On toxicity in forums

[Miste]

In the end I am very much behind the "sticks and stones" statement, especially when refering to annonymous online interactions.

I strongly believe that equating (or even comparing) verbal abuse with actual physical harm is fundamentally wrong. There are certainly people out there in the world (and internet) who are so effected by words, spoken or written, that it can drive them to mental instability but the fault in that situation is still with the person who is letting someone else get to them that way.

It is fine if you disagree, but I was mostly talking about in all aspects and not only online.

The last part of the "sticks and stones" statement is "words can never hurt me".

Words can never hurt is a lie and that is why I hate that saying and I really feel it has no place anywhere even online. Maybe some people in the world are completely immune to anything anyone ever says to them, but the thing is not everyone is and you have to take into account emotional and mental maturity which not everyone online, just as in real life, is an experienced adult either. You also have to take into account current mental state.

I am not saying that online we shouldn't try to tell people to ignore people who are cruel to them online and use tools to avoid those people like blacklists, but the thing is not everyone has the ability to ignore it completely. So you might be asking for someone to "get a thicker skin" when they simply aren't able to. Like I said not everyone has a mental state tough enough to handle it. Is online the best place for these people? Probably not...but the internet is used for so many things in today's world.

So I still hold the opinion that that saying is useless and it just tries to sweep aside the problem and I strongly disagree that the person who is not immune to verbal abuse is the one at fault. It is not their fault if they cannot handle verbal abuse.

I simply interperet 'sticks and stones' to mean 'words are not violence, if you take issue with someone's harsh language first appreciate that they are using language to express themselves instead of violence'. I really just have a problem with dismissing 'sticks and stones' out of hand. It is (to me) an important lesson to remember in terms of everyday life.

Words can be violence. Verbal abuse or physical abuse, both are forms of violence against a person. I have personal experience on why words can be violence which I won't get into.

I strongly disagree. No one should "appreciate" verbal abuse just because it isn't physical abuse. One is physical harm which you could argue "hurts more", but emotional and mental harm can hurt just as much and also can have just as much long term scars as physical.

I don't think it is an important lesson to teach a lie. Like I said "words can never hurt" is a complete lie.

I understand where you are coming from with the life lesson thing, but we need something better than this, old, dated, and really bad lie.

We need to advocate the truth, not a lie. The truth that sometimes words may hurt you, but you have to remember how important you are to your family, loved ones, and so on, and realize that the person trying to hurt you with those words doesn't matter; you matter. You have the power to overcome the hurt, not lie to yourself or others that the hurt doesn't exist.