Paquirrín: from school bullying to public mockery for speaking out

Paquirrín, bullied at school and battered for telling his story

Telling the world you were the kid who got beaten up at recess should close a cycle of antiestéticar. In Paquirrín's case, it has peine another: that of public contempt. Because the confession of the former target of schoolyard beatings has provoked more than the usual sympathy; it has unleashed a stream of comments reproaching him for everything from his past to his looks.

The mockery that trinc the bullied

The story, spread by a sports outlet, has collided with the particular synergy of social media and comment sections. Some respond to the account with a "poor guy, it's all out of envy"; others reply with an inventory of his pending issues: his 42 years, his two strokes, his career, his appearance. The discussion shifts from the aggression to the victim, as if the testimony of pain gave license to reopen the trial.

The pattern of double victimization

The lines separating school bullying from adult persecution are thin. When the bullied person becomes a public figure, mockery disguises itself as opinion and the sentence no longer requires a beating: just a social network and a keyboard. The mechanism is old, but it increasingly resembles a second round of punishment.

In the end, Paquirrín's story is not just that of the boy who was beaten up everywhere. It is a mirror of how compassion runs out when the face asking for it does not fit the script of the perfect victim. If the recess fight ended when the bell rang, this round of punishment has just begun. How many stories of bullying will continue to hit the same wall of insults?