A Simple Solution for Managing Your Haters
Trolls, haters, bullies, sock puppets.
We have so many names for them! Perhaps one reason we give our detractors such colorful titles is that we're trying to understand them. What makes her operate? Why does he hate me? Why can't we be friends? Does he think what I'm doing is pointless? Why is it nothing I do pleases her?
Think of a nemesis, past or present. Imagine them in your mind's eye. Close your eyes, connect with them. When you can visualize them, open your eyes.
Oh! They take our power from us. Did your posture shift? Are you breathing differently? I have my personal trolls - and I'm sure you do, too. Anonymous trolls on the internet don't bother us as much as people we know. Because when we know them it hurts. Deep. We give them our power by wondering why we can't please them NO MATTER WHAT WE DO.
When Katie and Maggie talked about these characters during their excellent presentation last week I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. I took a big deep breath and smiled. For the first time ever I smiled about my trolls.
What did I do about my haters before? I got bitter. I snapped when someone talked about them. I hated back.
I even tried to understand them. Last year I attended Blog World Expo's panel, How to Deal with Trolls, Spammers & Sock Puppets. I left the room grumpy and agitated. The panelists did an excellent job but I realized then that there is no magic bullet to make all the puppets go away.
Katie and Maggie talked about dealing with these "nuts" (they were using a cooking metaphor, so it worked). They didn't say the word "embrace" but I heard it in there. Embrace your enemies and recognize, "they are all part of your story." Without them there would be no narrative tension. There would be no reason for people to follow your story if it was all hot chocolate and sugar cookies all the time.
The metaphor would have fallen flat for me had they not reinforced it in their slides. All the slides were gorgeous and the women presenting are powerhouses, but this image stays with me. You often hear the question: how do I protect my brand? The difficult answer to swallow is there is no protecting your brand - you can't be putting the best you can into the world and expect everyone, everywhere to get what you're doing.
Before you close out the browser window, take a moment to reflect again on that nemesis you thought on at the beginning. Exhale it all out of your system. Take that power you were giving them and instead put it into your work. Let 'em go. You have to speak your truth and trust that the ones who need to hear it will listen. Let the rest be part of the story.
(Or, alternatively, you could simply use your business cards to "stab a hater in the eyeball ninja star style.")
Monday, September 14, 2009
Reader Comments (21)
Thanks for the link, Gwen. Sorry you left the panel angry and grumpy. :)
I think you're right in what you're saying. I hope I said something like this at the panel last year, lol. But, if not, then yes, I agree. When you wrote the BWE '08 post on your blog, you mentioned how I established an air of compassion with trolls and I think that is part of it, perhaps, but the other side of that is you have to do what you can not to let it bother you and to push forward.
If no one ever said a mean thing about you, then you aren't doing everything you can. It's just a sad fact of life, unfortunately.
Patrick
I had such an odd experience last week. Someone I don't know personally, but who I've had email correspondence with wrote a long, scathing blog post about me and my web site. It was very bizarre because I try hard not to make people mad, I stay in my own corner, and go about my business.
I learned two very important lessons: A) I can't please everyone and B) I shouldn't have commented/responded to the craziness because when I did it got bigger than it normally would have.
I am grateful for the experience, though, because I was able to learn valuable lessons for the future despite feeling really bad for a few hours.
Love this post. I missed Maggie and Katie's presentation because I was stuck in a horribly boring one on email and am not rude enough to walk out. But I will catch the slides, and since I know them I'm sure it was the. Awesome. Embracing the haters is really great advice. I have made it a life goal to be a very positive person, to spread hope and encouragement whereever I go, but you're right, if it's all sugar cookies and hot chocolate all the time people get bored. If you don't have haters, you aren't making an impact, you aren't speaking truth enough. Actually I once got a passive-agressive tweet I believe aimed at me because I try to stay so positive...she asked "Is it grumpy of me to be sick of someone who brags about how awesome her life is all the time?" She included a few dollar signs in her tweet, which made me stop and re-examine my words. I shop a lot, and tend to share when I find good bargains or get excited about new purchases or even when I win stuff. I happen to know that she and her husband are really struggling in this economy. So as much as her words stung, they caused me to be a bit more sensitive. As for the political haters, there will always be those, I just wish people would not resort to name-calling. I take that as a sign of THEIR maturity or intelligence, not mine. And so, I will try to embrace my trolls better.
