This will not be politically correct so if you’re easily offended, please stop reading. To start, I have no answers or solutions to solving the problem of bullying. Frankly, I don’t think the problem will ever go away. I’m sure that at some level, bullying is an innate part of humanity. We form groups with certain people, and we exclude others. It’s a survival mechanism. We want only strong people in our group. Weak people will hurt us.

Of course, we in the Western world no longer have to fight to survive. Our biggest fight, and especially in high school, is to fit in, to be accepted and popular. To that end, humans align themselves with those people who will help them achieve that goal. Most girls want to be beautiful and admired. You with the coke-bottle glasses and last year’s jeans? You’re out of the group. You’re bringing us down. Most boys want to be tough and admired. Skinny boy who’s suspiciously effeminate and wears pink shirts? Not manly enough for us. You’re out. We’ve all seen it. It’s nothing new.

But I’m being simplistic. Of course there are extremes. Sometimes it goes too far. Sometimes it results in severe beatings, hospitalization, depression, suicide, or even in very rare cases, murder. And our society has responded, calling for an international push to stop bullying. Accept everyone. Don’t sit back in silence. Speak out. It’s a great campaign and maybe it’s even working to an extent. I’d never argue against it.

But there’s one component of the whole thing that just doesn’t sit right with me and it’s hard to put into words. The concern that I have is this: Is it now cool to be bullied?

I watched a news story of children in a classroom taking turns talking about how they were teased and taunted and how it made them feel, and I couldn’t help thinking that they were trying to outdo one another, each trying to be the most dramatic, the biggest victim. And why not? Part of this anti-bullying campaign is about glorifying the victims. The kids who kill themselves become two-dimensional deities, put up on a platform to be praised and envied by their less-bullied peers. I’m no expert in social studies, but I have been a teenager and I would bet that every kid holding a candle to a suicide victim is wishing, at some level, that they were the ones getting all that attention.

By focusing on the effects of bullying, on how it made you feel, of encouraging children to open up about depression and fear, are we glorifying weakness? By holding candlelit vigils to these victims, are we silently affirming that suicide is an acceptable response to a problem that almost every adult knows will eventually go away?

Thousands of kids and teens are bullied every day. Why do we focus on the ones who were destroyed? Why don’t we focus on those who became stronger? Why don’t we focus on the ones who refused to let the daily taunts take root inside their souls, the ones who were able to turn the other cheek and move on?

In large cities when someone leaps in front of a subway, that person’s name is never published. Why? Because we don’t want to encourage the behaviour. In Japan if someone jumps in front of a train, apparently the family of the jumper gets the bill for the clean up. It’s a punishment, a way of saying this is an unacceptable response to whatever problem you have in your life. That may be a bit harsh, but I would suggest that it’s a heck of a lot smarter than rewarding the action.

The gay community’s “It gets better!” campaign is, I think, a step in the right direction. I think the rest of society should get on board. Talk about bullying, but stop talking about how depressed it made you. Instead, talk about how you overcame it and became a better and stronger person.