Have you ever been mobbed, or been a mobber?

I've been teaching for over half my life, so this is a phenomenom I'm quite familiar with. Have you ever been mobbed at school, work, or a website (such as TCS)? Or have you found yourself caught up in mobbing somebody you don't like in such places? This isn't being asked out of idle curiosity, as I attended a rather long teachers' conference today, where the subject came up (as it usually does).

I have never been mobbed and I can't think of a time I might have participated in a mob either.


I do feel like my kids can mob me occasion and I know my crew of cats plan their mob attacks all the time. But I don't think you were referring to those types of situations.

In my fourth grade class, there was a girl named Annie. She must have come from a terribly poor family -- she wore the same two shapeless shift dresses to school every day, sometimes with a grey sweater too big for her. Her hair was straggly and usually not very clean. She was pale and unhealthy looking, and the whole year, I never heard her speak.

Annie was the perfect target for the abuse children so often heap on one another. When the girls were all sent to the restroom together twice a day, the games began: one of the three or four most popular girls in the class would start passing along "Annie's cooties," and everyone would go "Eww!" and keep passing them on -- until someone gave them to me. I wouldn't play their stupid game, but just ignored it. "Ewwwwww," someone would say, "she's just going to keeeeep them! ICK!"

I can't imagine how Annie must have felt, what courage it must have taken to keep coming back to school every day. When ordinary people turn into a "mob," they can be so cruel.

I view mobs as just folks that unfortunately never grew up and matured beyond a child/teen mentality. IMO the folks in "mobs", so to speak, feel a need to batter someone else down in order to feel good about themselves so I think they have some serious issues that they haven't dealt with in their lives.

I have a brother with this mentality - he can only feel good about himself if he's putting someone else down, telling horrible untrue stories about them or blaming them for whatever bad things happen to him. It's always someone else's fault and he's the victim. Yeah, right! If he weren't so vindictive he would need to be pitied.

I've been the victim of mob attacks on dicussion forums. Not a very nice feeling at all.

Originally Posted by Natalie_ca

I've been the victim of mob attacks on dicussion forums. Not a very nice feeling at all.

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Phew! I know exactly what you're talking about! I had to take my cat to the vet last month and was unable to get a zillion tests done, so I took the vet's advice and gave her antibiotics instead, to see if that would work, BEFORE spending a ton of money to get tests done. Well, at the time, I had put a post on a ferret forum I belong to and, let me tell ya, those people acted like I was signing my cats birth certificate. THEN they went on to make me feel like crap for owning my other animals without having at least a few thousand dollars set aside "just in case". Golly, people sure can say some hateful stuff.

Hoestly, I'd rather be physically beaten, then verbally abused.

I grew up being called all kinds of names - I was the pale, fair-eyed and haired, shy girl with too high an IQ for the rest of the student body.

I spent most of my lunches in the nurse's office during my 8 years of elementary school.

I was too sensitive, about EVERYTHING, so I would cry very easily which, of course, led to more torture.

Crybaby was my name, Witchypoo (because my face is long and chin & nose a little pointy) and Dictionary were the three used most often in vitriolic attacks against my being, but there were many, MANY other names used in reference to me.

I don't cry so easily any more... *sigh*

I belonged to a web site for dog owners.I had what I thought were SEVERAL friends there.They were there for when my Dad got so sick and I thought they would always be there.BOY was I wrong and in for a very rude awakining.
They turned out to be the worst people I could have ever known.They weren't my friends at all.And when I needed them most(when Dad died), they let me know their true colors.

Originally Posted by crittermom

I belonged to a web site for dog owners.I had what I thought were SEVERAL friends there.They were there for when my Dad got so sick and I thought they would always be there.BOY was I wrong and in for a very rude awakining.
They turned out to be the worst people I could have ever known.They weren't my friends at all.And when I needed them most(when Dad died), they let me know their true colors.

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Awww Tammy

Originally Posted by Yosemite

I have a brother with this mentality - It's always someone else's fault and he's the victim. Yeah, right! If he weren't so vindictive he would need to be pitied.

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Linda i've got a brother exactly the same. He used to bully my older sister who was terrified of him, and i was scared myself being only a child.

As i got older though the tables turned and i stood up to him, but it ended up he lost all of his siblings because of the way he was.

When we were younger there was a girl lived near us who spent 6 mths in Germany because her father was in the army, and the other 6 mths in the UK. We hated her with a passion because she ordered a lot of people around, and we couldn't wait until she went back to Germany.

I often wondred if as an adult she was the same?.

Originally Posted by Yosemite

I view mobs as just folks that unfortunately never grew up and matured beyond a child/teen mentality. IMO the folks in "mobs", so to speak, feel a need to batter someone else down in order to feel good about themselves so I think they have some serious issues that they haven't dealt with in their lives.

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Originally Posted by GingersMom

I grew up being called all kinds of names - I was the pale, fair-eyed and haired, shy girl with too high an IQ for the rest of the student body.

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Very interesting input - thanks. The concrete situation we're going to have to deal with at school is that a group of 18-year-old girls who are "underachievers", to put it nicely, are mobbing a 25-year-old guy. He's very gifted in languages (he's in a program for native German speakers learning English and Spanish as foreign languages, although none of the three are his mother tongue), good-looking, and not interested in "gigglers". Seven years can be a big age gap at that stage of life. He's lazy as sin, falls asleep or daydreams in classes, often forgets to bring his textbooks, and still manages to get very good grades, and they resent that. That's understandable, but their reaction is downright immature and petty.

I've already talked to the girls, and told them that they seemed envious and resentful, and while I could understand their feelings, their behavior was still unacceptable. Apparently, other teachers have also had the same discussion with them. Their victim is becoming more and more sarcastic every day, which just eggs them on, because it's so clear that he rejects any "advances" they've made on him.

Why do people have to be so petty?

I have never let my children act that way, I always taught my children to treat others as you would want to be treated.