A very inspiring post from Tony Lee on his Facebook. Tony Lee helped write the MacGyver comics with Lee David Zlotoff.

Edit: Just a quick warning, there is some language, but not much.

Tony Lee
So I've been seeing a lot of 'teens being bullied for liking comics / Star Wars / Doctor Who / Insert thing here' bouncing around on Facebook recently, and it brought back a memory from when I was a kid.

Picture the scene. A boy, early teens is being dangled head first out of his school’s first floor window. For my American friends, that’s second floor window. Twenty feet above the paving stones, the only thing keeping him alive is the weight of the bully on his ankles. The same bully that’s doing this until the boy cries out that yes, Doctor Who is gay. And yes, he is a girl for liking it. Eventually he’s pulled in, thrown to the floor. Most of the class laughs. Later on, three of the toughest girls in the class will attack the boy beside the stairs and wipe lipstick over his face as ‘that’s what girls wear’.

Sounds terrible? Over the top and made up? That to me was called ‘Wednesday’. And yes, it happened exactly like that. Did I complain? No. I’d done that so many times to no avail. I was a geek, a nerd, a skinny loser, and I was the scum of the earth. I know this because I was told regularly.

As a kid, I liked Doctor Who. I liked Star Wars. Blake’s Seven. Half a dozen other such shows were loved with equal passion, like Battlestar Galactica, Airwolf, MacGyver. This was the eighties, and TV season videos and DVDs didn’t really exist that much then, so I watched what I could, when I could. I remember staying up until stupid O’Clock in the morning, just so I could watch the first showing of V when it aired. The following day I told my friends about it, only to be laughed at by the bullies in the class, people like Lee, and Craig, and Martin. I won’t give their surnames, but I remember. Every one is etched into my soul.

I was skinny. I was half the weight of everyone else, a human X-Ray. If I was clever, I would have shut the hell up and stayed hidden, but I was never the brightest of buttons. I read comics and loved Sci Fi and Fantasy. I didn’t like football that much. That made me a ‘gayer’ and meant that sports lessons would be a private hell, where I’d stand against a wall and have tennis balls struck at me, or where I’d be pushed to the floor, have a bully grab the back of my pants in a ‘wedgie’ and then carry me around like a suitcase. I liked acting, and was in the school play as the ‘Mighty Muscles’ one year. It was a music hall show and, being the skinniest kid, the strongman act was a shoo in for laughs. It wasn’t funny though when. in leopard skin top and black tights, I had to line up with my class during a fire drill. Oh no. That was extra amusing.

I wrote a Doctor Who fanzine called ‘K9‘ in 1982 – it talked about the Fifth Doctor and stories I saw in the newspapers, re-typed on my mother’s typewriter (the same typewriter that I wrote my first stories on) and stuck onto a new sheet of A4 before photocopying it. Only about five people ever had one. One day, one of the bullies that made my life hell found a copy. They made me eat it. All of it.

I played computer games. I even learned how to code them in those early days. I wore ‘fancy dress’ (now Cosplay) to Doctor Who conventions, watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, played Dungeons & Dragons and read Fighting Fantasy books, this being before the days of Magic: The Gathering, which I also played later in life. And as such I was made pariah for such things. I ended up with a few other of the quieter types, keeping to the side of the music block during break time, hoping to God we wouldn’t be seen, discussing things in quiet whispers that these days I would happily shout to the world.

At fifteen I was given glasses. Nowadays I would say I looked like Harry Potter. Back then? It was Adrian Mole, not a good person to be likened to. ‘Boney Tony’. ‘Skinders’. ‘Ratty’, the nicknames came hard and fast. Some didn’t bother with names, simply punctuating their hatred of my ‘non-normal lifestyle’ with their fists.

If liking things like sci fi, comics and gaming could be non-normal, that is.

But you know what? I survived. Not only did I survive, I embraced it. My first writing job was a Games Reviewer for Your Sinclair magazine back in 1987. That started me on the path I’m still on, so my ‘geeky little nerd joys’? They made me the man I am now.

I’ve got a lot of ghosts from my time at Hayes Manor School, and I’m glad it’s changed for the better in the years since I left. I went back a couple of years ago to give my old English teacher an award, and was happy to see many of the things I was ostracized for were being embraced.

I never stopped loving the things that I enjoyed during my time at school, as to do so was to let the bullies win. I wore my bruises and scars like badges of honour, even if I was so terrified to go to school one time I managed to give myself psychosomatic chicken pox. Doctor Who wasn’t ‘Gay’. Neither was liking comics, playing games or dressing like Tom Baker with a scarf my Mum made. They were fun, they were cool. Creating imaginary films about Daleks attacking my local swimming pool wasn’t an invite for Lee and Craig to come by and punch me in the face, they were chances for my imagination to take shape, again creating worlds I would come back to later in my life.

