Latest / Ryan's Journal / Unspoken Rules, Social Ranking, and the Weird Kid Backlash

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Unspoken Rules, Social Ranking, and the Weird Kid Backlash · Ryan's Journal

• 0:07
  So, so I was looking at this jacket earlier, right?
• 0:10
  And, and the zip, it, it just won't...
• 0:13
  it's like stuck halfway up.
• 0:15
  You know when you try to force it and you're like, if I pull this any harder,
• 0:18
  the whole thing is just gonna rip in half?
• 0:20
  That was literally me waking up today.
• 0:22
  Uh, that is every single morning with three kids trying to get out the door for
• 0:26
  school, Justin.
• 0:27
  Someone always has a stuck zipper or a missing shoe, or, or just a total breakdown
• 0:32
  over a cereal bowl.
• 0:33
  Wait, but, but that's, like, actually such a good...
• 0:36
  um, it's like a metaphor for how our nervous systems get stuck,
• 0:40
  you know?
• 0:41
  Like, you're pulling and pulling, and the body is just like,
• 0:44
  nope, holding all this tension right in the chest, right in the shoulders.
• 0:48
  I, I was reading this thing about...
• 0:50
  well, basically how institutional stress, like at school, it sets up this whole...
• 0:56
  um, this environment where you're constantly tested, but nobody gives you the rules.
• 1:01
  Yeah!
• 1:02
  Like, like an exam, right?
• 1:03
  But, but imagine the teacher walks in and goes, okay, look,
• 1:07
  I'm gonna give you this test.
• 1:08
  It's gonna be super hard.
• 1:09
  Like, crazy hard.
• 1:10
  But I'm not actually gonna grade it.
• 1:12
  I'm not gonna score your answers.
• 1:13
  You're just...
• 1:15
  you're left sitting there with all these questions you don't know,
• 1:17
  and no grade, no feedback, nothing.
• 1:19
  Mm.
• 1:20
  That is so real though.
• 1:22
  Because at school, at least at an institutional level, they talk about maturity like
• 1:26
  it's this clear standard, right?
• 1:28
  Like there's a threshold you're supposed to hit.
• 1:30
  But they don't give you a report card for social survival.
• 1:33
  So you get this standard of maturity thrown at you, and if you don't meet it,
• 1:38
  if you fall short of whatever performative expectation is in the air,
• 1:42
  someone calls you out on it.
• 1:43
  And suddenly you're...
• 1:45
  well, you're the weird kid.
• 1:46
  You're the one who failed a test nobody explained to you.
• 1:49
  Right, right, and then, and then you feel like you're being...
• 1:52
  like, bullied, but it's not...
• 1:54
  it's not always someone shoving you into a locker.
• 1:58
  It's covert.
• 1:59
  It's what people call a secret bully.
• 2:01
  Um, like, a secret bully operates behind the scenes, you know?
• 2:05
  It's covert social aggression that operates without direct confrontation or
• 2:10
  institutional recognition.
• 2:12
  So there's no...
• 2:13
  there's no visible mark, no principal stepping in, no...
• 2:17
  no handshake at the end of the day or apology.
• 2:20
  You're just left carrying this...
• 2:22
  this deep sense of unearned failure in your body.
• 2:25
  Man, that's heavy.
• 2:26
  But it's so true!
• 2:27
  Like, the system teaches you to out achieve each other, right?
• 2:31
  To over achieve just to feel control or feel dominant.
• 2:34
  But if you look at who gets rewarded, it's...
• 2:37
  it's the kids with the better clothes, or, or who are better looking,
• 2:41
  or who just have this fake, performative confidence.
• 2:44
  And if you're quiet, or if you get anxious going up to the chalkboard...
• 2:47
  Oh, going to the chalkboard was pure torture.
• 2:50
  You're standing up there in front of thirty kids, holding that piece of chalk,
• 2:53
  your hands are shaking, and you know...
• 2:55
  you just know if you mess up the math problem, people are snickering.
• 2:59
  And the teacher just lets your nervous system fry up there.
• 3:02
  They don't jump in.
