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OLTL Tackles Bullying
— By Gabrielle Winkel


More will be revealed in a few weeks, but the recent scenes of ONE LIFE TO
LIVE's Shane being bullied on his computer are just the tip of the
iceberg when it comes to the beginning of the groundbreaking story.

OLTL's Shane (Austin Williams) — ABC

OLTL has worked closely with Ross Ellis, founder and chief executive officer of Love Our Children USA and STOMP Out Bullying.
Ellis recently spoke with Soap Opera Weekly about the tragic national trend.
Ellis explains that bullying behavior is often learned at home.
Children watch how their parents interact with other people. Rage at
the delivery man is noted; so is slamming the phone
on the cable company. "It's usually learned behavior, although not all
the time," adds Ellis, "because sometimes, kids just need to feel
empowered, or they're being picked on, or they see other kids are doing
it, or they want to be liked — or whatever, but most of the time, it
comes from home."

The statistics are shocking. One that was particularly eye-opening: One out of four teens are bullied.
Let's repeat that: one out of four! Some teens are both bully and bullied. It's a vicious cycle of mean.
"Kids will pretty much bully for any reason," adds Ellis. "They
need to understand how it is so painful to someone, and what it does.
That doesn't mean they're going to stop, because it takes a whole lot
of work. If you ask a kid, 'Why do you bully?' they may say, 'Well, it
makes me feel stronger, smarter and better than the person I'm
bullying,' or, 'I'm bullied at home,' or, 'I want to hang out with the
right crowd. I see other guys doing it.'"

For more on this story, pick up the March 1 issue of Weekly.

This should prove to be very interesting, I hope they play it out in the right way.

This story has two things going against it -

1. OLTL has lost the ability to write a decent storyline when it comes to something serious like this

2. They've chosen Shane as the target of the bully - I couldn't care less about Shane and this storyline won't endear him to me anymore than the mockery-of-cancer storyline.

^^^^^Well plenty of people do like Shane. It's not like they had anybody else to pick from either. Besides, not liking him makes the story's message even more relevant.

I think the story has potential. The only problem is overdoing it. I'll wait and see. (Does NOBODY use recent pics of Austin anymore? Every article has a picture of him from at least early last year. )