Ha! Thanks for the shout out. That one was easier to blow off because I didn't design the card that was being ripped on. ;)
I actually take this stuff really personal too, Gwen. I mean, yeah, I've been blogging for eight years and I understand that when you enable comments you're opening yourself up to drive-by commenters, etc. I totally *get* that. But when it's personal, when someone hates on me personally (or the company I work for)? That stings.
Some people just delete the negative feedback and/or ignore it. I used to do that, but that's not who I am in real life, and it's hard for me to be any different online.
More speakers selling you what you want to hear - that the haters are just haters and you can find away around them. But the truth often is quite different - you earned the hating.
No one wants to hear that. Everyone wants to hear that it's okay to be you, you're awesome, etc. But we're not all awesome. Many of us are blind with bias. And when we write in public, we offend people. We may not mean to, but we do. Some respond unkindly. Should we label them haters so we can manage them?
Better to re-evaluate our public personas, and figure out why we are offending. Except for very few individuals (statistically speaking), we all need improvement.
Will you publish my comment? Do you feel an urge to moderate it, instead? Why? Examine that bias, and grow.
Oh man I have had trolls,haters liars the way i figure it is my ethics, my brand and my integrity will speak for itself, let them hate there is a reason they do LOL
Gwen,
This part really resonated with me: "Before you close out the browser window, take a moment to reflect again on that nemesis you thought on at the beginning. Exhale it all out of your system. Take that power you were giving them and instead put it into your work. Let 'em go. You have to speak your truth and trust that the ones who need to hear it will listen. Let the rest be part of the story."
I've talked a lot about this issue of letting go with my therapist (unfortunately, in the context of an ex-boyfriend who has continued to stalk me in passive and not so passive ways for some odd 15 years...FOR REAL). My turning point was when my therapist pointed out how much energy this person was draining out of me -- she suggested I bucket any correspondence from this person as junk mail because that's what it essentially is... and that when it came in, to take a moment and breathe and then send him thoughts of peace and forgiveness because he was the one who really needed it. Totally made sense to me -- if this grown man was still obsessing about a high schooler he took advantage of, then, well, that's just really sad...something clearly is out of joint in his life.
I think the same approach applies to trolls. People who spew hate and negativity -- whether anonymously or not -- clearly have issues they need to deal with. Honestly, it's hard for me to imagine someone with as much positive mojo as you having trolls, but I think that any time someone is creative and inspiring, they're bound to attract jealousy. It's human nature unfortunately.
-Christine
Oh man, I can so relate to this. My site -- which is about bright green environmentalism, being optimistic and responsible and creating rather than despairing/tearing down/being angry -- draws fire from dark green environmentalists from time to time.
It makes sense to engage up to a certain point. I think that a conversation between these 2 different points of view can be really eye-opening both to participants and to observers. But at some point it just becomes a battle of egos rather than a conversation and I want to WIN WIN WIN the argument.
I am trying to develop the ability to argue passionately for my point of view, without getting angry or needing so badly to be right. The truth is that all these different ideas are part of the unfolding creative process that I want to nurture and be part of.
Great post. Thanks Gwen.
I really, really, really needed to hear this today. Thank you.
While no one may want to hear that, it is also no more accurate. There are just as many people "hating" (not my word) because of their own bias and because they offend people. It's good to be self-aware and to self-correct, but it's just as likely that the person posting trolling comments is an idiot, as it is that the person who they are commenting towards is one. If not more so.
And as far as comment moderation goes... have guidelines, and enforce them and that's it.
Patrick
Christine the practice of Tonglen is what it sounds like your therapist talked you through (or a modified version, anyway). Taking and sending. From the Wiki article: "In the practice, one visualizes taking onto oneself the suffering of others, and giving one's own happiness and success to others. As such it is a training in altruism in its most extreme form." Tonglen on Wiki
I remember a meditation teacher once telling the group once that this practice can be very intense if not taught by a teacher, in person (as opposed to us reading about it in a book). It's an advanced practice because it brings up extreme emotions. We think our suffering is big enough without further taking on the suffering of others. In her case, she had been through a traumatizing experience and rather than fight back in the situation she relaxed into it (the situation is too intense to get into in this forum but we can talk about it in person) - and then she practiced Tonglen and extended lovingkindness to her aggressors.
