No bullshit social publishing news and opinions. Follow Brandon.
(This post is brought to you by “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell“. I saw the film, it’s hilarious, and I want you to go and enjoy it when it hits theaters on September 25th.)
I’m a child of the nineties, so the Rodney King quote seemed apt. Facebook fan David Porter, raises a very good question that I often assume people know the answer to.
That’s moronic on my part because not everyone has been publishing content online for as long as I have (1998) and dealing with the hate that comes with publishing content online (2001 to the present.) In fact, for many of you, coming to Soap Box Included is usually the first step in getting started with social publishing.
So, I’d like to take a moment to answer David’s question and correct this oversight.
David’s question:
Too much hate in the world, too much hate in the press, now too much hate on the web, is there a theme here? When (and why) does disagreement devolve into hate?
My reply:
Actually, hate on the web is nothing new. The difference is that so many people are now social publishers that what used to be something reserved for a small group of content publishers is now happening to everyone.
Can’t tell you why things devolve, but I can tell you that there’s no stopping it, and if people are receiving hateful messages, they might as well make use of them and make some money doing so.
You can see me cashing in off the hate here.
And to expand on this point, it all comes down to attention
Since 1998, I can point to each major traffic burst and a correlation between those traffic bursts and hate mail. Here’s one of the earliest bits of hatemail I got just after College Humor featured my “What To Bring To College” checklist:
From: “Craig McGreggor” <kegmcg87@msn.com >
To: ets_llc[at]yahoo[dot]com
Subject: Ur List
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 14:53:09 -0400
I recommend you fucking die
*****
And do I really need to talk more about the trolls, goblins, and ogres who appeared this year as my wife and I were in the news and traveling across America?
People (Online) Will Hate On You The More Popular You Get
The trick is to expose yourself to as much of it up front as you can, get angry, do a blog post like this one, and build up a thick mental skin. It won’t be instant, but over time you’ll get used to mouthbreathers emailing you stupid comments and you’ll learn to laugh at it.
If anything, you should take this sort of thing as a sign of current success. They wouldn’t bother with you (unless they know you in some way) unless you are getting attention. If you want to speculate, yeah, I think they’re taking out their own frustrations on to you. You’re doing something they can’t / won’t for whatever reason, and so they’re pissed about it.
But what can you do? You can ignore it, and that’s fine, but I have always loved the adage, “Living well is the best revenge”. Since there’s no stopping it you might as well cash in on it.
