Over the past decade or two, bullying has been a talking point of groups and associations across the country; as it should be. However, some feel that the entire “anti-bullying” campaign has been overblown.

“Bullying is when someone is constantly putting you down about something… being sensitive is not being able to laugh at yourself and not being confident with who you are,” freshman Jillian Lopker said.

This is a widely accepted definition of bullying, and where to separate it from just a little teasing. Yet, in some states, the guidelines for what to call bullying is different. In New Hampshire, rules say that an incident only needs to occur one time in order for it to be considered bullying.

“People are too quick to assume bullying”, said freshman Braeden Belnap about the hot topic.

What’s wrong with protecting kids from a bad situation? Well, sometimes the saying “looks can be deceiving” applies to ‘bullying’. Every once and awhile, you’ll get a situation where the ‘bully’ isn’t quite that; where they are simply defending themselves yet they are the ones to get caught. Or, a one time incident is labeled as bullying. The fault in this is that it doesn’t give kids a chance to work out their own problems.

“People are sensitive because of the world we live in today is super uptight about everything”, Belnap said about why people are overly sensitive.

But how did this start? Well, over the past few years, people in power (starting at elementary school teachers) have taken a stand against name calling; which is fine until it’s taken too far. As political commentator Ann Coulter put it- they censor our words. It is done in order not to offend people. But each group of people/person is offended by something else. So, to not offend anyone is quite the task, and can have negative effects like creating an over sensitive society.

This is not to say that bullying is right, nor will it ever be. Its effects have been seen in society through teen suicides among other things. The message is, know the difference between some friendly teasing, and make sure you’ve got the right facts before you call someone the B-word.