1. Disbelief: Wait, what did I write that these people are mocking me for? Did I actually say that? Was I possibly edited in a weird way? Or am I actually an idiot?
2. Bargaining: Was there a way that I could have written that thing I wrote that would have made me immune to ridicule? Why didn’t I think to write it that way? Maybe I can contact my editor and ask to have it changed?
3. Defensiveness: What do these people have against me?
4. Passive-aggressiveness: Can I say something witty and cutting, or perhaps ironic and humble, thereby shutting them down?
5. Commiseration-seeking: Maybe I can complain about this on a more sympathetic social networking platform and get my friends to say nice things about me.
6. Realism: No. That’s pathetic. It’s best just to move on and work through it.
7. Self-hatred: I can’t believe I read the comments. Never read the comments! I’m such an idiot.
8. Anger-sadness: What’s wrong with people anyway? Why are they so rude?
9. More self-hatred: Why do I even care? What’s wrong with me?
10. Bargaining: How long will it take until I don’t think about this anymore? What do I need to do?
11. Self-hatred, part III: Seriously, why did I even read the comments? Idiot! You know better.
12. White-hot anger: You know what? They’re the losers, anyway. They’re the ones hanging out on a comments thread, just tearing people down. Haters.
13. Self-righteousness: If you think about it, I kind of kick ass for putting myself out there. Yeah, that’s it.
14. Realism: Oh, well. In about ten minutes I’ll forget about this.
15. Showering: Showering.
16. Nirvana: Forgetting.
Tags: claire zulkey, fear and self loathing, haters, internet, showers, writing
NEVER RESPOND
NEVER RESPOND
No matter how wrong they are NEVER RESPOND
I have learned this from watching many writer meltdowns online. NEVER RESPOND.
I suffer from severe anxiety about submitting work to places with open comment threads because I hate being misunderstood and criticised and no matter how well you write something you can’t control how other people read it. And then some people are very agressive about their reading and about making assumptions about your character based on it and you’re sat there thinking ‘no, but wait..’
And the thing is I think that should be allowed to happen – articles and fiction should spark discussion about subjects and concerns, and sometimes there’s going to be elements to a piece that the author didn’t catch could imply or feed into *x destructive thing* and they need to be criticised so that they can catch it next time! Is good!
I just know that if ten people say ‘yay, great’ and two say ‘Umm, not sure’ and one person says ‘this is awful and you’re awful and I suspect you burn kittens alive’ I’m gonna listen to the last one.
I sometimes think I should write for Cracked, because I’m good at lists and people tell me I’m funny but Oh GOD the comments section there. It’s like… dropping blood in a shark tank if the sharks were really awful misogynists and trolls.
Yay way to go me for making this all about MEEEEEE
The extra-ridiculous thing about Cracked is that they brag about how great and thoughtful and un-trolly their comments section is. I always wonder if anyone over there has ever read a comment section other than youtube.
It’s not the worst comment section on the internet to be sure, but they are far from being ‘thoughtful’. Some individual comments are, but the whole section… no.
I was a bit scared when I wrote my things for the Hairpin, but everyone was super nice! there was one person who got mildly judgy but it was in a much more general sense, so even that wasn’t that personal.
TL;DR: Only write/read the Hairpin and the Toast.
also, hi Claire Zulkey! I like you and your writings, glad to see you here.
I was amazed by how nice by and large people were when I wrote a thing about drinking while pregnant. And obviously if I was reading the comments on a post like that it’s pretty evident that I’m a bit of an internet masochist.
(and hi and thanks!)
Toast/Hairpin is trustworthy comments! Unfortunately the AV Club is split and you never know if you’re going to see harmless punning or a screed about Rihanna, re: asking for it. You are a brave woman.
My biggest achievement/worst failure in writing was the piece I did on the Billfold about DC gentrification which somehow did not produce a torrent of insane arguments, racism, NIMBYism, “The Plan”, and “I lived here in the 80s” in the comments. Must do better/worse next time.