• 3:03
  They just let you hang.
• 3:04
  And your brain, your brain registers that as a total threat!
• 3:07
  Like, like literally, it goes straight into fight or flight,
• 3:10
  heart rate spiking, because the institution is demanding achievement,
• 3:15
  but it's giving you zero tools to process the intimidation.
• 3:19
  So you end up, um, just hiding out.
• 3:21
  You swallow the nerves, you get back to your seat, and you just want to go home to
• 3:26
  your bed, to your headquarters where people actually call you by your real name.
• 3:30
  Yeah, where your mom calls you by your name, your dad calls you by your name,
• 3:33
  and you don't have to play this weird, sick puzzle game where everybody's trying to
• 3:37
  out do each other just to feel superior.
• 3:40
  Wait, okay, so speaking of...
• 3:43
  of how the brain reacts to all this social ranking stuff.
• 3:45
  Have you guys ever thought about gym class?
• 3:48
  Like, genuinely, the psychological toll of being picked last for a team?
• 3:53
  Oh, gym class was brutal!
• 3:55
  Like, standing against the wall, watching the two team captains pick their friends
• 3:59
  one by one.
• 4:00
  You're just sitting there like, please don't let me be the last guy standing here in
• 4:03
  these terrible shorts, man.
• 4:05
  No, but seriously!
• 4:06
  Neurologically, when you get picked last, you didn't do anything wrong.
• 4:09
  You didn't steal anything, you didn't break a rule, you didn't hit anyone.
• 4:13
  But your brain...
• 4:14
  it registers public social exclusion as a threat on par with total failure or actual
• 4:21
  harm.
• 4:22
  Like, your body holds that rejection, and it triggers this whole cascade of stress
• 4:27
  hormones because, evolutionary speaking, being left out of the group meant you
• 4:32
  didn't survive.
• 4:33
  And what happens when the kid who usually gets picked last,
• 4:37
  or the kid everyone labels as the geek or the weirdo...
• 4:41
  what happens when they actually win?
• 4:42
  When they achieve something big?
• 4:44
  They hate it!
• 4:45
  Man, they hate that so much!
• 4:46
  The bullies, like, their egos literally cannot take losing to someone they decided
• 4:50
  was beneath them.
• 4:51
  It breaks their whole brain!
• 4:53
  They're like, wait, he was supposed to be the weirdo, I need him to stay the weirdo!
• 4:57
  It's a complete ego threat to them.
• 5:00
  So instead of backing off, they double down.
• 5:02
  They come in closer, they eyeball you, they make fun of your performance,
• 5:06
  your popularity...
• 5:07
  even your hygiene.
• 5:09
  Anything to keep you locked in that low social box they built for you.
• 5:13
  Look at the difference in those two school environments in the source audio.
• 5:17
  In a town like Rockwell City, you had kids getting slapped with nicknames like
• 5:21
  Screech or Vogel.
• 5:22
  Constant intrusive teasing that just wore you down day after day.
• 5:27
  Mm, yeah.
• 5:28
  And then...
• 5:30
  and then you contrast that with a place like Iowa Central, right?
• 5:34
  Where teachers and peers just...
• 5:37
  they called him Ryan.
• 5:38
  Simple as that.
• 5:40
  Most teachers called me Ryan, he said.
• 5:43
  And just being addressed by your actual name, being treated like a human being
• 5:48
  instead of a caricature, it instantly restores your dignity.
• 5:52
  It changes how your nervous system responds to the space you're in.
• 5:56
  It's crazy how much a name matters, right?
• 5:58
  Like, if people keep calling you Screech, they're trying to keep you in the clown
• 6:01
  zone.
• 6:01
  They want you back in the geek zone so they can, like, eat you again,
• 6:05
  socially speaking.
• 6:06
  But when you get to a new place and people just treat you normal,
• 6:08
  you realize...
• 6:10
  wait, I'm not the problem here.
• 6:11
  The system back there was totally broken.
• 6:13
  It really shows you how malicious that secret bullying is.
• 6:16
  It's not just kids being kids.
