HATRED! Those Trolls!

HAAATRED! What happens when it comes your way? 

Since being a blogger (although this hasn't happened yet and even though I will not condone this, you still have freedom of speech) and about ready to be a YouTuber, eventually you will have to learn how to put up with trolls and with negative comments. I am a part of a Facebook group of creators and one of the members put up a post of a troll who commented on his YouTube video, saying things like "your work is disgusting," "there's no reason why anyone would watch it, because it is not quality. I had to force myself to get to the ending," "there is a thing such as quality over quantity," "I bet you think you matter, but you're none of those things," were just some of the comments or similar comments to the ones that were posted. When looking at these comments for the first time, or especially on your own work, they can hit pretty hard. 

I remember when I had made a product video for a company and I knew the person doing the review very well and a troll got on the video and posted a comment saying, "This person doesn't know what he is talking about. He is a total buffoon. Where did you find this guy?" Something along those lines. At first look, I was really upset, because I liked the person doing the review and I knew that he was a very nice and knowledgeable person and this troll has gone after both of those qualities about them. Commonly on YouTube, I will find comments that people will write talking about what they should have done different about the edit instead of actually watching the video to admire its art and content. They go right to the edit, pretend that they are the editor, and start making comments, completely not realizing that those videos probably took hours upon hours to complete as they are online. 

So what do you do with this? The first solution is to laugh. This can happen anywhere to be honest, not just on social media, you could be walking down the sidewalk and someone out of the blue could say, "you're ugly!" and walk away. At first these comments really hurt, because up until that point you could have a wonderful self-esteem until then when you start re-thinking yourself. You can always laugh, though because upon a second look, you realize that most of these comments feel like they've been "forced" or that they tried really hard to be hateful. For instance the example in the first paragraph, re-read those comments again, don't those sound forced? Like they were really trying to make whoever they were directed at mad? How about the example in the second paragraph. Who uses "buffoon" anymore and from the video a person with common knowledge could know that the reviewer knew what he was talking about, because the object he was reviewing was not complicated and very straightforward. Then these comments start to become laughable. In the example above, who would, out of the blue say "you're ugly;" there's no reason or explanation.

That's where we go to the second solution. Getting to the deeper route of the comments. That deeper route would be jealousy and it is fascinating what people will write online, because they are jealous of someone else's work or what someone else has done. For instance, those people who like to comment on how to edit the video to make it better than it is, I would believe those people are either jealous of the editor's talents and they want to show the creator that they have skills too, skills better than anyone else's-- which normally is not true. The other option is that they want to be that that certain person who uploaded the video, but for whatever reason they don't think they can do it or something is holding them back. Then they believe their only recourse is to make others just as sad as they are. When someone has great talent, normally more hate will come their way, because people will be jealous and that is the only way they see fit to deal with this situation is to drag that person down to their level. 

I remember a one of my friends had finally gotten a job that she loved, she was getting really good at it, she was young, and passionate about her work. She lived, breathed, and slept the department that she worked in, so how could you beat someone like that? Especially when she also had outside training to make her resume even more powerful against her competition. She was, and still is, a saleswoman and once she had reached a certain amount of sales, suddenly her manager became very critical about how she did everything, almost to the point where it made my friend miserable. It made her angry, because she hadn't done anything wrong and yet her manager made her feel like she was the worst employee. It's all about jealousy. Once my friend had started to get good, that's when the comments start flowing.

The next step is to take this as a complement. That's easier said than done right? How in the world can you turn "you're ugly" into a complement? Well there could be many way, but let's say you are walking down the street and you have on something as simple as a good pair of designer shoes. One day you decided to treat yourself and you spend a little bit more on the shoes than you normally would. That could be the day you get the "you're ugly" comment, because that person saw your shoes, became jealous, and wanted to make you feel like nothing or worthless on the simple fact that they wanted your shoes for whatever reason or situation they were in. Take it as a complement that your shoes are something to be looked at! For the first example, those comments let the editor know that his work was actually quality work and he was jealous, so he tried to make the editor feel like he was terrible. In the second scenario, the comments let the reviewer know that he is an intelligent and talented person, because whoever was behind the screen typing away negative thoughts, probably was jealous that he couldn't review products for a big company. Actually in the creator group that I am in, they always make comments saying, "you should hang that review on your wall, because now you know you are actually getting somewhere when you are getting negative reviews and hate mail."---once again, I want to make it clear that I'm not asking for this, but truthfully this is how you should handle it if it comes your way.

Anyone who is trying to make a mean or nasty comment only wants you to feel bad about yourself for whatever reason and the best thing you can do about it is to feel good about it instead. Never, ever let someone have power over you just because they made a bad comment. It's a lot easier to type out mean messages on the internet or social media, because those people typing them out don't really know the person on the other side and they also don't know that person's story. Saying mean things to a person face to face is a lot harder, but take those comments as even more of a positive. They are harder to say and therefore they must have been really jealous to say anything at all. So stand tall, keep you head up, and be confident in yourself. No one can determine who you are, only you can.

I'll end this post with some lyrics from Andy Mineo's "You Can't Stop Me," where he says, "If I'd listen to you and everything you put in my ear, I'd be living like, woulda, shoulda, coulda, I'd be paralyzed by fear... They try to shut us down and it ain't gonna slide, the only thing I fear is God and He's on my side. That's the confidence of God, cause He got me, that's why I really feel like you can't stop me!" 

Great lyrics!