Watching the latest season of The Voice with my wife, I couldn’t help notice a trend with a lot of the contestants. After telling the panel their name, age, place of origin, a lot of them followed up with the same sentence, “and I was bullied.”

Despite the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence, State Schools adopting the Bullying. No Way! platform, umpteen ads and media campaigns addressing bullying, multiple lessons and school parades on cyber-bullying, and schools having to respond to every single bullying complaint their child makes – real or imagined – it seems bullying grows exponentially. It’s an epidemic that cannot be stopped!

Or is it?

Could the growth of bullying also be a lack of perspective from young people who are yet to experience life’s hardships? Young people who are taught an easy way to get attention, to get out of trouble, and to get out of work when things get a little tough? I’m not saying there is no such thing as bullying, or that there are not cases that are severe and warrant addressing, but when you teach kids that they’re victims, it’s no surprise that there are more and more victims every year.

I mean, can that many kids on The Voice be victims of bullying? It’s a bit rich too that these youngsters stand in front of a person like Boy George – who was one of the first high-profile trans/gay people in mainstream culture in the 1980s – and complain about the hard time they experienced at school. I’d wager he experienced true bullying compared to most of them.

For once I’d like to see a contestant get up and go, “Hi. My name is… I’m from… and I was bullied. But it’s okay, I got on with it.” Until then, we’ll just have to get used to more and more victims on our screens. I’d wager it won’t be long before a contestant who doesn’t get picked accuses the judges of – you guessed it – bullying.