The greatest lesson I ever got when working with children was when a jolly old grandmother who saw my bafflement when a kid, unprompted, was a total jerkface. She chuckled, nudged me with her purse before delivering some wisdom into my life that I had no idea I needed.
"The young ones are terrible people, but they're supposed to be ya know? Youth is where you learn how to people - and not everyone is good at everything right away."
She was right - but some things are downright unexplainably crappy, even to other kids. One reddit user asked about the things "popular kids" did that instantly made them unpopular ... and fam ... wow.
BUT
Here is my big takeaway from all of this ... Yes, the things some of these kids did were just atrocious (or atrociously dumb in the case of the Jim Beam guy) but, what's also true is that the others saw it and reacted the same way and enacted whatever little brand of justice they could dole out.
Young people cancel culture might just save the day when they're older.
Delayed Reaction
Giphy
A guy at my school got drunk at a party, got naked and inserted his penis into a Jim Beam bottle and ran around all crazy like with it attached but not having to use his hands.
At the time it was quite a laugh but it wasn't until a day or so later people thought about how small the opening was to a Jim Beam bottle. That was basically the end of him.
- r-tyme
An Awkward Uprising
There was the cool guy group with like 14 people and their "leader" and then one day the guys got too tired of him and then the guys basically did an uprising and then some other guy replaced him. It was awkward.
- Nemukaso
Violence Against An Autistic Child
He punched the autistic kid then proceeded to get jumped by every single guy that saw him in school for the next week until his parents had him switch schools
The school gave up on punishing the kids beating him up because there were just too damn many kids it was over half the population of kids at the school that would insult or punch, slap, etc whenever they saw him. I never participated but that's cause he bullied me and could easily wipe the floor with my corpse if I tried to do anything to him.
Yellow
When she made fun of me in front of everyone for wearing a yellow shirt to school. It was just a plain yellow shirt. That's it. Just yellow. That was her whole insult. She somehow found a way to mock the colour.
It was so unnecessary, and made her look like someone who was just rude for no reason. Everyone suddenly realized that she thought people were automatically on her side because she was somewhat rich and popular.
She just became a joke after that.
The Least Popular Kid
He thought picking on my particular group of friends would be cool, as we were the "weird ones." Well little did he know that losing that fight to the least popular kid would make him the pinnacle of comedy.
Mac Truck
He teased my best friend for being built like a Mac truck. She picked him up and put him up side down in the garbage can. He lost any coolness he had.
She is still crazy strong for a woman her age. As kids when her mom needed a jar opened she'd hand it to my friend and not her dad.
Grandma
Giphy
One of the kids at our school lived with his grandma cause his parents died. A dickhead and a group of his mates started harassing the old lady whenever she came to pick him up. Other students saw it and were disgusted, so they got together and reported it all to the principal.
Whatever they did to her must have been bad because they ended up getting expelled all together.
- l0l_g09
He Should Have Just Studied
My classmate did not prepare for the geography test and called the school, saying that it was mined/there was a bomb. He called from a payphone, which stood on the ground floor of the school.
We were 13, he was tried for it.
Kid B's Mom
He f*cked his friend's mom at a party and then bragged and mocked friend endlessly.
Let's call popular kid A and his friend B. B's mom was arrested (as she should've been) and B faced torment from basically everyone that knew what happened. Kid A continued to brag about his actions.
Eventually people gained sympathy for B and kid A lost his popularity real fast. I understood the mother to be a predator but it wasn't til years after that that I fully understood it for what it was in it's entirety.
It's so hard being young and a male at that. In this situation he saw it as an opportunity to bragging rights and probably as some twisted form of "manliness" - which could've been a defense mechanism looking back at it.
They're both victims in this, regardless of how A went about it.
Compulsive Liar
He was a compulsive liar and pretty much made up an entire fake story about him being in a gang and always going to these crazy ass parties. He always said he was mixed when he clearly was not. He said his dad had just gotten out of prison and got this really cool job. Basically he just lied about a bunch of stupid sh!t.
Eventually everyone found out and he lost all of his friends.
100% Deserved It
She was 16 and made fun of a freshman girl with cancer. Made a joke like, "Why don't you ask your mom to buy you a wig; I can see your scalp"
Overnight, she was the least liked person in school, and 100% deserved it.
Independence Day
how i met your mother usa GIF
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He knew he tested positive for COVID-19 yet he said "Fck it, it's the fourth!" and went to an outdoor gathering to drink and watch the fireworks. He ended up infecting 10 people (as of now).
He's since been kicked out of groups and shunned.
Serial Killer Stuff
People found out he was killing animals in super f*cked up ways. Held a dog under water until it drowned. Ran over a cat with a lawn mower. Used baseball bats and machetes. Dude was doing some serial killer level stuff.
Now he's in the army, oh boy do I feel protected.
Embarrassing Himself
He cheated on his (also popular) girlfriend and she got told about it. He then tried to beat up the guy that told her and proceeded to not land a single hit and only embarrass himself.
- marloso2
Dumb And Jacked Up
Throughout middle school I attended a summer camp where you basically are with a group of kids in the same grade as you, and you spend all day just playing sports or games or things of that nature. Generally we were laid back and fun, but things could often get intense on the big field there - and since everyone in our group was a middle school boy, we were all dumb and jacked up.
However, there was a blind boy who attended the camp who wanted to play capture the flag with the "older boys" (our group) We used a ball that made a beeping noise and the general consensus was that we would let him win the game because, you know, we're not psychopaths.
The boy got the ball and his aide was helping him bring it back to the other side when out of nowhere this absolute jerkoff TABLE-TOPS the poor kid and he eats it. Kid basically got ran out of camp with pitchforks that day.
Crying To Get Back In
3 guys who were seniors tried to climb the school fence near the basketball court during 5th period. 2 of then gave up but one managed to climb the fence and got stuck outside the school. He couldn't climb back in and started crying and apparently had to call the school to be let back in. Probably got in a megaton of trouble after that.
But what really did him in was some snot nosed 1st year got it on video during their basketball lesson, and it made its way around school.
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