I’ve always thought it was funny how movies portray bullies as dumb jocks shoving kids into lockers, stealing lunch money and throwing punches in the hallway. It’s a very outdated trope that makes bullying look so obvious and physical. But bullying today, especially at a place like Bucknell, doesn’t look like that. It’s subtle, social and so ingrained in everyday interactions that most people don’t even recognize it when they see it, or even when they do it.

One thing that hasn’t changed since “old-school” bullying? Exclusion. There have been so many times when I’m talking to a group, whether it’s for a class discussion or at work and I can just tell I’m being judged. It’s not always in what people say but in the way they act, the way they exchange glances, the way their body language shifts just enough to make it clear you don’t belong here. And if it’s not happening to me, I see it happening to others. Bucknell is small and that makes social exclusion hit even harder. If people decide you don’t fit into their world, it’s not like you can just avoid them. You will, in fact, see them everywhere, every other day.

And you know what? That’s not okay. People need to start being aware of how they make others feel in social settings. You might not think you’re doing anything wrong, but if your actions make someone feel alienated, ignored or lesser, that’s a problem. No one should feel like they’re stuck on the outside just because someone else decided they weren’t worth acknowledging.

And then there’s this other form of casual cruelty, the loud whispers and “jokes” people make like no one can hear them. I hear it all the time on campus. Comments about what someone is wearing, what they’re doing or who they’re with. People talk about others like they are background noise, like they don’t exist, or worse, like they don’t matter. And let’s not pretend like DEI efforts and race-related topics aren’t a huge target for this. Some people act like diversity initiatives are some kind of joke, rolling their eyes at conversations about racial inclusivity or making the most ridiculous comments about POC on campus like they aren’t sitting or standing right there. The entitlement of it all is actually insane. Please stop and think about how completely unhinged it is to comment on a stranger’s existence like you’re some sort of authority on how they should be. If someone’s outfit, background or identity isn’t affecting you, why do you care so much?

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And let’s talk about microaggressions. I get it, some people at Bucknell grew up in environments where they were never exposed to any kind of diversity. Maybe they didn’t have many POC classmates, or they weren’t raised to think critically about race and identity. But that is not an excuse to say ignorant things. We are all adults. It is not that hard to be respectful. Yet, microaggressions happen constantly. Just last week alone, I heard three examples: telling a Black student they’re “surprisingly well-spoken,” asking an international student why their English is so good and assuming a Latina student must be first-gen just because of her background. It’s both exhausting and frustrating. And just because someone doesn’t immediately call you out doesn’t mean it went unnoticed.

Keegan Munoz ’28 put it best: “I feel like a lot of microaggressions go unnoticed and unchecked, especially at our PWI. I feel like I see it everywhere, just overhearing the most absurd things in many different spaces.”

And it’s not just coming from students. Professors are part of this conversation too. Anadalay Mateo ’28 pointed out: “I believe we should also talk about professors in this context. I have both experienced and observed many different times where professors didn’t appropriately respond to a student saying a microaggression.”

Professors–if a student says something problematic in your classroom, it is your job to address it. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. It just makes it worse. Because when you let things slide, you’re signaling to everyone in the room that it’s okay. And if you genuinely don’t know how to handle these situations, educate yourself. Faculty, just like students, have a responsibility to maintain an environment where people feel safe and respected.

My thing is, people don’t want to call this behavior bullying because it’s not obvious. It’s not physical fights or public humiliation; it’s microaggressions, social cliques, exclusion, judgment and passive-aggressive “digs” disguised as “just jokes.” But just because bullying here doesn’t look like the high school movie stereotype doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

And let’s be honest, social media has made all of this worse. The way people talk online, especially on platforms like TikTok, has desensitized us to cruelty. People push the limits of being “edgy” for likes, saying the most offensive things and then brushing it off as just a joke. But when does a joke stop being a joke? When it’s said to the wrong person? When it happens to you or your friend? It’s so easy to laugh at someone else until you’re the one being ridiculed in a group chat, called out in an anonymous post, or whispered about as you walk past.

And speaking of anonymous posts, don’t even get me started on YikYak and Fizz, where people literally try to call others out by name through anonymous posts. Even if the post gets taken down (which they tend to do pretty fast I will say), you can bet that whoever is being talked about will find out and it will probably hurt their feelings. Do we not remember learning about how this kind of thing affects mental health? Do we not remember the bullying movies, the school assemblies, the conversations about how people have taken their own lives because of online harassment? Are we really pretending like it’s not the same thing? What are we doing?

So where does that leave us? We need to stop acting like bullying doesn’t exist at Bucknell just because it looks different. We also need to stop pretending that as long as no one is getting shoved into a locker, nothing is wrong. Because bullying today looks like exclusion, passive-aggressive judgment, microaggressions and online cruelty disguised as humor. It’s in the side comments, the “jokes,” the stares that make someone feel like they don’t belong. And if we keep brushing it off, if we keep pretending it’s not happening, then we’re just letting it continue.