Bully Pranksters nominate girl for homecoming queen and get their comeuppance (+vdeo)

[trailmonkee]

A homecoming prank played on Michigan high school sophomore Whitney Kropp, is turned around. Her tormenters' comeuppance is a community rallying to give her free dinner, photos, hair and nail design, shoes, gown, and tiara for Saturday's dance.

#at=128

[wilt the stilt]

1. The bullies were

channeling Mitt.

[valerief]

14. Bingo! Same mindset. nt

[Initech]

71. Today's bullies = tomorrow's Republicans.

[Sugarcoated]

89. Ain't that the truth!

[HereSince1628]

2. Anyone know what was the prank aspect of this?

I watched the video and it repeatedly said her election was a prank, but its unclear how getting elected was an act to bully her.

[obamanut2012]

8. The pulled the "Carrie" card

They nominated an outsider classmate on purpose, just so they could jeer her, which they did in the halls and on Facebook.

[HereSince1628]

16. Thanks it really wasn't clear IMO

[Matariki]

53. Agreed. I couldn't quite figure that out from the video

That was kind of shitty reporting really.

[Blue_Tires]

31. A real-life "Carrie" ending would have been beyond awesome...

[AnneD]

90. When I was in high school...

A group of us got together. We were tired of the same people getting voted for everything. So we did a word of mouth campaign to get this one girl elected on the homecoming court. She was a shy nice kid, no raving beauty but just a really nice person that never would have gone seeking it. We managed to get her voted homecoming queen. I always got a lot of satisfaction looking at those pictures. There were all these well heeled, well to do girls as princess and there was our girl, raised by grandmother because her parent had died years earlier, homecoming queen. It did wonders for her confidence. It was the best thing we could have done and the best vote I ever cast.

No Carrie moment...just something much more satisfying.

[knightmaar]

11. It wasn't too clearly explained, was it?

I think what happened was that she was told she won some popularity contest. Then, at some later time, she was told that she had not, in fact, won.

Being Canadian, I don't know of any schools around here that have these sorts of de facto beauty pageants, but I understand that in the U.S. there's a kind of religious fervour wrapped around this sort of thing, along with football games and prom nights.

I suppose we're left to imagine a bunch of girls gathered around her, doing the whole, "Haha! You? Homecoming Queen? You're too ugly for that! How could you ever believe that we would pick you!"

That sort of thing. Adults might shrug it off but it's devastating to teenagers. Children can be such jerks.

[obamanut2012]

13. The boys did it to her, too

[HereSince1628]

17. No it wasn't real clear,

Maybe that's because they didn't want to help replicate it in other places.

[knightmaar]

19. That was my assumption

No use repeating all of the nasty things that were said and done to her.

The only problem is that, for those of us who aren't culturally aware of what "Homecoming Court" is and the sorts of clique-ish nastiness that surround it, there isn't enough in that video to make the story out.

Honestly, if I hadn't read "Carrie", I wouldn't have had a clue what was implied by "Homecoming" and "bullying" in this story.

[chervilant]

18. hmm...

Children can be such jerks.

Wow. I think children mirror the dysfunctions of the adults in their lives.

[DBoon]

28. children reflect adults as adults really are

they reflect a society that values beauty, wealth and conformity

[Delphinus]

35. Spot on!

(unfortunately)

[chervilant]

87. Yep,

that's just what I said...

[Heather MC]

21. The Fevor is in the minds of the people who care about this stuff

Most students in the school just go along b/c it's the thing to do, but trust me in contest like these you know whos names will show up on the list. so unless you happen to be one of those people. It's not that important.

[Flaggkilledgod]

3. Gotta Love America

Where when bad things happen to you that get publicity you're showered with money as if you deserve it.

[catbyte]

6. And your point is?

Should everybody just double down on the bullying? Should people only be nice to those you think "deserve" it? You don't seem too compassionate.

Enjoy your stay.

[Flaggkilledgod]

39. Ummm...

My point is that money doesn't solve the problem, it just makes those giving it feel like they are doing something beneficial. I don't begrudge the people recieving it, but at some point you have to wonder if maybe giving to anti-bullying organizations would be better.

