I got picked on a little bit Until the day I freaked out in H.S. and used my book to fight back.

I don't believe you. You must be blind or something lol.

In the West bullyuing is common in all skools, on all levels until high skool (but not at all as much on the university level). In almost every skool class someone or a couple of kids are bullied for being fat, ugly, nerdy, shy or whatever. Overall it's perhaps a bit less common among wealthy kids and in religious skools.

I don't know why it has to be so common. I remember that watching cartoons and films it always struck me as odd, because it's something I never saw. I don't mean that kids are saints here, they smoke, drink, take drugs and everything. But we don't have "jocks"...I know that because it's a concept it was difficult for me to grasp. Here no one cares what sport anyone does. I've never seen a group of "tough guys" trying to bully a weak one, I can assure you of that

And for the record, I went to a public, secular (is that the proper term? Whatever, non-religious) high school.

And I suggest, try not to pass as if you knew every single education system. I certainly don't think I know how it is in Sweden

It's very interesting to hear. I dont claim I know the school atmosphere and societies in South America.

But how about this then - perhaps you grew up in a rural lil town in Argentina? People in general are much friendlier in rural compared to urban.

I don't remember bullying at my school either. There was some teasing, especially before high school, but it wasn't a few people being targeted and always teased. Fights always seemed to be internal, people from the same crowd arguing over something, not ganging up on someone else.

And yeah, doing sports meant pretty much nothing even in high school, we didn't have jocks, cheerleaders, an established nerds group etc. We had uniforms, so you couldn't even spot the people whose fashion sense you might otherwise disagree with.

At the same time it's not impossible for it to have existed but it certainly wasn't anything happening publicly around the halls.

I know the problem is pretty prominent in Japan though, so it's not just a thing of the West now.

Zexen, the answer is simple. In the U.S. and Canada, boys are far more insecure about their manliness and sexuality. Bullying others is a way to feel better about themselves, and sports are a way to feel more manly.

I picked on kids every day, until this one day a kid turned around and gave me a heartful plea to stop tormenting him every day. So I tormented him twice a day.

I dont know about zexen, but I live in Santiago, the capital city, lots of people here. We did make jokes to everybody and sometimes we got mad, but that group thing I see on USA tv programs here is very rare and almost unexistant(except in some very poor schools  like I said before), actually we laughed at the fact that the US schools  had those groups like the cheerleaders, american football players, nerds etc...

Maybe because here we play football where you dont need stupid cheerleaders or to use steroids lol.

Anyway, it must be similar in argentina, here guys smoke, drink, use drugs, but somehow this isnt seen here.

Another thing, my classmates where the same in almost every class we had, in 12th grade you end up knowing everyone in your generation and I was friends with everyone, I had no enemies like ive seen US guys have on tv. 

Other thing which I havent seen is people trying to be popular, there is no such thing as the "popular group".

^ sounds pretty similar to my experiences, though we're almost 10 years apart and maybe things look different here now.

Yes, bullies these days are so ignorant.