressing up like Al Borland from Home Improvement.
That sounds awesome.
I mean, I can see it
Caprice (or Taurus?) police car and fingerless glove really date this photo.
It’s both. Kids suck and can be clique-like over the dumbest things. But these corporations also realize the amount they can make when their brand is a “status symbol”, and they purposely market around that.
Because they learn from their families, usually. I remember the uppercrust side of my family kicking dirt from a family member’s grave onto his second wife’s grave. So classy.
The solution to bullying is to do as the bully says /s
It seems to be working for America right now.
I was unironically told that I should “keep a lower profile” if I want to avoid being bullied. I spoke to nobody and hugged the walls walking from class to class. I don’t know how much lower of a profile I could keep.
Same. The principal and vice principals at the last high school I attended were also the football coaches. Going to them about how the jocks were kicking the shit out of me for being too nerdy and queer for their tastes got me that same “just keep a lower profile” bullshit from the highest authority figures in that dump.
Good luck fighting 200 8 year olds
Easy as an adult, not so much as a kid with a similar age
LPT If you back down a narrow corridor, make them come down single file, you can take them one by one.
I’m not saying anyone here wants to fight a y number of 8-year-olds, but how many do you feel he could take?
Depends on how angry they are.
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I don’t know if this is a bad idea, but recently all the Chinese manufacturers spoke out about how much the products they make actually cost, you can find the exact warehouse that makes them, and order directly from them, at a ridiculous mark down. Like a 10th of the price, or less. Might be worth some research. I see Adidas sambas for $10, including postage. They’re all there. They just don’t have the actual name label on them yet, because that’s all they do when they reach the distributor, though, so might be useless to you.
How do you find these?
I was too lazy to actually go find the specific warehouses. I just downloaded taobao, it’s partially in English now. I’ve seen and saved a few tiktoks with descriptions of the locations and which places do which items / brands. I just genuinely don’t have time to deep dive and do proper research, though.
Probably aliexpress or something
Nah, you usually have to direct message them via WhatsApp. You will have to pay like 15 or 20 shipping, so people usually buy a few pairs at a time.
There are specific marketplaces for things, but they tend to only sell bulk. Aliexpress is all resellers.
I am not even sure if the ones I posted sell exact knock offs or not though.
Happened to me. Got Nikes, got teased because they were not a good enough model. Kids are monsters.
Yup. Learned that one back in the 3rd grade. This stuff is hard if you’re not experienced enough to know how people work.
On the upside, I learned that one cannot buy their way into other’s good graces, especially if they’re going to require you to modify your behavior to get there; they’re lying and that was never the issue. On the downside: holy shit that hurts once it goes wrong the first time.
As an adult I can also appreciate that there are situations where you can “buy your way in” to a club or status of some sort. IMO, those situations are generally not worth it to begin with, requiring an never-ending stream of cash to keep up appearances. Plus, it surrounds you with other people that also believe, and are invested, in the program. It’s a recipe for elitism at best, and a big 'ol grift at worst. Better friends and relationships can be had for $0 everywhere else.
Yeah, he’s not getting made fun of for his shoes. They’re just a convenient target of ridicule. Son is about to learn a life lesson.
I’m sorry. People are shit.
My school everyone wore the same uniform. The only choice we could make was shoes or sandals 99.9% chose shoes. Sandal wearers got so much shit for it. It was a death sentence.
Kids find a way
Teach your kid to kick some teeth out with his Skechers. I have a feeling that your kid is going to get bullied no matter what he wears.
Buy him a crowbar.
Ultimate tool against bullying
An old steel rod car antenna is the ultimate. All you have to do is slice the air a few times and the sound alone will keep everyone away
I got teased for my shoes. I got better shoes, I got teased for my jacket, I got a better jacket. So then they just made shit up to tease me about.
I saw the fucker that bullied me relentlessly for all three years in middle school about 10 years later. He was pounding stakes in the ground setting up for a carnival. He stopped me in apologized which was kind of surprising. I gave him an absolutely hollow but convincing thanks and what about my day.
I did a little light internet stalking, turns out he’s vocal that can’t keep a job, construction companies fire him for “no reason” and he’s now down to whatever local company will hire him for physical labor. The only truly sad part is he has multiple children with multiple women and will not own up to any of them.
Though, I really suppose I owe a lot of who I am to the hell he put me through. Insults mean fuck all to me and I can ignore stress in a bad situation and make solid decisions.
