I’ve never been good about watching television when it actually airs. Since the dawn of Netflix and Hulu, I’ve become a passive watcher, streaming shows on my laptop while simultaneously online shopping with money I don’t have. I tend to binge-watch, wherein I will watch an entire season of a series (or the whole series, I don’t discriminate) in an entire sitting. Don’t even get me started on the news. I have never, ever been good about watching the news. Never mind the fact that I grew up with parents who had "The Today Show" quietly screening in the background of breakfast, or encouraged me to listen to NPR as I drove to school so I would be in tune with the world around me. I am just terrible at staying up to date.

In recent years, however, despite my poorly formed television habits, I decided to dip my toes in the water of investigative journalism as a career path. As it would turn out, I absolutely love it. I scored a once-in-a-lifetime internship with an amazing production company and though I’ve barely been in the job for a week, I couldn’t be more excited about what the future will bring by pursuing this profession. It does mean, however, that I need to stay current. That means no more waiting a year to watch something on television, because it might become pertinent at work the next day. That means watching the news rather than "Botched" as I get ready for work, because the chances something broadcasted that morning will come up in a meeting are far too high. So I’ve changed my ways and have become more active in the world of entertainment, but it hasn’t just shown me more funny cat videos. No, I’ve noticed a trend in entertainment:

Bullies. We all remember grade school. The bully was the kid who would find other children’s insecurities and weaknesses and prey on them until those soft spots were no longer protected beneath a steely exterior and out for the whole world to poke and prod. You might have been the bullied. You were the one who, day after day, went home and told your mother that your day was “fine” but in actuality that one jerk in your homeroom class wouldn’t let you forget the time you accidentally called your teacher “Mom.” Or perhaps you were the bully—the one who would find out a little girl’s inability to say the letter “r” and mock her relentlessly until she stopped speaking altogether. I hope that, for your sake, you’ve moved beyond those years and developed into a positive, contributing member of society. What I’ve learned through my television watching, however, is that some people never move beyond those years when they were the resident bully on the block.

They don’t all look the same or the act the same. Some are massive beasts with raw, sinewy muscles that resort to reality dating television shows because no person who wasn’t being paid could handle their behavior. They lift terrifyingly large weights as they grunt and groan and drink protein shakes out of champagne glasses and cover themselves with baby oil to hide their own insecurities, all while procuring the strength to pull those some anxieties out of others. They vie for the attention of a beautiful woman and manipulate her into thinking they’re a person of character, but the second she turns her back, they attack their fellow game show contestants for everything from their physical stature or the fact that they’re a single parent or an a career hiatus of sorts. But yet, it’s normal to chomp into a raw sweet potato and eat an entire boar’s worth of ham in one sitting.

Others are orange. They stand at a podium and shout nonsense that is based entirely in attacking other people’s ideas and platforms. They call others criminals when they are not exactly a saint. They essentially have no ideas other than building walls and tearing down morale. They use fear and shouting and making a big show with their tiny hands to make people think that they must have some authority if they’re able to put on a show like that. They get others to join their team simply because they're scared they might become the target if they don't clearly take a side. The entirety of their fame is based off of a television show where they screamed, “You’re fired!” at hopeful young entrepreneurs looking for a break into the business world. They are the bullies who never managed to escape the confines of that fourth grade classroom, and their intellect goes to show for it.

The worst bully of all, however, isn’t a Bachelorette contestant or a presidential candidate. It’s you. I’m not saying that you, dear reader, are picking on kids on the playground. I’m saying that when you pick on yourself, you contribute to the negativity that is already rampant in the world. In my newly developed habit of being tuned into the world and media, I’ve noticed so much bullying. The last thing anyone needs is any more negativity in life. Don’t be the bully, to yourself or society of other romantic hopefuls. Be that kid who pulls up his elastic-band Oshkosh jeans and marches his Velcro strap sneakers over to the bully and tells him to cut it out because he’s being mean, no matter how big or scary (or orange) the bully is.

Stand up to bullies.