See: the platonic ideal of a DC comments thread.
Ugghhhhh. I got that sick stomach feeling just reading these. So far I am good at 1-14 and okay at 15. 16 never.
17. Hilarity. Months later, someone sends you a link to a forum where insane people are STILL obsessing over that thing you wrote and you realize that you have totally and completely won and oh my god there are some strange, sad people on the internet so let’s just double check those Facebook privacy settings again and what the hell does “Pete Gaines is a Chicago hater” even MEAN? Maybe this one is just me.
(also, yes, “Yay way to go me for making this all about MEEEEEE” as well, sorry)
There are people in the world who will never forgive you an awkwardly phrased sentence, or a mistake and will assume that everything you write is meant 100% literally and even if you say sorry they will follow you forever telling people that you are AWFUL BECAUSE OF THIS.
And in some cases they are right.
But those cases are few and far between.
The other thing that the trolls and weirdos will never forgive: a mildly clickbaity headline that you had absolutely nothing to do with on a thing you wrote.
They will also never forgive you for picture captions that you had no control over. Just like they will never forgive yoy for a terrible book cover, which is only your fault if you self-pubbed.
Also there are people who believe that fiction writers agree with every opinion their characters espouse. I always want to tell them that while there are millions of racist, sexist and homophobic writers out there, having a sexist, racist or homophobic character doesn’t make a person one of them. Literary analysis is a bit more complex than that.
I was hoping for a Maria Bustillos byline when I saw the title. This was good though!
“Why do I even care? What’s wrong with me” is my usual stage 4-20 million until I get to fuck everything and then start a new day with new stuff to write. UGH THE INTERNET.
Where is the step for when you think “But look at all the overwhelmingly positive comments, which way out number the one negative comment, which when you think about it, isn’t even that bad, because the person just calls you stupid multiple times, and can’t come up with another synonym for stupid, which is really saying something about them, and not about me…”?
Immediately followed by repeating step 7. NEVER READ THE COMMENTS SELF, YOU KNOW BETTER
Immediately followed by thinking “But it’s the Hairpin, where all the comments are usually so good, and most of these are good, except for this one, and it’s not even by a regular commenter!”
Repeat, ad nauseum
but isn’t it nice when the community steps in to correct that one person?
It is, but if it’s a late comment, sometimes it goes amiss. But it’s not like I really needed people to come to my defense. I was just surprised by the lone negative comment in a sea of positive ones.
The mop head reminds me of Gilgamesh! 🙂
I just never read the comments on anything I’ve written ever, and if I do by accident, I PRETEND IT NEVER HAPPENED. Denial is awesome.
I just never read the comments on anything I've written ever, and if I do by accident, I PRETEND IT NEVER HAPPENED. Denial is awesome.
This reminds of the days when I used to be a regular commenter at AV Club and straight-up stopped commenting and wrote an angry letter to the editor after some horrible fat/body-shaming stuff a few years ago. Even though it wasn’t directed toward the author (rather, toward Beth Ditto), it made me hate internet comments.
I can only imagine if that level of ire were actually directed at me . . . yikes!
I am not a writer, but this definitely applies to every single email exchange with my ex.
(Courtesy of http://fuckiminmy20s.tumblr.com/ )
Wonderful post! I’m going through this now. I have to tell myself it’s like art – subjective. That these comments are their opinion and perception. And chocolate helps-lots of it 🙂
GOD, this is hilarious.
I just had my biggest comment-generator piece yet (The NY Times, parenting column, calling out social class elitism in public schools). I stopped reading after 150 comments and it’s still climbing. I expected this of course. My main reaction is that some comments are just irrelevant, off-topic. Also if “you” [commenter] never did this, why are you so upset I (and other commenters) said some people did. Right now I feel like J.D. Salinger–not that I want to date 20 year old girls, but I’d like to move to remote part of Vermont.