[Matariki]

54. You made your point better in this post

probably not going to help getting defensive. Your first post wasn't clear and didn't come off well.

[Flaggkilledgod]

63. Well

Since it was in the middle of the night and half asleep that's not a shock lol.

[LanternWaste]

62. We have no absolute knowledge that didn't in fact happen

"but at some point you have to wonder if maybe giving to anti-bullying organizations would be better...."

I have no absolute knowledge that didn't in fact happen. You could of course, cite a source which states it didn't...

[Flaggkilledgod]

64. Can't prove a negative

[jeff47]

67. Yes, it's quite easy to prove a negative

You don't float in air. It's easily proven. It's also a negative.

You could cite something that lists money going to anti-bullying organizations, or you could cite a story saying no money has been sent to anti-bullying organizations.

[Flaggkilledgod]

69. Considering the fact...

That I never claimed no money was sent to anti bullying organizations the onus isn't on me to prove it. I simply said it should goto them rather than a victim of bullying.

[jeff47]

91. Your old post is still up there.

I don't begrudge the people recieving it, but at some point you have to wonder if maybe giving to anti-bullying organizations would be better.

[JI7]

75. Why does it have to be one or the Other ?

[undergroundpanther]

88. If my community showed me kindness

After the bullying I went through since 1st grade, I sympathize with her. If people chose to make something nice for me,to stand with me like I mattered, maybe my life might be better.

From their involvement,I would not feel so alone,so hated,so ugly or unwanted.It would have shown me someone heard me,and cared that I was tortured everyday.Unfortunately I got no support from family or community because it was the 70's when people still had thier heads in the sand regarding the suffering bullies cause.
I tried to kill myself first time at age 8. I would through my life try many other times.

Sometimes it is wise to give help to a bully victim and stand by them because it just might give them enough hope in humanity to fight the PTSD that would have eaten her life..

like PTSD has done to me.

And the display of support from strangers might just help the bullies leave her alone.
And these strangers might have just given her a social network, with good experiences. A social network that accepts you is one of the most healing things there is.

[demwing]

7. You see this as being showered with $ she didn't deserve

I see it as being showered with support, encouragement, and love.

Now I fucking dare you to come back and claim she didn't deserve that...

[obamanut2012]

9. Whitney has been showered with support and kindness

Guess you don't get it. Whatever.

[Kindly Refrain]

20. What do you mean she doesn't "deserve it"

She was voted in and she won.

[GOTV]

23. Are you really saying the town's response was not good?

[Flaggkilledgod]

41. no

nt

[gollygee]

26. Well that's capitalism for you

People get to spend their own money however they want, and they don't need your permission. They can spend their money on her, or they can spend it on anything else, and you don't get a say. Do you feel like you should be able to decide how and where people spend their own money?

[efhmc]

33. Did you ever go to high school? People decided to help someone who had

been harmed and in this case that meant helping her prepare for an event that she had been pranked into.

[WI_DEM]

37. typical freeper attitude. You probably loved Mitt's boyhood pranks, too.

[Flaggkilledgod]

40. Right

Because I disagree with showering victims with money because something bad happened to them means I support the bad things that happened to them. Grow up.

[HangOnKids]

42. She was showered with money?

She was given support by local business people because she was treated very poorly by her classmates. Yet you trying to equate her with a welfare queen. Keep going dude, 13 posts in. Impressive. NOT.

[Flaggkilledgod]

43. Wow

You're reading way too much into what I'm saying. Here's an idea, instead of assuming I'm some super secret freeper in disguise, actually address my point. Why should victims of bullying be given money? How does that benefit them, aside from having money? Wouldn't it be better to give the money to bullying victims advocates?

And this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Remember the poor bus driver who got bullied by students and got almost $1,000,000 from people?

[HangOnKids]

45. Your premise is paper thin dude

Again she wasn't given money she was given community support. This community understands that the way you stand up to bullies is to show them the RIGHT WAY TO DO THINGS. That is why they turned the tables on the bully jerks and gave this girl the ability to feel special by providing for her. You are beyond disgusting.