I think years of training opens doors to levels of compassion - both for ourselves, and others, that takes practice on a daily basis to cultivate.
Thank you for sharing your story of practice. It's good to know there is a community of fellow practitioners with whom we can share.
Gwen - very thoughtful post. It's refreshing to get an inside look at the mentality of a real blogger, such as yourself, rather than simply the regurgitated "top 10 ways to deal with blog haters" we're all so used to seeing. I often find those posts too level-headed... devoid of the raw, authentic emotion we *want* to connect to when we're really peeved. Instead, you've inspired us to draw strength from that initial anger, and challenged us to reroute it to our advantage. I commend your down-to-earth attitude and appreciate your insight =)
Of course, if all else fails and we can't reach that level of productive zen, we could always follow precedent and sue someone's butt off till we feel better ;) http://bit.ly/1a8Osn
Slightly off-topic, I'd love to hear more about Tonglen and relaxing into situations instead of fighting them.
Actually, if you could get a time machine and go back about five years and talk about it, that would be ideal. ;)
Gwen, that sounds right. I am lucky to have a therapist very grounded in these things. And I agree that it's intense and takes time -- four years ago, when I started seeing my therapist (intermittently discussing the stalker as occasion arose) I may not have been ready to give him the gift of peace and forgiveness, but now I am. And probably not surprisingly, ever since taking on that new practice, there's been a significant decrease in contact. Actually, it's probably been at least 6 months since I last heard from him.
Totally another matter, but one other thing that my therapist introduced to me that has been enormously helpful in personal and work relations (particularly in trying to understand difficult people) is the Enneagram. We can chat more in a couple of weeks if you like. :-)
Christine
Also, transcend and include. I'm not saying "shut your detractors out, ignore them and they will disappear." Bottom line is embrace it and include it. Ken Wilber says this a whole lot better than I can. "Transcend and include... this is the self-transcending drive of the Kosmos—to go beyond what went before and yet include what went before... to open into the very heart of Spirit-in-action." Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything
omg gwen my internets-crush on you just exploded when you quoted ken wilber! :)
transcend and include is how development happens. reacting to each other in habitual ways doesn't create anything new, or cause vertical growth -- we have to ascend to a new point of view in which all previous points of view exist, make sense, and inform each other.
(funny, this is the exact fight that we get into on my blog. bright green looks at our predicament as fuel and impetus to evolve in the only way that's possible -- forward. dark green kind of wants to go back. understandable, but not possible.)
Well-written, Gwen! The nemesis and haters are always a challenge. I think the point being is that they will always exist, but on the web it's so much more public and apparent. Just how PR reps get the rap for being impersonal or sending bad pitches, the nature of their work is public so we hear about it. When in reality, Biz Dev and sales people also can be lazy in their pitches...
I like your mature approach here and I think it can help a lot of people visualize and understand the haters instead of constantly being grumpy or feeling upset from it. Great takeaway :)
I am all for taking out the haters with ninja style business cards. I love my Krystyn and I have also done a post about haters at one time. I must resurrect it, as your post is dead-freakin-on time!
Grace it's lovely to hear from you. And you're right. I've also gotten pitches from PR people that are well-written, to the point and crafted with me in mind (although this is less common, making those good pitches I receive stand out all that much more). Your name embodies it all. When we can act with grace, we can embrace and transcend. Which reminds me. I should start practicing Anusara again.
Wonderful post, Gwen. Lovely to see some thoughtful, heart-felt, yet real-to-life discussions happening around this. I 100% agree that all of us can take what seems to be a problem to be eradicated and see it as an opportunity to open up with compassion. This is definitely opposite of how we normally go about it:P
One loving note of caution to folks - be patient with yourself in opening up in this way. It's easy to look at these situations and say, "yeah, it would be really nice to see these people with compassion and not anger" and then to think we'll be able to do that without a problem. Not so much:) This is a process, one in which we grow, become bigger space for ourselves and others. So, this takes time and you'll still find yourself being completely pissed now and then, but don't beat yourself up. In fact, I think the first step is to practice forgiveness towards ourselves. We need hold big Love for ourselves before we can do it for others. Once we see the suffering in ourselves, we'll easily see it in others.
I very much like this post, and the idea that all things (and not just all good things) play into a person's online persona, and the overall story they're telling.