Middle-schoolers can be some of the cruelest creatures on earth — okay, not all of them, but enough to make the thought of encountering a group of them kind of scary.
One individual found themselves on the receiving end of two middle school boys’ mockery simply because they were “visibly gay.” In a video posted to TikTok that’s simultaneously heartbreaking and blood boiling, we see the person, who goes by the name “Spencie” on the app, walking around the aisles of a Target while being relentlessly pursued by two boys who continue to make fun of them.
While we don’t see the beginning of the altercation, the caption indicates that these boys began their verbal abuse due to Spencie’s sexuality. It’s difficult to watch as you can feel the unease as well as the disappointment that they are being harassed when they are literally doing nothing but trying to do some shopping. The fact that we’re in the middle of Pride month makes this even worse somehow — clearly we still have a long way to go as a species in terms of love and acceptance.
Like I said, middle schoolers can be cruel, picking on things they deem to be different. As society in general seems to be moving towards becoming more accepting you have to wonder where these two learned to be so hateful — were they raised that way, or did they pick it up somewhere else? In an article from the BBC that looked at British schools, it found that homophobic and anti-trans bullying was the “most common kind in secondary schools” (11-16 year olds) and that it was “normalized” in primary schools, (4-11 year olds). Bigotry and bullying exist on either side of the pond, unfortunately.
Regardless of where these kids picked it up, it’s obviously a difficult situation to be in. There’s something about that kind of bullying coming from someone so young that makes it hard to stand up for yourself. Maybe it’s the reluctance to confront the bullies because they are literally children, but Spencie manages to get in a few good comebacks, like, “Bro go find your mom or something.” To be fair, I think we’d all like to have a word with these kids’ parents.
Commenters were horrified at the middle schoolers’ behavior, but sadly not surprised, with some sharing their own encounters.
One time at my job I was serving middle school boys and they made fun of my voice bc I’m high pitch and they we’re mocking me.
Others suggested creative ways to lose them.
Go to the tampon section, that’s middle school boys greatest fear
It’s just sad that in this day and age, people are still getting mocked for the simple act of expressing themselves. Hopefully, this experience hasn’t discouraged Spencie from looking and dressing how they want, and we can also hope those two boys eventually mature and realize how hurtful their actions were.