[Flaggkilledgod]

46. So...

Because I disagree that money is the solution to lifes problems I'm "beyond disgusting". Good to know.

[HangOnKids]

47. Your Rhetoric Is Sloppy

You are all over the map and I am bored with your bullshit. MIRT will clean this mess up. Thanks for trying. Bye

[Flaggkilledgod]

48. So sad

I figured I could have a conversation about things with like minded people, but apparently any disagreement is met with horseshit like this. Good to know, I guess.

[HangOnKids]

49. COUNTDOWN

3,2,1....

[hifiguy]

50. Maybe you should stop pointing that firearm

at your own feet, particularly when they are both in your mouth.

Is that pizza I smell?

[Matariki]

55. She was shown support by the community which she clearly was in need of

after being humiliated and bullied. The community rallied and pampered her. Good on them.

And it wasn't money but things specific to looking lovely at the dance - a dress, hair styling, etc.

[Flaggkilledgod]

56. OK

I agree with all of that. I was making a general statement, mainly thinking about the bus driver who got a mountain of cash because of some little snots humiliating her. I'd rather see that money go to anti-bully advocacy groups.

[pacalo]

70. Bullshit.

You didn't make a general statement; you made a callous one:

Gotta Love America

Where when bad things happen to you that get publicity you're showered with money as if you deserve it.

The compassion shown to the girl was justly deserved. If the pranksters' intent was to humiliate & to destroy the victim's self esteem, the community refused to let that happen & the pranksters lost.

In the bus monitor's case, her tormentors on the bus filmed their own bullying behavior -- which included calling her names based on her appearance & referring to her as "poor" -- thinking that their friends & fellow classmates would get a kick out of it. Instead, it backfired on the bullies. That's sweet revenge. She's no longer poor.

I read attitudes like yours on other websites that include political views of all stripes; I detest seeing it on DU. Your rationalization doesn't cut it here.

[HangOnKids]

72. Amen & Thank You

The poster has done plenty of back peddling, but what he said in the Gotta Love America post was NOT a case of "mis-speaking", it was ABUNDANTLY clear what he meant. I likened it to the "welfare queen" meme the RW is so very fond of. Thank you for standing up to the BS he is peddling here, I refuse to have any more interaction with such a craven person.

[pacalo]

73. His original statement may as well have neon lights flashing all around it.

He's fooling no one; one either understands compassion & support for those in need or they don't. The ones who don't get it will find out sooner or later that they don't belong here.



You did a good job yourself in calling it like it is.

[Flaggkilledgod]

74. LOL

You're a regular laugh riot. So you claim to be psychic, do you also believe in bigfoot?

[pacalo]

77. TGIF! No homework tonight, right?

[HangOnKids]

85. He Has Plenty Of Time To Do Homework Now LOL

Thanks MIRT! They got him!

[pacalo]

86. I knew the MIR team would come through!

Yay, MIRT!

[Moonwalk]

57. I missed the part where she was showered with money. Please explain...

...how she's going to bank that new haircut and nails, and how the dress is going to earn her so much in the future that she can pay for her kids college tuition. Oh, and can she buy a new car with that facebook page of girls with supportive slogans written on their tummies?



Your hyperbole is what's getting you in trouble here. Talk about what she DID get and why you object to her getting that, that being: a dress, a haircut and a facebook page from friends. I assume you think the lesson she's learning from all this is that if she's in trouble people will give her things or if someone else is in trouble she should give them things, but the lesson I see her learning is that when someone is in trouble you do what you can for them. If you're a musician you play them a song, and if you're a hair stylist you give them a haircut. And if you can't give them anything else, you give them support via a facebook page or hugs.

Why do you see this as being given "things" rather than being given support? Why do you see this as wrong, rather than an attempt to defeat the bullies and right a wrong? Explain, please, without the false hyperbole that she's being showered with money...because no such thing his happening and you won't be credible if you don't stick to the facts of what she really is getting.

