You may have seen images floating around the internet lately from a photographer name Rich Johnson that try to demonstrate the harm that words can cause by visualizing them as physical wounds on the bodies of people. These have quickly become the go-to pictures on articles about bullying, such as this piece on CNN calling for it to be prohibited by law. These visuals hit close to home for me on two fronts. First, I went to high school with Rich and shared an apartment with him in college. Second, I have more firsthand knowledge on the topic of bullying than any human being would care to admit.

People generally fall into one of two camps when the conversation turns to bullying. The first group insists that there is an epidemic, and usually suggest that it requires a legal remedy, while the second doesn’t see verbal abuse as a form of bullying at all.

Though anti-bullying laws strike me as the ultimate example of a blunt instrument being used where a scalpel is needed, there is a tendency on the right to dismiss concerns about verbal bullying out of hand. While the anti-bullying crusade gets a whole lot wrong, the greater point Rich’s project makes about the scars words can leave is spot on.