My elementary school bully got hit by a car and it ended his college basketball career
How much did your repairs cost?
priceless
for everything else there’s mastercard
My grade school bully is serving life in prison for attempted double homicide. IIRC he’s also a sex offender.
Obviously the decisions he made as an adult are his responsibility, but honestly I feel bad for him. He didn’t have much of a chance. His home life was terrible, and he took it out on those around him. He had no positive role models in his daily life besides those at his school, who were always punishing him because he couldn’t conform to a world utterly foreign to his own where people weren’t constantly shitty to one another, and the school didn’t have any better idea how to handle him. The kid had no support. His father was in and out of jail/prison, his mother was overwhelmed. He fell through the cracks.
It’s no surprise he turned out a piece of shit.
That doesn’t excuse his actions. Plenty of people come from difficult origins and are good people leading decent lives.
But I do pity him.
The kid who bullied me relentlessly in middle school had an extremely unique name. I’ve been following his career since as he’s been listed in news articles for being arrested for increasingly severe crimes, most recently being described as the kingpin of a car theft ring. Glad to know he’s been quite successful in his career so far with credentials like that!
He chose Hookas instead of Hoka
Man sketchers are awesome. I have a pair that I’ve re-bought consistently for years because they were the perfect fit, comfy, and were nondescript. Now they’ve discontinued them so I have to see if I can order them online.
I remember when I was kid though. We always had hands-down, goodwill, and k-mart clothes. But one of my Pop’s jobs was a janitor at the “rich” school district and he’d watch the lost and found box and wait for the shit he brought in to expire.
Once it was in the bin for more than a month it got “donated”. Half of that stuff went to the kids of the people that worked there. My brothers and I being some of them. So Pops scored me a pair of Air Nike when Jordan was at the height of his career.
Wouldn’t you know it? One dude on the play ground had to ask why I was wearing a Walmart T-shirt while wearing Nike shoes. Seriously, kids are fucking brutal.
I learned long before that that I was “poor” so I learned how to play it off and flipped the script. “Are you that superficial that you give a shit? It never even occurred to me to look at what you’re wearing but now that I am, all you are is a wigger” (slur for a wannabe in my era/location). He left me alone the rest of our school career.
I’m in my forties now but somewhere in my thirties he hit me up on Facebook and apologized for being a little shit. Turns out he had a bit of a crush on me and that’s how he showed it amongst other reasons. He was newly divorced when he reconnected with me so I had to turn him down (that the only reason you’re apologizing, dude?) but he was much nicer about everything this time.
Kids can be nasty but many of them grow up. Anytime you can stand up to adults in front of your kids it’s teaching them how to stand up to their own peers. Show them every example you can of how to handle what they’re dealing with. How you stand up to your family, friends, and peers, is how your kids learn how to do the same thing.
You can’t buy yourself out of bullying. Even rich kids get bullied. Confidence in yourself and empathy for others are a far better lesson to teach the next generation.
I always knew shoes weren’t going to save my kids from bullying, so I got them karate instead.
The bullying still happened, until they decided it was time for it to stop. Then it stopped.
I don’t have kids, but I do have a brother who is young enough to be my child, and I was very happy when he broke the nose of his bully.
That motherfucker had to learn.
There was some anxiety on my part when my middle child told me he punched his bully in the high school cafeteria. I had felt his punches through a heavy-duty punching shield, and I assumed it would lead to criminal or civil cases. However, when I asked if the bully was ok, he said he pulled the punch.
That sounds like your kids responded in a way that every karate club teaches against.
Every serious bullying incident I ran into growing up ended when a kid got popped in the mouth. Every unserious bullying incident made no impact when I knew if it got serious, I could pop them in the mouth and likely come out on top.
I’ve met way too many adults with personality issues that were a product of adults telling child them “physical violence is always wrong, just tell an adult, be the bigger person” etc. It always needs to be taught as a last resort, and it needs to be understood that even justified violence comes with consequences and other tools must be used first, but when you’ve done everything you’re supposed to and no one is helping to the resolve the problem, sometimes you have to do it yourself.
It ain’t pretty, and it ain’t ideal, but it’s the way it is.
*Is legally required to say it is against
until they decided it was time for it to stop. Then it stopped.
Self defense against verbal harrassment.
Oldest was told every day he was going to be murdered while walking home. That continued until he dropped his bag and told his bully, “today’s the day, put up or shut up.”
Youngest was blocking a bully to give her friends a chance to get away. He tried to kick her and got the karate demonstration he was asking for.
