In a 3600+ word article called “15 Signs You May Be An Emotional Bully… And What To Do About It”, Zack Van claims there are 15 signs to know if you or anyone for that matter is an emotional bully. Van presents his idea as to what a bully is, and then follows it with what he believes the 15 biggest symptoms are of being an emotional bully. He does this to point out that almost anyone could have one of these qualities and presents them in order to almost provide a checklist to evaluate the extent of emotional bullying occurring. Van is convinced that emotional bullying is a more common problem than most would be willing to admit and writes this for those that could be the emotional bully themselves, or those being bullied.
The list of 15 characteristics range anywhere from interrupting, to slamming doors and throwing the remote control, or stating that no one’s feelings matter unless they’re your own. Most people would be able to fit into this list on its surface, for example one of them is “you cry”, well I cry when getting in arguments, does that make me an emotional bully? Van would say no. This is because after giving you the characteristic name, he further explains each one of them, to give you a clear understanding of what fitting into that category would look like. In my crying example, he states that the crying would be used to manipulate the other person to be in your favor, that crying is a way to control the argument. I think this list is very useful. I know I have been friends or have been in relationships with emotional bullies who would have fit into a number of these categories. Back when I was involved with those people, I didn’t necessarily want to believe I was being bullied, but would I have had this list and could have checked off how many of the categories those people met, maybe I would have been able to cut them out of my life earlier. Van brings up a good point at the end of his article, he explains that he hopes this list will help the emotional bully be more self-aware, and that the new found self-awareness would repair the relationships they may have damaged. I think this holds true for bullying across different situations as well, that it takes the bully actually knowing what they’re doing wrong in order to repair relationships.
-Jenny King
Van, Zack W. “15 Signs You May Be an Emotional Bully … and What to Do about It.” Meant to Be Happy RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.
The Effects of CyberBullying 
This article would be very important in making the “unintentional bullying” argument irrelevant. People may not know what they’re doing, but if they have this list, they have no excuse. Like you said, it would also give them the opportunity to fix the damage they have done.
– Alana Nicole Beaulieu
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This article does an interesting job of pointing out the minor details that could have a huge impact on a victim. I like your thought about how selfish actions of the offender, whether conscious of their actions or not, can severely impact the victim because the victim could just be thinking of themselves. This goes with the idea that everyone has the potential to be a bully and raising awareness is important to help reduce the issue.
Sean
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