[Flaggkilledgod]

58. I admit I was wrong on that point

I was making a general statement about how victims in America are given money to "make things right", namely the Bus monitor from a few months ago who recieved almost a million dollars in donations after being horribly treated by students on the bus. So in this case it doesn't really apply since it's all going to boost this poor girls self confidence and prepare her for the dance.

[jberryhill]

65. That is the premise of our entire civil justice system

...which reduces remedies to a dollar amount. There is nothing new or unusual about that.

[Flaggkilledgod]

66. Yes...

But there's a difference between making the wrongdoers pay and people donating money to people who have been wronged.

[jberryhill]

68. Not really

None of the dollars in my bank account provide any indication of where they came from.

In the vast majority of civil suits, the damages are not paid by the wrongdoer, but by the wrongdoer's insurance company.

[pacalo]

76. The bus monitor was "wronged" in a huge way when her tormentors posted their video on YouTube.

They made fun of her looks, her clothes, her purse, her house, & they threatened to "visit" her home. They even began putting their hands on her.

What began as a campaign to give the bus monitor a good vacation away from that brat-infested job turned out to be a godsend: she can now retire & no longer has to put up with poorly-parented bullies.

What if the posting of that video on YouTube had gone the other way -- that only people with your dismissive attitude had seen it & looked the other way? The bullies might have ruled the outcome & the tormenting may have escalated into who-knows-what. Think about that.

[Flaggkilledgod]

78. Uh

What the hell are you talking about? What "dismissive" attitude? All I said was that in civil law the guilty parties are held responsible for the money, as opposed to donations from the community. I've previousely said that the bus monitor was treated horribly. I don't begrudge victims of bullying getting money from the community, I just think it's better to give to advocacy groups rather than individual victims.

[pacalo]

79. You totally don't get the outpouring of support that the bus monitor received

& now you're talking "civil law", "guilty parties", "donations should be given to advocacy groups rather than individual victims".

How clueless can a person be? Oh, brother.

[Flaggkilledgod]

81. LOL Again

[jberryhill]

82. The concept of "guilt" does not exist in civil disputes

What civil disputes do is to categorize a variety of things constituting a civil wrong, and a variety of things constituting cognizable injury.

The principle objective is to reduce the injury to a dollar amount, and to award that as a remedy to the person who was injured.

Understandably, many people, including you, see a component of "justice" in the fact that the award is, at least facially, from the person responsible for the injury. But, really, from the perspective of the injured party, a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. Dollars out of the pocket of the person responsible spend the same as dollars from anywhere else.

And, when you get down to it, most civil damage awards are paid by insurance companies. If I was driving like a jerk and I ran over your dog, you really aren't going to get a penny from me. You will be paid by State Farm, however. The aggregate amount I pay to State Farm for this purpose is a lot lower than the maximum amount of damage they will cover. And, in most cases, you will settle for the maximum insured coverage, because that is all you are going to realistically collect.

And, really, thank goodness for insurance in that regard. There are more uncollected and uncollectible damage awards in this world than are ever going to be actually paid by anyone since, most of the time, the party liable for the injury doesn't have what amounts to a pot to piss in.

[dionysus]

80. exactly.. and this wasnt even a lawsuit paying out.. it was all private, voluntary donations.

the bus monitor incident happened here where i live.

[BigD_95]

4. I dont understand????

what was the prank? I dont get it??? She looks like a normal kid.

[Lucky Luciano]

10. Something like this I guess:

"Let's make that loser win the election. Then when she wins, we all point and laugh - or giggle in the hallways near her. Haha for a moment we will make her think she is part of the club and then we will laugh her right out of the club!!! Haha, doesn't this sound fun?! When we get to college, let's join a sorority and invite the fat girl to join our club as a joke too! Yay!"

Something like that guess.

[obamanut2012]

12. She is an outsider at her school

It's a rural school, and she wears black and Chucks and dyes her hair pink. They used the Carrie card and nominated her on purpose so they could humiliate her, which they immediately started doing: they mocked her in the hallways and classes, and taunted her on Facebook. The male Sophomore who would have escorted her refused to do it, although he's backpedaled now and apologized.