I’ve seen the bullies since I left, you know. I met one of them a few years back, when I was visiting my hometown. I was in my mid thirties, as was he. However, our lives had drastically changed. I’d become a New York Bestselling writer, while he’d left school at fifteen, married his pregnant girlfriend and, all of them living at his parents, started work in a factory. Fifteen years later his daughter had become pregnant and moved into a flat of her own. The factory had collapsed, his parents emigrated and he lost the house. Unemployed, living in a two room flat with his daughter and granddaughter, he now spent his days standing on the street so not to be near them. His hair was grey and matted. I actually took him for a drink in a pub when I met him, because I felt so bad for him.
I met a second one at a Doctor Who convention a year or two later. He came up late to a signing with his son, around fourteen years old. You could immediately see that the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree, and he walked over, all smiles and laughter, trying to grab me by the shoulder in a matey way. I, naturally was civil yet cold. He then started explaining to his kid that we were the ‘best of mates’ at school and of course I’d stay a moment longer (I’d finished for the day) and sign some books for him – and even sort out a massive mates rate discount, as apparently he was a ‘massive fan’. The kid didn’t seem bothered. I looked at the father, the man who, as a kid had made me so terrified of classes that I would even stay behind with the kids on detention so as not to leave the same time that he did.

And then I said ‘No’.

The ex-bully was surprised. He started to get angry, explaining that ‘look mate, you’re making me look a dick in front of my kid.’ I informed him that I was a lot older and fatter than I used to be, and would quite happily finish this argument while punching the living crap out of him. I then apologised to his son while ‘Dad’ stood open mouthed, explaining politely that ‘Dad’ had made my life such a living hell that one day I almost killed myself, before realising that I shouldn’t die just because he was a dick. The kid was stunned. I pointed out again that it’s never good to bully someone. At this point the ex-bully starts to plead, pretending it was all fun. If you’ve seen the Big Bang Theory episode where Leonard faces his bully? Yeah. It was that all over.

Eventually, I agree to sign the kid’s book. After all, it wasn’t his fault that his Dad was a dick. They walked off, the Dad no longer the ‘coolest guy the kid knew’. And you know what? I felt like crap for even letting it get to me. I feel bad for even writing about it now.

It’s not that the jocks and the witches did these things deliberately, even if they did them deliberately. Their wiring was simply wrong. My timing was wrong. I was a nerd in a time that it wasn’t cool to be one. Now I go to things like the MCM Expo, look at the cosplaying kids and go ‘Man, I wish that had been around when I was a kid‘ as I’d have been in there like a shot.

But dammit, I *am* cool. And I wish I could go back to my teenage year old self and show him all the things that would happen to him, all the places he would go, the cool and famous people he’d meet, the amazing woman he’d marry, the books he would write – to be able to go back and go ‘Hey, you know you get picked on for liking Star Trek: The Next Generation and Doctor Who? Well last year I did a signing in Forbidden Planet for a book I helped write that combines both of them. And the queue was so big it snaked around the store’, or ‘You know you always wanted to show people your Doctor Who stories? Well you did, and you’ve now stood in front of a hall filled with hundreds of people who love your work and cheered for more,’ or ‘You know you always wanted to see more MacGyver? Now you write him. You know how you wanted to be Superboy? You've written the words he speaks.’

Screw you bullies, I am cool. And so are my friends. And so are all my readers and fans.

And if you don’t think so? I’d like words with you.

http://www.tonylee.co.uk/

Outstanding

Thanks for sharing, Jediferret! Talk about self control. You rock, Tony! And you're cool in my book!

That was quite a story! I wish I could get back at certain persons like that! However, I feel sorry for the bully's son. He probably hadn't harassed anyone. I think it was unnecessary that he had to learn what his father had done to his fellow student.

That is so sad...

Bullying is a sad fact of life. I was bullied in school myself until my parents put me in home-schooling. It was mostly name-calling and teasing. And to know how much worse it's gotten since I was in school is a terrible thing to hear. I'm vocal about my disdain for bullying, especially towards kids... and I support efforts to combat it.

People should be good to each other because as MacGyver would say, we're all in this together.

I too was bullied in school. It was to a point in junior high that I would come home in tears. I never want my kids to feel the way I did then. Sadly it has gotten so bad in schools that kids are dying because of it. I'm glad the awareness is out there now. It's not about kids being kids anymore.

And here's another one. I got bullied in high school too for liking Power Rangers who were in like the aftermath of their popularity in the late '90s. I sure had my share of high school misery. My mother refused to listen, teachers were looking the other way, I had no friends and the help I did get wasn't exactly help because nothing ever changed. I flunked three times in high school. Twice because of the bullying and once because of the subjects. When nearing my second failure it was finally decided that I should go to another school. I've been saying that since the 7th grade. Five years passed already and I was in the tenth grade at the time. Than when I went to the school my life drastically changed for the better but there were still flaws and the bullying sure left it's scars.

Unfortunately bullying is something I've had to deal with again lately. Though it hasn't been directly to me, I've seen it happening. And it saddens and disgusts me that even grown-ups are doing it. But there is not much you can do about it.

