Can someone explain to me the rabid hyena bullying phenomena?

Bullied kid feels powerless and helpless when bullied.
When he grows up, he starts bullying other kids. This makes him feel powerful and not at all helpless. He wants to feel powerful and not powerless.
It’s sad, but true.

Bullies actually hate themselves. They are people who have low self esteem and feel better about themselves by putting others down and behaving in cruel ways. Pity them, but keep your distance.

They are also cowards and usually will back down pretty quickly if confronted.

I think there are two things that come into play. Coloma is right on about the bully having self esteem issues and tries to build themselves up by beating someone else down. There’s also the group dynamic that comes into play. A group of people start going after the target and they feed off of each other.To stand up against multiple bullies is pretty tough. And it would take a lot of strength for someone not involved to jump in and help the victim of the bullying. So it just continues until someone steps in or the victim does something.

It makes the bully feel better about himself to make someone else feel horrible and beaten down.

It is not unlike the way that children who were molested grow up to become child molesters.
It isn’t a rule, but there is a pattern.

What you are describing is much like a group of chickens who choose the weakest chicken to peck on. This mob mentality can choose the victim because he/she is weak, a different color, nationality or religion than the rest of the group.

@skaggfacemutt Could it be that the person who gets picked on is actualy a decent normal person who simply resents such people and hence gets picked on?

@Adirondackwannabe What do you mean by ”....they feed off each other”.

@raven860 Oh, definitely! Like the person in the office that doesn’t want to join the gossip crowd.

@raven860 They reinforce each other by targetting someone else.