Bullies, Transgenders, and Popular Cliques

The reign of the social hierarchy

I wrote a book a few years back, Bullyocracy: How the Social Hierarchy Enables Bullies to Rule Schools, Work Places and Society at Large. Despite initial enthusiastic feedback from many who’d been a victim of bullying, ultimately it has not sold well. I think that most people don’t want to face an ugly truth about themselves.

What I discovered, to my shock and disappointment, is that even the supposed anti- bullying activists and groups have no real interest in stopping it. None of them have paid the least bit of attention to the book, other than Gina Tron, a writer who was bullied as a youngster and wrote a glowing blurb for Bullyocracy. My book did have the unfortunate sense of timing to be released just at the COVID narrative was being introduced to the world. So it did get kind of lost in the shuffle.

With the schools subsequently shutting down, which included cancelling all those extracurricular activities that help drive the social hierarchy which enables bullying, and the insane transgender agenda becoming front and center in every school, the traditional pecking order may have been eradicated. For all I know, the popular crowd at the local high school may now consist of those kids who’ve swallowed the propaganda to such an extent they are “transitioning” to another agenda, instead of the football players and the cheerleaders. Maybe if you change your pronouns loudly enough, you become Homecoming Queen. Or a Nonbinary Homecoming Entity.

But what’s going on in our schools now under the COVID/Transgender umbrella is just a part of society’s adherence to cliques and the concept of popularity, which as I detailed in Bullyocracy, has ruled our society forever. In frontier days, you were probably judged by the size of your farm. Or how many heads of cattle. From the Roaring Twenties on, it became about how much money you had, or how physically attractive you were. Being able to punch somebody out was important. So was being good at sports. That probably still is, but the whole fifty seven genders thing, and the criticism of “fat shaming” or “body shaming” has really confused things.

But what concerns me personally, and is the primary purpose of this piece of writing, is how social media has created figurative prom queens and athletic superstars. The alternative media is filled with prima donnas and huge egos. As I’ve pointed out to a few of them- no one outside your own little niche has any idea who you are. You are a big fish in a little pond. Many people who have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, or a million on YouTube, are unknown to the public at large. And some of these people haven’t any published books, or have any connection to a wider general audience. They are “famous” to a million people or less.

Which is still pretty impressive. The average person, after all, isn’t “famous” to anyone. The worker bee. The anonymous clerk or delivery person. A housewife or a contractor working from home. CEOs and their upper management underlings do have a small degree of “fame.” The more people under them, the more “famous” they are. A typical blue collar employee will have about as much contact with the CEO of his company than with some random entertainer.

In high school, it’s “popular,” not “famous.” But they mean practically the same thing. The most popular kids in any given high school are, in effect, celebrities. Again, big fish in a small pond. I quoted a line I heard back in high school in Bullyocracy; some kid wondered if anyone “famous” was going to be at a particular party. Of course, he meant popular. The cheerleaders, the starting quarterback, are “famous” in their high school. The student body knows them, just like the audience knows the entertainer. They just aren’t known back.

Some people actually think I’m famous. It always astounds me when someone says, “I can’t believe I’m talking to Don Jeffries.” The definition of fame, I think, is when you are known to large numbers of people whom you don’t know. But there are obviously tremendously varying levels of fame. There’s a popular podcaster who reaches tens of thousands of listeners. Then there’s Joe Biden. I remember people getting swelled heads when they were promoted to assistant supervisor of something. In the business world, those higher up the food chain will not acknowledge the presence of those much lower than them, unless perhaps you’re alone together in an elevator.

The work force mirrors what we see in high school. I explored all this in great detail in Bullyocracy. The director of Housekeeping is not going to sit down in the company cafeteria with the guy who mops the floors for him. In the exact same way, no cheerleader is going to sit at the same lunch table with some overweight wallflower. Well, maybe now- I don’t know. People, especially young people, are getting fatter and fatter, and more enabled in their fatness by our insufferable cultural overlords. So maybe fat is now popular in high school, just like changing your gender or your pronouns. But rest assured, there is popularity.

Popularity can only exist if unpopularity does. Just like beauty needs ugliness to contrast it with. So until recently, the jocks and pretty teenagers needed those Trench Coat Mafia types to stuff in lockers and make their lives miserable. Perhaps the Trench Coat Mafia types are stuffing the jocks in lockers now. Just as all school administrations sided with the popular kids- including those doing the bullying- they are now siding with the transgender lunacy. So I doubt that any Bobby turned Bambi is getting bullied by an aggressive linebacker now. All the kids knew you didn’t fuck with the jocks. Now perhaps they know you don’t fuck with the transgenders.