• 6:19
  It's a calculated effort to enforce a rigid social hierarchy so the people at the
• 6:24
  top never have to feel their own insecurity.
• 6:27
  You know what bothers me the most about all of this, though?
• 6:29
  It's when the adults...
• 6:31
  the teachers, the coaches...
• 6:33
  when they get in on it.
• 6:35
  When authority figures participate in the subtle teasing or comment on a kid's
• 6:39
  hygiene or performance, it basically gives permission to the whole classroom to join
• 6:44
  in.
• 6:44
  Yeah!
• 6:45
  Like, if the teacher is keeping you inside for recess, or making fun of you,
• 6:49
  or just watching every single movement of your pencil on a test like a hawk...
• 6:54
  that's not teaching, man.
• 6:56
  That's straight up intimidation!
• 6:58
  If a teacher got right up in your face and watched every pencil move,
• 7:02
  you'd feel totally intruded on.
• 7:04
  You'd go nuts!
• 7:05
  It legitimizes the abuse.
• 7:07
  Like, it sends a signal to the whole social network that this specific person is
• 7:12
  fair game.
• 7:13
  And then you get what...
• 7:15
  um, what was described as the Ouija board effect in small town dynamics.
• 7:20
  Where you're trapped in this closed social loop, right?
• 7:23
  With an Ouija board, you're trying to get answers, but there's no rulebook,
• 7:27
  no clear feedback, just endless questions and no confirmation.
• 7:32
  In a small community, you get frozen into this childhood caricature,
• 7:36
  and no matter what you achieve later, the environment refuses to let you update your
• 7:41
  identity.
• 7:41
  Dude, I feel that on a spiritual level.
• 7:44
  Like, growing up in the public eye, being a teen pop star...
• 7:47
  people form this image of you when you're fourteen years old,
• 7:50
  right?
• 7:50
  You're the little kid with the hair swoop, singing pop hooks.
• 7:53
  And then you grow up, you try to change, you try to express real emotions or make
• 7:58
  different music, and the media or the audience, they get hostile!
• 8:02
  They want to keep you in the clown suit, man!
• 8:04
  They cannot handle you re-defining yourself because it messes with their own
• 8:08
  narrative.
• 8:08
  That is such a clear parallel, Justin.
• 8:10
  Whether it's a small town like Rockwell City or global celebrity culture,
• 8:15
  the dynamic is the same.
• 8:16
  The audience or the peer group wants to keep the geek a geek,
• 8:19
  the clown a clown, and the child star a child star.
• 8:23
  Because if you change, it forces them to look at how they treated you,
• 8:26
  and institutions hate self reflection.
• 8:29
  And the physical toll of that...
• 8:30
  I mean, holding that stigma day after day in an environment where four actual
• 8:35
  felonies went untouched...
• 8:37
  like being choked, tripped, punched, or having lug nuts removed from a car wheel...
• 8:42
  that isn't just unpleasant.
• 8:43
  That's chronic, unaddressed trauma sitting right in your nervous system.
• 8:47
  Four felonies!
• 8:48
  That's insane!
• 8:49
  And nobody did anything?
• 8:50
  That's what I mean, the institution completely failed.
• 8:53
  So...
• 8:53
  so when you carry all that unresolved secret bullying, all that suppression...
• 8:59
  what actually happens to the body long term?
• 9:02
  You get chronic nervous system strain.
• 9:04
  You get somatic stress, panic, persistent self doubt that follows you all the way
• 9:09
  into adulthood.
• 9:10
  You're constantly expecting the next covert hit.
• 9:13
  Which is why breaking the cycle requires something drastic,
• 9:16
  doesn't it?
• 9:17
  Look at what happened with people like April Wise or Ryan Wade in those stories.
• 9:21
  They didn't just sit there and take it forever.
• 9:24
  They erupted.
• 9:25
  Yelling, screaming, crying, breaking the silence.
• 9:28
  They vented the raw emotion because staying quiet was literally destroying them from
• 9:33
  the inside out.
• 9:34
  Yeah!
• 9:35
  It takes major guts to break the cycle like that!
