{"id":399,"date":"2010-07-20T12:12:25","date_gmt":"2010-07-20T17:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/?p=47"},"modified":"2013-04-19T04:35:55","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19T04:35:55","slug":"the-vulture-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/2010\/the-vulture-culture","title":{"rendered":"The Vulture Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This term is not an original that I made up. Some smart psychologist or something coined the phrase in referring to the culture we live in, particularly the youth culture. And I think that he or she got it pretty dead on.<\/p>\n<p>You know what vultures do. They find something that\u2019s sick or dying, something hurt, and they prey on it and feed on it and finish it off. It\u2019s pretty gruesome and intense. But then so is the level of bullying and verbal bashing we see in youth culture today. Vulture culture \u2014 it unfortunately fits.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you know someone who has been made fun of on facebook. Maybe someone\u2019s said something hurtful to you under the anonymousness of formspring. Maybe you\u2019ve been made fun of by people at school. Maybe your brother or sister consistently berate you and make you feel worthless. This vulture culture is scary in how fierce and persistent it can be. It really seems like any time I go on facebook anymore I can find someone being picked on (even if \u201cin joking\u201d) in less than 10 minutes of meandering around.<\/p>\n<p>And so what does this tell us? Is this just people joking around? Is this a matter of one or two people out there having real attitude problems and being the trouble makers? Or is it something that we all need to deal with because the end results can be shockingly tragic?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-324\" alt=\"Vulture\" src=\"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Vulture-700x461.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"461\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It should sadden us to hear that there are people ending their lives, giving away parts of their hearts, cutting themselves, bullying other people, or other serious reactions to this kind of stuff \u2014 even if it isn\u2019t in our school or even state. This is a reality that WILL affect you and touch you and your friends and we MUST do something about it. There\u2019s no question that cyber bullying and people being absolutely rude beyond belief is on the rise around us. But what are we doing about it? What can we do about it?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Don\u2019t participate.<\/strong> I know, it seems obvious. But don\u2019t be one of the rude people who attack other people who you don\u2019t like, no matter what.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Don\u2019t react.<\/strong> This one could have been put with the last one but you would have read over it. But arguments online are stupid and senseless. If you are being attacked or someone you care for is, don\u2019t react. It fuels the fire when you do. For example, if you choose to have a formspring (which you\u2019d be much better without) DO NOT respond to questions or comments that are rude, sexual, or too personal.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Act.<\/strong> I heard it said once that we need to fight for a life of action not reaction. So in this instance you need to not react to people out of anger and frustration and emotion. You need to stop, step back from the situation, think about the best solution to the problem, and then act. There is this insane idea that if you contact an authority about something like this that you\u2019re a coward or unable to handle your own junk, but it actually saves you from wasting your time with a situation that really does need someone\u2019s attention, and also saves you from having to deal with it alone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So as the vultures of rude, obnoxious, and angry people circle around, let us be the ones who come to the rescue bringing help and healing to those who have been hurt and keeping the vultures away. Then maybe we can see the culture begin to shift the way we know it needs to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This term is not an original that I made up. Some smart psychologist or something coined the phrase in referring <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/2010\/the-vulture-culture\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}