In our alternative online world, popularity is determined by your social media presence. And that is driven almost exclusively by how many followers you have on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc. I’ve seen people whose names and faces draw a blank with me, who have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. All their posts- which often are completely inane- get lots of likes, comments, and retweets. The last I checked, I had just under 3,500 Twitter followers. And when they start to grow, they simply take a bunch away. I guess it’s part of my shadow ban there. That’s why I can no longer do Spaces. No one shows up. Someone tell Elon Musk.

What I have noticed on Twitter, and would surely notice on Instagram if I used it, is that those who follow you are “below” you in the social media hierarchy. Therefore, it is very rare that someone with more followers than me follows me. I would have to follow them first, and then they might or might now follow me back, largely based on what the difference in numbers is. If I followed someone with 500,000 followers, and they see my little 3,500, they aren’t going to click “follow” back. It’s just part of the ironclad rule of the social hierarchy that runs society.

By the same token, except for a few rare instances, almost every time I’m contacted by a radio show or podcaster- and that is pretty regularly- it’s by someone who doesn’t have a huge audience. I joke to myself that if they think I’m a big deal, they can’t have much of an audience. Of course, I very much appreciate them, and never say no to anyone. But it is reality. If I ever get on Tucker Carlson, or back on Infowars- something at that level of popularity- it would have to be from me contacting them, or someone well above me in the hierarchy putting a good word in. Odds are it would never be from them contacting me.

People have always been like this, at least during my lifetime. When I was a blue collar worker at a large hospital, pulling 1,000 pound carts around all day, almost none of the nurses gave me a second glance. But I’d see plenty of them at parties- and those hospital people had lots of parties back in the glory days of America 1.0- where they’d be much, much friendlier. As long as I didn’t tell them what I did. I might even get lucky, if the stars were aligned that night. But then that same nurse would ignore me at the hospital the next time I saw her. Literally not see me, as I trudged past her in my uniform, pulling that huge cart. Usually with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth.

Parents know all about cliques. Cliques form on swim teams, soccer teams, girl scouts, etc. Parents who aren’t “in” the clique, for whatever reason, are frozen out and left feeling like they had been bullied. I described many of these experiences in Bullyocracy. The parents of the more high profile swimmers, or players, will tend to gravitate together. The parents of the backups will be left out. Adult cliques also form based on income. What you or your spouse do for a living plays a huge role in the kinds of friendships you’ll make with other couples. Looks used to matter as well, but with the whole “shaming” craze, maybe not so much any more.

I’ve heard from people that some of these social media celebrities “buy” followers. I’ve firmly convinced that some publishers buy up copies for authors they want to promote more than others. It’s an open secret that film companies “buy” positive reviews on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, to sway public opinion about often truly horrific movies. Maybe I’ll get desperate enough one day to “buy” Twitter followers, if such a thing is possible. How dishonest would that be, exactly? If you’re confident enough in your work, you can justify it to yourself. Image is everything.

I am very grateful for my growing presence here. I’m not as popular as Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Wolf, etc. If I subscribe to them, they probably won’t subscribe back. But the playing field here is level. The game isn’t rigged. You can organically grow something on Substack, as I have. I, at least, can’t do that on Twitter. And despite having the maximum 5,000 friends on Facebook, I’m stagnant there because the shadow ban prevents more than a handful from seeing any posts about my work. I’ll still get lots of Happy Birthday messages each year, though, and that’s pretty cool.

I try to stay out of popularity contests. I will say the same things, in the same way, with a young kid just starting a podcast, as I would with Tucker Carlson, should he ever have me on his show. I’m not boasting. I’ve always been that way. I hate airs, and conceit, even when you have something to be conceited about. It’s the populist in me. No one should be looked down upon because of how few followers they have on social media. Or how much money they make. Or how much hair they have. Like Martin Luther King, I believe what is important is the content of one’s character.

I thank all of you who follow me here. Or on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. I’m not popular, but I’m pretty confident. I don’t like exclusion. Like Tommy Pickles once said on The Rugrats, anyone can join my club. I’m flattered when anyone wants to interview me, or tells me how much they enjoyed one of my books. Or when then follow me on social media. I hope I never think I’m big enough to become a conspiracy celebrity. I’ll always reply to you. I’ll always follow you back.