I Killed The Prom Queen‘s Jona Weinhofen (formerly of Bring Me The Horizon/Bleeding Through) has penned an op-ed for Killyourstereo.com on bullying, which also shares how his own experiences with the behavior. An excerpt from it can be found below:
“When I began attending a new high school at age 14, I couldn’t have been more different than the other kids at the school. I moved from the countryside to a city school. I listened to dance music and some nu-metal, they were all listening to punk rock.
I had long blonde hair and wore baggy clothes; they were all surfers and skaters. I had decided from a very early age that I didn’t want to drink alcohol, or smoke or do any drugs, partly because I didn’t want to follow the trends and partly because I didn’t like what it did to certain people. I was as alien as could be.
I immediately began to experience the effects of being bullied because I looked and acted differently to the schools status quo and certain people wouldn’t accept this. I was called a girl because of my long hair and worse names like ‘faggot’ and ‘pussy’, just because I was the new kid at school who was a bit different.
I attended my first high school party and an untrue rumour soon spread out of nowhere that I had hit a girl. A bully had started this rumour, knowing it would spread quickly and turn a lot of people against me. I was physically abused and beaten up by this bully at the party and at several parties to come. This behavior frequently occurred for around a year.”