Whats truly sad is that people say there is nothing you can do about.

Would MacGyver stand by and watch someone get bullied? When you were being bullied didn't you want someone to stand up for you?

If you see someone being bullied you intervene. It doesn't matter if they are adults or kids. Saying there's nothing you can do is as bad as being the bully.

I disagree. The guy obviously hadn't grown out of his bullying mentality. Telling his kid what he was really like made him see himself through the eyes of probably the only other person who's opinion he cared about - his sons.

So while it wasn't great for the boy it was necessary to make the man see what he had actually done.

I didn't say there is nothing you couldn't do about it. I said not much but that doesn't mean there aren't any solutions. You can indeed intervene but also lots of people don't want to get involved because it can turn against you.

Bullying is something difficult to deal with. What's bullying and what's not? It's something very sneaky when not recognized.

I know cases however that made me wonder how I would respond if I saw it. I think it was last year or the year before a newsfeed appeared on the in the media about a girl (maybe 15 years old, last day of school) who was just waiting for the bus got hit and her hair pulled by other girls for no apparent reason. And now with social media the bullying can really expand to wider territories. But also the protests and in the end the mother of the bullied girl thanked everyone for the support of her daughter and said the bad comments towards the girl that was doing the hairpulling and her parents has to stop. It made me wonder how I would react. Probably not Mac-ish because I know what damage it can do. Than again, maybe I would act more Mac-ish than I think.

No. He'd take them out in the wildernis for a couple of days or makes sure he gets the best out of him like with Tony Milani.

Yeah, except nobody ever didn't and I just let it go over me for years. They did send me to the students counceling centre but they were never much help. I never fought back or anything. When I went into highschool I learned there is this line between reality and television. High school was not the fun place you saw on Saved By The Bell or Boy Meets World. It really was a hellish place for me. I really was alone. I had no friends, wasn't interested in anything. Like I said in my other post, I couldn't go to my mother, she was always working and disappointed I didn't do good in school but she never wondered why, teachers were looking the other way or didn't care I wasn't motivated.

The school I've been to and got bullied in would be a great one for the Live and Learn programme.

But when I changed schools I almost became a straight A-student. I aced one year there, than it became more and more difficult again. More homework and stuff. The bullying stopped, and I learned a lot of other things. I opened up, got motivated in doing things, I learned to put things in perspective. At least for a while but I toughened up and learned to stand up a little more for myself.

In a way, it's good to know that I'm not the only one. Still, it makes me sad that so many have been bullied at school.

As for me, I got off to a bad start. Not having attended kindergarten, the first day at school was overwhelming. I was a quiet girl in the first place and soon entered a vicious circle of being bullied for being quiet and not speaking because I was afraid of the bullys. Rumours about me being a member of some kind of sect started spreading. I'm not even a religious person but I don't drink much and I (normally) don't swear.

My hair was too long. I didn't have the right clothes...I'm glad I'm not younger than I am. At the time I attended school (now I sound OLD) fashion wasn't such a big deal. That part is worse now, I think. Nowadays you also have the issue of Internet bullying, as MacGyverGod mentioned. On the other hand, the problem of bullying is perhaps taken more seriously now. I don't know.

I've spent too many breaks standing in a corner, hoping nobody would notice me. Dressed in dark colours in an attempt to gain invisibility I was the school "Vampire" long before vampires were cool. I was very lonely. Sometimes I stayed up till 3 AM, reading comics and dinosaur books (!) because I was so nervous about the next day. Also, I needed glasses but I would rather die than letting anyone see me wearing them. So I lied to my parents in order to postpone the inavitable as long as possible and started wearing contact lenses. As soon I was old enough, I had laser surgery.

I slept too little and couldn't see what was written on the blackboard. Still, I achieved good grades, which kept me going.

I try not to think about it and I wouldn't have brought it up in this forum if it wasn't for Lee's story and you guys responding to it here, however my experiences at school and on the school bus still effect me:
I hate having my picture taken. I don't have a lot of friends and I'm really bad at making new ones. I usually avoid taking the local bus (not that I'm complaining, I stay in shape and save a lot of money ). And I turned down a teaching job offer. I realized that I couldn't cope with it. I don't do too well at job interviews either, simply because I have trouble seeing my good qualities. Being told on a daily basis that you are stupid and ugly does not improve your self-esteem.

This post turned out longer than I had planned, sorry! Anyway, I believe as long as you stay positive everything will work out, just as in Lee's case. I like to think that if I had been popular in school I probably would have missed out on a lot of things that make me happy:
I have attended courses in diving and mountain dairy farming (!) without having to depend on talking a friend into joining me. As a student I got hooked on line dancing, which for me is a LOT more fun than drinking and partying. By mere chance, while looking for a job, I rediscovered MacGyver through reruns, googled Michael Des Barres and became a fan of him as well (he says in interviews that he has friends, not fans, but I'm not on Facebook ). And, last but not least, I found MacGyveronline!