Middle child was harassed and mocked for five years from Middle School through high school. He spent years begging them to stop, because he didn’t want to hurt them. He finally told his bully he wasn’t going to put up with it anymore and warned him that if he said another word, he was going to punch him in the face. The bully opened his mouth once more, and my son closed it. No one ever said anything again.
Teachers did nothing. Schools did nothing.
Here is the quote they recited in every karate class:
“I come to you with only Karate, Empty Hands. I have no weapons, but should I be forced to defend myself, my principles or my honor, should it be a matter of life or death, of right or wrong, then here are my weapons, Karate, my Empty Hands.”
— Ed Parker
I see no conflict between the teachings and their actions. They have a right to defend themselves against harassment, and if asking for it to stop doesn’t work, escalation is necessary. All the bullies had the opportunity to just walk away. Some took it, some didn’t.
Yeah, the good news is no one has ever suffered permanent damage from verbal abuse, so no problems, right?
And why is physical violence no-tolerance (except when it isn’t) but verbal violence is a-okay?
I’m not saying physical violence is okay, and I never have. In fact, I generally go the other direction, saying that physical violence should be a last resort for solving problems, and that those who use it clearly don’t have better tools to solve their problems. And know which groups is known for not having a lot of experience solving problems? Kids. That’s why we have adults supervising them. And training those kids that verbal violence is okay, and a great way to harass your peers, is, to put it bluntly, pretty fucking stupid. And some of those kids learn that a suspension isn’t that big a deal to some of the kids they bully, which is a hell of a lot better lesson than the adults around them were teaching them.
PTSD is not permanent damage?
Same for other psychological scars inflicted by constant bullying.
Some may never trust anyone again because they were bullied during childhood.I’m sorry, I misread your statement. I think we’re on the same page.
Happens ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Cheers
Instead of getting him 300$ shoes give him the choice of the cool shoes or the latest coolest video game or the shoes, or whatever hobby he enjoys…
Kids tease other kids because they themselves feel insecure… that’s literally all it is… if you need Nike shoes to feel secure you’re probably not a cool person anyways
The shoes are probably not $300…more like $100. And the kids goal is to not feel socially ostracized, not to spend money frivolously.
It’s not worth it but give your kids whatever sheltered life you want
Having to spend money tp avoid being socially ostracized IS frivolously spending money.
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Unworthy of serious attention; trivial.
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Inappropriately silly.
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Of little weight or importance; not worth notice; slight.
Tell me you have never been bullied without actually saying it.
To each their own…I would count not being socially ostracized as highly important, appropriate, and of significant weight.
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Kids tease whomever they perceive as weak.
If he get the shoes, it’s the wrong model. If he get the right model, it’s his hair color. Etc.
The kids who tease have severe insecurities, they are dodging and deflecting and pointing at other kids so that no one looks at them
They do not tease folks perceived as strong
Probably true. That would explain why those bullied are so eager to join the bullies when the bullies set their sights on somebody else.
Or, as the saying goes, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
True 🦬
$300 shoes? I think the most expensive shoes I’ve ever bought were $70. I’m sure a lot of the issue with him getting picked on isn’t so much brand name but him feeling like he has no say in what he wears and feeling like he is dressed by his parents in styles he has no say in. Its been 25 years since I entered middle school like this kid, but back then I would have felt the same way if my parents were forcing me to wear something I didn’t like/want. It wasn’t about price either. Often times the shoes my parents wanted me to wear were the same or higher in price, but styles change over time and vary by region/groups. People have their own personalities and prefer to fit in if they can. If the kid doesn’t want to feel like a toddler and have more freedom in what they wear it isn’t a bad thing.
Did you try to teach him to be proud of his independence and differences? Maybe you can work with him on nice come backs against the teasing.
As far as I remember (25 years ago), this doesn’t work. Kids just don’t appreciate witty comebacks
If anything they lean in and double down.
It works if they’re not comebacks, but actually hurtful insults.
They go hard, you go harder.
When I first got a girlfriend in highschool this one kid was teasing me for it so I flipped it and said “hey at least I have a girlfriend” I hit him so hard where it hurts that he actually never bullied me again and he actually tried to be my friend for a bit
That poor kid is getting beaten up lmao
I avoided bullying in school by being fucking oblivious. It was effective.
Maybe that could be taught
You know what works?
Punching your bully in the face
Oh man it’s like every out of touch bad advice I was given as a kid came back.
Being proud of your independence and difference is bad advice? What’s your world like then, submitting and following others?