They set out to destroy this girl, but the town didn't let that happen.

[gollygee]

27. Normal kids are often targeted

It usually isn't about how they look. It's more often about how they respond to being ridiculed. If they respond a lot, it's fun, and people keep doing it. There was a local girl who killed herself several years ago over this, and she was just plain beautiful, but she was sensitive and she responded strongly to bullying, so she got more bullying. Bullies go for the weak, wherever they see weakness.

[DBoon]

30. Bullies grown up to be republican

"destroy the weak" is their entire platform

[progressoid]

38. Here...

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120924/METRO/209240341#ixzz27UK8m28x

[enlightenment]

51. Well written article.

Good for the town and good for the girl. Good for the boy, too - who has realized that he doesn't want to be like the nasty shytes around him.

[Orrex]

5. I was expecting a bucket of pig's blood, at least

They're all gonna laugh at her.

[myrna minx]

22. K&R

This cuts to the quick. I'm so heartened that her community has embraced her with such wonderful support.

[GOTV]

24. OMG - your animated gif! I can't stop laughing ...

... where did it come from?

[trailmonkee]

34. randomly pulled from the web.... first saw on buzzfeed

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021425626

[dembotoz]

25. i hated every damn minute i was in high school

thank god i survived make it to college.

[NYC_SKP]

29. They didn't really get their commupance, unless there's something more to the story....

Like a tragic automobile accident.

That's right, I said it and I mean it.

No real punishment will come to the bullies, not in a community and school that allowed it to happen in the first place.

[DBoon]

32. I think they subtly encourage this

What the kids did to her is just a version of what the adults do to each other.

The bullying could not have gone this far unless the adults looked the other way, deliberately.

The adults value "winning" at all costs. The kids pick this up.

Sort of like republicans calling the poor "moochers" and "parasites"

[NYC_SKP]

61. Yup. nt

[hifiguy]

36. Good for her.

May karma exact a particularly vicious retribution on the bullies. Soon.

[jmowreader]

44. The bullying will get worse after Homecoming

She "doesn't fit in." I went to a school like this...if you didn't wear flannel shirts and know the filing angle on an Oregon.chain, you'd be an outcast for life.

Now the punks think she thinks she's better than everyone else so they'll do their best to ruin her life.

[TBF]

84. You're correct - but I think she'll be ok

I went to a school like that too in the rural midwest. I just escaped into my books and dreams and made sure I had a job lined up right after graduation - I did that for the summer and then started at the State University the next fall. With the exception of a few holidays I never returned. I had a great career and ultimately settled down and had kids. I've done a lot of traveling and now live the life I always wanted. I think in getting through this episode she will be stronger and will get herself out of there too. I am certainly rooting for her!

[Sylvarose]

52. OMG- This happened at my school..in the 80's--

You'd think we'd have learned something by now!!!

Yes..when I was a freshman..the freshman class of our high school had our own school. We had a fall dance and as a frackin' joke a bunch of the 'in' kids nominated to one of the poorest, most socially awkward and least popular girls in the school to the "court" because they though it would be 'funny'.

Thankfully the teachers (yeah..you know the ones that Romeny says only cares about themselves) rallied together and using their own money, bought the girl a dress, paid for her hair to be done and arranged for her to eat at one of the nicest restaurants in town.

And those of us who weren't popular and/or were outraged made sure that when she showed up for the "court" that we cheered and applauded longer and louder than the popular girl who "won." The teachers and us made sure the girl was surrounded by friendly faces and support all night long.

Shame...shame on these bullies!

Shame on the parents if they don't teach their children to be have better!

Good on community for rallying together!!!

[progressoid]

59. Maybe we have learned something.

The prom queen at my kid's school was nominated and won but not because they thought it would be "funny" but because they liked her. She has Down's Syndrome. They wanted to do something nice for her. So, no giggling or finger pointing - just a special night for her.

[Sylvarose]

60. :)

I'm glad to hear that! Prop's to your child and their classmates!

[Son of Gob]

83. Those kids need to start making some Horse head Bookends