We all know bullying is an epidemic that has spread all over the world and we must admit that it happened a lot back when the word didn’t even exist. Picking up on people without having a reason and dumping all your personal frustrations on them is a common thing we see around us. Fortunately, bullying is now a subject many of us are aware and the trend of standing up to bullies and having others support you has increased.
Take for example this kid’s awful day after school… The boy’s name is Joey Mason and he was hanging out in the park one day, having fun and playing around with his ball. He was one of the many kids that get bullied at school, but here he was alone and happy. Until a group of teenagers showed up…
Unfortunately, there are many bullies at schools, and not many people know how to properly handle this issue.
Something has to be done to put an end to this stressing matter, and it all starts with us.
The fourth-grader lives in Toronto, Canada and he was in a local park when a bunch of teenagers approached him.
Luckily, the entire moment was filmed as proof, and that’s how we saw that these older boys were up for no good.
“My name is Joey and I’m 10 years old. I am a victim of bullying. It hurts me very much.
Please, stop bullying,” wrote Joey on social media. It was a message many have read, but it didn't help him much that day...
While we all know Canadians are usually polite and nice, most kids like to tease others, no matter what country they live in. The fourth-grader was one of the nice people, but he was about to meet some bullies he's seen at the school.
He was busy playing with his ball, but then they approached him...
These boys saw Joey in the park and went to have some fun by picking on him. Joey’s day became a nightmare.
These guys have been teasing him for the past days and this time it wasn't just name calling or pointing...
While anyone looking at this scene might think it's just a bunch of friends coming to greed the little kid, it's not what it looks!
Things were about to get ugly, and Joey was in trouble, but the commotion the teenagers do, drew the attention of some strangers.
At school, Joey couldn't defend himself. Most kids would be afraid to step up, and sometimes teachers were oblivious to this problem, thinking they're all just fooling around.
But the people in this video see what's happening! Will the help Joey out?
The teenage boys were having some fun, stealing Joey’s ball and not giving it back. But we all know that things can escalate pretty fast if nobody intervenes.
From afar, seeing the older boys passing Joey’s ball from each other and not leaving him alone didn’t seem wrong. It all seemed innocent.
But if you were close enough to hear them, you’d realize that Joey didn’t know these boys and it all was going to get ugly soon enough. Here’s what the boys said: “Hey kid, nice ball you got there.
Can I see it?” Before he could take back his ball, the boys already stole it and another one said “Come on, just give it to me, man. It’s just a ball.”
What these young boys didn’t know was that someone was listening to their conversation. This man was seated on a bench nearby and heard everything.
He was at first quite caught up with reading something on his tablet, but then decided to step in…
“Gentlemen, what are you doing?” said the man with a strong voice, similar to a dad’s scolding tone.
Joey was trying to get back his ball, and then the teenagers were left speechless for a few seconds, not knowing what to say.
The teenagers said: “Just playing ball, sir,” hoping they would fool the man and be left alone. But this guy wasn’t buying it.
The man’s words next words are more than we ever wanted to hear in this situation if we were Joey…
“Why are you picking on a little kid?” asked the man. The boys didn’t answer. “Don’t you think your parents would love this?
You guys getting arrested for picking on a little kid?” he added. One of the teens said “No,” and then the man turned to the other teenagers asking some more questions.
“Why didn’t you guys stop him? You guys wanna be part of this?” – asked the man, angry that he was a witness to this, but glad to be there and help out Joey. He turned to the little boy and asked him if he was ok, giving back his ball.
Then, he turned to the teenagers and told them to find another place and leave the kid alone. But this story is far from being over, and you’ll see why…
What this man didn’t know was that the entire moment was filmed because it actually was a social experiment to see if people would react to such a situation and how they would fix this problem.
The Popular Youtuber Matthew Bandeira published this video on his channel MattTV where he has more social experiments worth seeing.
Here’s how two other women react to Joey being bullied!
This video is called “This Boy Was Getting Bullied.
How These Strangers Reacted Will Shock You.” And when this woman saw the older boys picking up on Joey, she jumped in and, when finding out it was an experiment, she added a few more words about her opinion on bullying…
This mother was watching her kids play when Joey is approached by three teenagers. They get too close and pick up his backpack, throwing it away.
Then, one of them takes his soccer ball and the mom walks towards them, confronting the teenagers.
She asks them what’s wrong with them and why are they acting like that. Disappointed in what she saw, she tells the teenagers to leave Joey alone and go away.
After finding out about the setup, she said: “Well, I wouldn’t want my son to be getting bullied, so if I knew somebody would be around my son I would want them to do something as well.”
This woman was also busy on her phone like the man from the first experiment. And just like him, she heard the commotion and quickly acted, going over to Joey and asking him if he knew those boys or if he was related to them.
She was also told after her reaction that it was an experiment and her words just made our day!
“He was just messing with this poor kid and there was nobody else taking care of him,” explained the woman.
She was appalled by what the teenagers did, and you can see it from these photos.
Many celebrities have spoken up and supported people like Joey. Bullying is not something we want to see, no matter what!
So that's why many people have started to speak up about this issue. Here's what our story has in common with Anti Bullying movements...
This little boy pleaded in front of the world, sobbing at the camera, to stop the bullying for everyone that suffers like him. Meanwhile, Joey was rescued by these heroes that didn’t waste a second to stand up against bullying.
It was Jones' video that drew Chris Evans’ attention – yes Captain America himself! His video sparked a national debate on the problems of bullying and many celebrities came to encourage and give Keaton advice.
The same support for the ones getting bullied was seen in this video...
Would you stand up for someone that was being bullied?
Would you have done the same or let the kid handle the situation by himself?
We think bullying is wrong and shouldn’t ever happen, no matter the age, the reason or the medium.
It makes others feel bad about themselves and it also negatively influences people’s lives!
What this video has thought us all is that bullying is wrong, and the right reaction is to use logic and make the bullies ask themselves what would they do if they were the ones bullied.
Acknowledging this is one step closer to making bullying part of sad history in our society.
With the emergence of social media, the online bullying has tremendously increased and it made many students that were bullied not just in real life but also online, to even consider suicide!
We can all save a life by being kind to people and step up when we see them being harassed.
And always remember, don't you ever do others what you wouldn't want done to yourself applies to bullying as well!