Yeah let’s be proud of his independence by promoting him to make choices such as what shoes he wears.
The kid wants something so he can practice the art of being social and fitting in. You are not enriching their lives by giving them the answer without letting them work it out and come to their own understanding.
Comebacks dont matter when you can just point at the shoes and call him broke (im not a teen anymore but come on guys lol, thats when you fit in to avoid issues or have issues, no magical way out)
There is a way out, but it involves not caring what classmates think. That’s a high bar for a lot of kids, especially in middle school. Kids have to come to that conclusion on their own. No amount of adults telling them “you shouldn’t care” will change things.
By high school I found social success after not caring what others thought. But I had been bullied my whole school experience up til that point, so by high school I had run out of fucks to give. In other words, I learned the hard way, but that’s something every teen has to figure out for themselves.
Is it even possible to not care at this age though? At this point school and interacting with your peers is a vast majority of your life. I don’t think I have ever seen a kid being bullied every day at school and not caring. How can you not care if you’re scared?
I guess it is possible as you get older, more mature and closer to adulthood. But for a kid in a primary or middle school? Kinda hard to imagine for me.
Yes, if they have already figured out how to handle bullies in grade school/middle school. Early grade school there was a bully who picked on me and my older brother helped out. By grade five I was the one helping other kids who were being bullied.
A lot of credit goes to youth groups like 4-H for helping to build self confidence and how to care for others. May have been lucky getting a solid local group though.
I was always a weird kid and had gotten tired of most if my peers in elementary school, so when the cruelty ramped up in middle school I was already ignoring most of what was said or done around me. Most of the fighting was wannabe gang shit so it was easy to avoid. There was a guy I would have punched in the mouth, when he threw a book I was reading in a urinal, but he was quite literally twice my size.
Oh, it’s absolutely possible, but only after experiencing such abuse and isolation that you come to prefer your own company.
The last straw for me came when I finally stood up to my so-called “best friend,” who acted perfectly sweet when we were alone, but who threw me under the bus whenever my bullies were around. Our families were (and sadly, still are) friends, so I’d known her since she was born and there was a lot of social pressure for us to hang out together. She abused me constantly and loved to fuck with my head. I figured that if that was the “best” friend I could have, then I didn’t need friends at all. One day on the bus home, shortly after she’d spread yet another rumor about me, I called her a traitor and a backstabber.
She immediately turned to the bullies sitting behind us (whose hobbies included talking about me, stealing my stuff, and putting gum in my hair) and said, “That’s so funny! She just called me a traitor!” Yep, I was done.
That was in my last year of middle school. Going into high school, I was resolved to not give a fuck what anybody said about me. I decided to stop trying to change myself to fit in. I embraced my own interests without a care what anybody would say.
And that first year of high school was when I ended up making actual, real friends for the first time. People who actually get me. The payoff was huge and still benefits me today, but it came at a great cost during my most impressionable age.
The trick is not to care most of the time. Then the day you start caring and throwing punches they’re not prepared
I don’t know about now, but back in the 90s the magical out was that you punched them in the face.
Back then the concept of a school shooting didn’t exist, and parents didn’t threaten to sue the school every 5 minutes.
So teachers would just let the fights go.
“Oh, Billy tried bullying Bobby, and now Bobby punched Billy in the face? Eh…call me when they break bones and spill blood. I’m going to go make popcorn.”
These days? I’m sure both kids would get expelled.
Yep. I was poor and weird but I was also 6 foot tall and pretty big. Its amazing what one really good punch to the face of someone does to your rep for the rest of high school.
The kids that dont ocassionally crash out to defend themselves are the ones ppl watch as schoolshooters like the ones that never defended themselves growing up and just simmer, the quiet ones
But it’s not “his independence” if it wasn’t his choice to buy those shoes. You cannot be proud of your own choices when they weren’t your own choices.
That’s actually a really good point you’ve made here. It’s easy to defend the shoes as a parent because you’re the one who (1) understands the rationale behind buying them and (2) made the decision to buy them
I wonder if a good decision in this scenario is to just give the child a shoe allowance and let them pick. If they want Nike’s they will have to find a pair that fits the budget
Kids this age are able to pexress what they want. While he probably didn’t at 4, it’s possible he agreed or even asked for the last ones he got.
I guess he had more than one pair and he could have been asking for the last ones.
he could be but hes gonna get roasted for sketchers til college probably
I sort of want to do a stake out and bust out on the playground if he gets teased.
Phrasing!
Same for iphone. Fuck Apple.
