When I was first checking out r/chapotraphouse it was really alienating to see bullying being referred to so positively. Why was a community that’s so disproportionately queer and neurodiverse lauding the merits of bullying when we’re so much more likely to be the victims?

We pretty much only use the word bullying when we’re talking about punching up, harassing horrible people in power or shutting down fascists and liberals. I think it’s a form of immunisation, a way of preempting accusations of horrible people that they’re being bullied for their harmful selfish bigotry with “yeah we’re bullying you so what”. It disarms the accusation and looks really strong/funny to outsiders, because the power differential between the people who’re crying they’re being “bullied” by us and the people who’re bullying them, or how socially accepted the (awful, harmful) views they’re claiming to hold are compared to the views they say we’re “bullying” them for not having. It’s really really funny when actual elected officials or Op Ed writers with huge readerships whine about being bullied by a crowd of posters with names like Ho_Chi_Minx and ✨StanStalin✨ and it makes them look weak and us look strong.

When we talk about what would more commonly be considered bullying, punching down on people who’re different because they’re different, like (I imagine, thank you for the CW I did not need to read that today) is reported on in the article you linked and many of us experience or have experienced daily we tend to use words like harassment, micro-aggressions, abuse, discrimination and trans/homophobia to describe what we’re going through. Whenever someone posts here about the bullying they’ve experienced, either as a child or an adult, there is almost without exception an outpouring of sympathy, compassion, outrage commiseration and support, and anything out of line is usually shut down almost immediately not just by the mod team (who can’t be everywhere at once) but by the willingness of almost everyone here to bully anyone trying to make this an unsafe space for our marginalised comrades into silence.