It’s rare when a group of people who clearly peaked in high school are bold enough to out themselves on social media, but thus is the era of TikTok.
People are so desperate to find some sliver of relevance they can’t seem to help but rely on the same mean girl behavior, even as adults. Bullying people never has been, and never will be, cool, but good luck telling that to the crappy, juvenile jerks who flooded to @fatherlessheathen’s live just to remind the world that they never grew up.
The TikToker was met with this cringe high school flashback after mentioning — briefly and vaguely — a group of people from her teenage days in a live. That simple aside was enough to summon the banshees of her past, and they showed up in force to prove her statements right. Apparently having dedicated their lives to the same bulling B.S. that made them “that group” in high school, these full grown adults flooded to the TikToker’s page during a followup live, summoned their inner villain, and channeled their high school days with such dedication that @fatherlessheathen broke down in tears.
At least her public break down accomplished one thing — it established that all those tales @fatherlessheathen was weaving as entirely accurate. Anyone who doubted her stories of those high school jerks got all the confirmation they needed, and in real time no less.
What’s more, the group that showed up to prove @fatherlessheathen’s point weren’t even the jerk-wads the TikToker had been referencing. She was discussing an entirely separate horde of infantile ingrates, but these bullies heard the song of their people and flocked to answer the call.
@fatherlessheathen herself put it best in her video’s caption, in which she notes that “if the shoe fits I guess put it on in high school and never grow out of it?” They certainly never grew out of being the worst kind of people, but at least now TikTok knows their true colors.
And @fatherlessheathen found plenty of solidarity among commenters, the bulk of whom were entirely aghast at the childish and petty behavior from full-blown adults. “Now what did they think they were going to accomplish with that,” one user asked. Others shared their own tales of high school bulling, displaying just how common this awful shared experience really is.
It tends to happen to right around one in five students, unfortunately. Data shows that around 20.2% of high school students report being bullied in some fashion, with boys more frequently becoming targets of physical bullying and girls more commonly becoming targets of rumors and purposeful exclusion. Nearly half of those that have been victims of bullying expect it to happen again, and those childish jerks in @fatherlessheathen’s video are exactly why.
Once a bully, always a bully. They can’t seem to stop themselves, even as adults, and countless examples show that far too often our childhood oppressors turn into adult villains. Whether they go the route of politics or are happily arranging barbecues, we all know at least one — and we all wish they’d grow up already.