> Kidding together means setting a cat on fire and laughing when it's screaming running around. It means beating the fat kid till he can't stand up.

This is very rarely true. I grew up with rural hill people and I was a skittish, annoying kid who got bullied a lot.

Bullying was something that mostly happened in isolation. I was at-risk at school or if I was out alone and ran into the wrong kids, like the local neanderthal who started shaving at 10.

Where I was safe was in groups. These were rough kids, sometimes brutally so. Feuds between youth could be extreme and the injuries were often serious. But those were between individuals or sometimes families. In groups, there were boundaries - a truce could be assumed.

Animal cruelty existed but wasn't overly common. It sometimes happened within feuds. ex:A pet would disappear and be found down a well. And like bullying, that happened in isolation.

Animal cruelty was never a social thing. Ever. Someone who entertained the notion could expect to get beat by the other kids until they thought differently. There was no tolerance for it.