Trying to figure it out.

I am attempting to figure out why the Larry Vickers video of him making fun of Arfcom bugs me so much.

He's telling the truth.  The place is full of assclowns.

I think it's tone and body language.

I was and am a geek.  I got bullied every single day from 5th grade to mid 10th and a short period of 11th.

It was the result of moving every two years.  I was "the other".  The established cliques don't welcome the other unless I was obviously already a member through sports or wealth.  I had neither.  My parents divorced right at the time when a boy should have been developing a membership in a mainstream peer group.  They did this just after a move away from the only place I had ever lived for my first nine years.  When we moved to my Mom's parent's home town, I had no friends at all.  I imploded.

I did not return to my happy extroverted self at all.  This worried mom to no end.

Shortly after starting fifth grade I got a lesson in being and outsider and bullies.  I was not part of any of the pecking orders, so I was fair game to all of them.  School stopped being a happy place to go and learn and became a hellish place that must be endured.  When I'd finally had enough and attacked one of my tormentors on the bus in 6th grade, I was punished at school and at home severely enough to not consider defending myself at all for at least four years.  My assault on my bully would have ended the torment, I know now, but my Mom moved us closer to her job.  Begin 7th grade and start the cycle all over again.

The constant torment was definitely having an effect on my mental well being.  So much so that my mom shipped me off to live with my dad for the beginning of 9th grade.  This was a disaster for me since I had just started making real friends again and the bullying was slacking off some (gaming geeks are kinda boring to make fun of).

Begin cycle again; except this time I was as much of a loner as I could get away with.  I had A friend.  I got beat up, I got spit on, I got made fun of for being different.  Dad could see something was wrong, but Dad is a jock so he didn't get what was wrong.  He did put me into karate, hoping that would help the confidence.  It should have, but the schools have policies about defending yourself; DON'T.  They punish the victim and perpetrator with equanimity.  Early on in 10th grade I snapped.  All I remember is my morning bully telling me of the beating I would be getting come afternoon and me asking him if he somehow got super powers after lunch and was too weak to take me then. DISCONTINUITY.  The bully is on the ground, I am on top of him trying to get my teeth on his throat, two teachers are barely succeeding in pulling me away.  All bullying stopped from that point on.  Yes, the school punished me, but there was enough school year left for me to see what happened.  Bullies only like easy prey.  Prey that fights back is not easy, it carries risk.  Bullies are basically cowards.

For 11th grade I moved back to Mom's where I at least had some friends.  The bullies attempted to pick up where they'd left off, but I now knew their measure.

What does all that have to do with Larry Vickers?  His tone and carriage are exactly like those bullies.  If you aren't seeing it in him, you weren't bullied more than every once and a while.  I see people like him and I think, "fuck! the only way this ends is to fight."  It colors everything he says from then on because I am waiting for him to start his attack.

Is this more my problem than Mr Vickers'?  Yes.  These are my emotional scars.  It means that he's a bad choice for a spokesman to sell me things.  It means he'd be a bad teacher for me.

What he should remember is that he chose to become a sheepdog instead of a wolf.  I am not a sheepdog.  I am not a wolf.  I am not a sheep.  Again, I don't belong.