Yeah I don’t think bullying was ever a benefit in the traditional sense. The bullies were the apes of the school and were as small a group as the nerds. The reality with nerds, is the vast majority were passive on them at best, it’s just the few bullies that needed something weak to mess with. Modern nerd stuff being ruined is because nerd things were pushed into popular space and has nothing to do with a luck of bullies.

What we really need back is what I’ll call ostracizing. The people that the majority of the school sneered about. These were the slut girls, the fags, etc. When I was in school, no one liked these people. They weren’t necessarily bullied in the traditional sense, but they were the joke among almost all of their peers. Now, they are forced or brainwashed to accept those as normal.