Tag: bullying | A Banana Peeled

Tag Archives: bullying

I’m not your fool

Posted on April 2, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

There are generally two camps when it comes to pranks. Those who view them as harmelss fun and those who think they are akin to torture. I will tell you upfront that I am in the latter camp.

Today is Aprils’ Fools Day (yesterday by the time you read this). I have never understood the appeal of this day, quite frankly. I have playefd one prank in my life that was pretty epic, but then I felt gulity about it afterwards. It was when I was a first-year student in college. I got a bunch of friends to help me with it because there was no way I could have done it on my own. We took all the furniture from a friend’s room and recreated it in the study lounge, down to every last detail. It was amazing, quite frankly, but it was very intrusive. I would not have taken kindly if someone had done it to me because i do not like people touching my stuff without my permission.

This is my issue. Don’t. Touch. My. Stuff. I will say that putting googly eyes on stuff is a harmless prank that most people can enjoy. At the very least, it doesn’t do any harm. If someone doesn’t like it, they can roll their own eyes and just keep it pushing.

For the other office-related pranks, though, even the ones considered mild, I would not appreciate them at all. At Ask A Manager, this is such a contentious topic. Alison herself is on the pro-prank side (which surprises me) as long as everybody is on-board with the prank. Which, I mean, it’s not easy to always be sure that people are on the same page.

The things that people call harmless pranks such as putting tape on the underside of someone’s mouse and switching around the letters on someone’s keyboard are big no-nos for me. The latter wouldn’t bother me because I use the Dvorak system and touch-type. I only care about the very rarely-used keys such as the brackets.

People who talked about doing this were all, “Hahahahahah this is so funny!”, but I did not get it at all. The premise is, “I’m going to do somtehing to your stuff that you don’t know about and then I’m going to laugh at how gullible you are to fall for it even though there’s no way you could have known about.”

That’s the thing that doesn’t make sense to me. How is that a prank? How is that funny to the person who’s getting pranked? Alison emphhasized that the prank had to be funny for everyone, not just the person/people doing the prank. Anything that has to do with messing with someone’s computer just doesn’t seem funny to me. Even if you don’t think it’s offensive or wrong, why is it funny?

Fuck Off With It’s Liberals Fault This President Was Elected Bullshit

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

So, there’s an idea that has been circulating since the election that has recently gotten even more steam about why this president won the election–it’s because liberals were mean to the base of the Republicans, and if only we were nicer, then they wouldn’t have had to lash out like that. This is not a new idea as it’s repeated every time the Democrats lose. Funnily enough, when Dems win, then the mantra is, “This doesn’t give you a mandate to skew left; you have to govern all of America.” It would be hilarious if it didn’t have such dire consequence, the underlying thesis that no matter what, we have to be concerned about disenfranchised white people’s feelings. It’s something I’ve heard before, but it’s redoubled after this president’s was elected. If liberals had been nicer to Trump supporters, so the story goes, then they wouldn’t have been forced to vote for a fearful, narcissistic, ignorant, childish, and spiteful asswipe like Trump. This narrative continues as a cautionary tale against the protests–be careful. You’re pissing off Trump supporters, therefore, making them more likely to support Trump.

If you’re a member of a minority group, you hear this rhetoric all the time. “Bring up your concerns in a polite and considerate way lest you upset the people you’re talking to.” It’s always baffled me how the main concern is for the comfort of the oppressor. I do understand that it’s hard to change someone’s mind by yelling at them, but that doesn’t mean you should swallow your anger and acquiesce to whatever bullshit is heaped upon your head. In addition, one of my problems with the angst over someone like Richard Spencer, the white supremacist, getting punched is that he gets portrayed as the victim who has been punched unprovoked. I won’t tread that ground again, but I would like to expand on it in the light of this meme.

Conservatives like to think of themselves as victims or martyrs. You can see it in their belief that Christians are being persecuted in this country because someone has the audacity to say ‘Happy Holidays’ to them instead of ‘Merry Christmas’ or because they can’t refuse to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple. They think it’s persecution if someone calls them a bigot for not supporting marriage equality, and nothing anyone can say to the contrary can move them from their self-righteousness. I understand as it’s human nature to get defensive when you perceive something as an attack, but it’s also the tactic a tyrant/dictator/bully uses in order to keep their victims in line. A certain type of abuser abuses their victim repeatedly until the victim snaps and fights back. Then, the abuser reacts as if they’re the one who has been victimized, which further keeps the victim under their thumb.