• 9:38
  Like, when the institution is telling you to just sit in your seat,
• 9:41
  swallow your feelings, move to second period class like nothing happened...
• 9:46
  saying, no, fuck this, I am hurting, I am traumatized, and I'm gonna scream about it
• 9:51
  until you hear me...
• 9:52
  that's the only way out sometimes!
• 9:54
  Right, but, but the irony is...
• 9:56
  how do modern institutions react when someone finally explodes like that?
• 10:01
  They label the person as unstable or unprofessional or crazy,
• 10:04
  right?
• 10:05
  They completely ignore the months or years of covert provocation that caused the
• 10:10
  explosion in the first place.
• 10:11
  Exactly.
• 10:12
  If a kid screams in class or a worker blows up in a meeting,
• 10:16
  management or administration steps in to punish the outburst.
• 10:19
  But they completely ignore the secret bully who spent months subtly picking away at
• 10:24
  that person's self worth.
• 10:26
  They treat the emotional defense mechanism like it's the primary problem,
• 10:29
  rather than a healthy, natural reaction to sustained, hidden abuse.
• 10:33
  It's like, if you push someone until they snap, you don't get to act surprised when
• 10:38
  they snap!
• 10:38
  That's gaslighting 101, man.
• 10:41
  You can't beat someone down socially and academically and then judge them for
• 10:44
  bleeding on the carpet.
• 10:46
  It's so toxic.
• 10:47
  The body needs to discharge that emotional survival energy.
• 10:51
  Expressing it...
• 10:52
  crying, screaming, whatever it takes...
• 10:54
  that is literally the nervous system trying to reset itself after being held hostage
• 10:59
  by a hostile environment.
• 11:01
  So, like, how do you actually win then?
• 11:03
  If the institution is rigged, and the secret bullies are everywhere,
• 11:07
  how do you get out of the trap?
• 11:08
  You change the metric entirely.
• 11:11
  You move away from their standardized, performative benchmarks and you redefine
• 11:15
  achievement on your own terms.
• 11:18
  Look at the shift when someone leaves a toxic place like Rockwell City and gets an
• 11:22
  associate degree at Iowa Central without being forced into a special class.
• 11:28
  Getting that degree, moving on, achieving autonomy...
• 11:31
  that is the ultimate victory.
• 11:34
  You realize it was never an internal flaw in you.
• 11:37
  It was an environmental mismatch.
• 11:39
  Yes!
• 11:40
  Environmental mismatch is such a key concept!
• 11:44
  Like, if a plant is wilting in bad soil with toxic water, you don't blame the plant
• 11:49
  and say it has a defect.
• 11:51
  You put it in good soil with clean light and fresh water, and it thrives.
• 11:55
  Changing your surroundings proves that the pain was coming from a dysfunctional
• 11:59
  system, not from your soul.
• 12:01
  Man, that's so real.
• 12:03
  When you get out into spaces where people respect you, where there's no Screech
• 12:07
  nickname, no laughing at you during drills, you look back at that old town and
• 12:11
  you're like...
• 12:12
  wow, you guys were just a bunch of small minded bullies, and I don't have to carry
• 12:17
  your garbage anymore.
• 12:19
  There is still a lingering tension, though, isn't there?
• 12:22
  In our modern schools and workplaces, we still don't have great frameworks for
• 12:26
  restorative justice when it comes to secret bullying.
• 12:29
  Victims are so often left carrying the weight of unresolved trauma because the
• 12:33
  system never forces the bully to offer a real apology or open recognition of what
• 12:37
  they did.
• 12:38
  Mm, yeah.
• 12:40
  Without that closure, without an institutional acknowledgment,
• 12:43
  the brain has to find its own way to close the loop.
• 12:46
  Through self care, through therapy, through finding communities that actually honor
• 12:50
  your real name and your real worth.
• 12:53
  Yeah.
• 12:53
  Leave the toxic stuff behind, man.
• 12:55
  Leave the Ouija board with no answers in the past and go build something real.
• 13:00
  Anyway...
• 13:00
  I think my zipper is finally unstuck.