If you are a woman on the internet, or god forbid, anyone at all, it’s highly likely that you’ve experienced “hate” online. Ranging from the serious and illegal (death threats, intimidation, and hate speech) to the purely mean-spirited and unkind, dealing with hate seems almost completely inevitable when you are putting content out into the world.
As someone with an online presence, I have been mentally preparing myself to receive hate for years. Logically, I know that when people are mean to you in the comments, it is usually a side effect of success; symbolising that you’ve broken through your own bubble (full of people who are nice) and made it out into the Real World (full of people who are not.)
But, once it actually, finally happened, it was a lot harder to hear the logical side of my brain over the emotional side, who spent the next four hours resisting the urge to find the commenters’ mums on Facebook and send them a strongly worded message about how their adult son is spending their time being rude to a 20-something teenage girl online.
Unfortunately, It’s hard-wired into us that we want people to like us, and when they don’t, it can be hard to put it to the side.
While I am the first person to acknowledge that having meaningful conversations often involves disagreement and constructive criticism, hate too often seems to be coming from a place of solely wanting to tear others down. We can see this occurring through the wider lens of celebrity culture, specifically through the treatment of Chappell Roan. One minute, people were praising her for being open about her bipolar II and depression diagnoses, and cheering her on for setting boundaries with disrespectful paparazzi at the VMAs – and then a mere 16 days later, people were sending her hate for cancelling a show because of her mental health. Suddenly, Chappell wasn’t an inspiration anymore - but rather an entitled “diva” fulfilling her own prophecy of The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess.
The short attention span of the internet doesn’t seem to reward empathy, or critical thinking, but rather creates a group of people who are desperate to be seen giving a “hot take” – even when that hot take makes them an enormous hypocrite.
These kinds of hate comments force celebrities to fall on double edged swords again and again. Emily Mariko gets hate for not talking enough, while Drew Afualo gets hate for talking too much. Shit You Should Care About gets hate when they post political content, while simultaneously being flooded with comments parroting “this is not shit I should care about!” when they post a picture of Harry Styles. Britney Spears gets hate comments for dancing in her own house. Kelley Heyer, inventor of the Apple dance, gets hate for “being an attention seeker” (aka, not retiring into a cave after going viral), and DollarTreeDinners gets hate for *checks notes* helping people make affordable meals on a budget.
I saw a video of a woman making a tomato sandwich, and you guessed it, the comments were full of hate criticising her for “wasting such a good tomato.”
The “Gen Z boss and a mini” crew were told to ‘get back in the kitchen’ simply for being women with jobs, and if you open your window and stick your head out right now, you can probably hear the keyboard clacks of a middle aged man typing out an angry Facebook comment in Vic Deals about how much he hates [insert literally anything here].
You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t, so you might as well show up as your authentic self, online and offline.
If you are a writer, an artist, a business owner, a content creator, a comedian, a photographer, a model, a fashion designer, an actor, or a creative of any kind, you’re probably familiar with these kinds of public jabs. Putting yourself out into the world is hard enough without your worst fears about yourself being “confirmed” by Losers with Laptops Incorporated.
So the next time someone tries to make you feel small, please read these 10 reminders to help you remember who you really are.
10 reasons to love your hate mail
1. The coolest person you know gets sent hate
The coolest, smartest, kindest and most brilliant person you know gets hate comments. This is an absolute guarantee. Someone wakes up everyday and decides to call Taylor Swift lazy and untalented. Lady Gaga gets hate comments, Beyoncé gets hate comments, and if your grandma started a public TikTok account, she’d get hate comments too.
Hate comments are often not a reflection of the value of your work, but rather are a badge of honour to wear, something to show you are joining the prestigious and glorious list of people who are cool enough to make others feel insecure. You are now the man in the arena, in the same league as the other creatives you know and love.
2. Not everyone is meant to ‘get you’
Amelia Dimoldenberg revealed that at uni, her project (Chicken Shop Date) earnt her one of the lowest grades in her class. Despite her idea being original, funny, completely refreshing, and well executed, people told her it wasn’t good enough. Now, I can’t even imagine a world without Chicken Shop Date in it. Imagine if she didn’t back herself up, double down, and decide to be her own biggest fan.
If you have to fight for your good ideas to be recognised, then so be it – not everyone is going to like your work, and not everyone has to. After all, do you like every movie you’ve ever seen? Every song you’ve ever heard? Everyone you’ve ever met? You’re not supposed to. The only thing you are supposed to be is completely unshakeable about the value of your own ideas and confident that the people who get it, will get it.
3. Hate can mean you’re saying something that matters
People who don’t get any hate are probably saying a whole lot of nothing. The answer to avoid ruffling any feathers is to stay as bland, generic and non-divisive as possible.
If you want to be the kind of person who moves through the world without expressing any of your opinions, beliefs, thoughts or feelings, this might be achievable! However, making yourself smaller to be more palatable to others should not be anyone’s personal definition of success. If you’re getting hate because you’re expressing nuanced, critical thoughts, standing up for what is right, or being your true and vulnerable self, pat yourself on the back.
[Disclaimer: despite this, even the most milquetoast content can get you hate too. You could say “I love Hawaiian pizza!” and get a barrage of comments about how offensive it was for you to post that because some people are allergic to pineapples and can’t enjoy it as brazenly as you do, and thus you should repent for years to come. If people want to hate on you, they will find a way to do so, so you might as well go down for something you stand by.]
4. Hate can mean you’re on the pulse
If people are getting heated about something you’ve said or done, it can be a reflection that you’ve identified a hot topic and have recognised something that people actually care about.
Hate can be a reflection of having great journalistic instincts – it might even be a sign that you are way ahead of your time, and are trying to have a conversation that people aren’t quite ready for yet. The first person to try to bring back wide leg jeans would have gotten hate, and look where we all are right now…
5. Hate is great for engagement
While receiving hate can make it feel like your content or art is doing badly, this is not necessarily the case. Hate is excellent for your engagement; everyone leaving you a mean comment is boosting your work and helping it to reach more people who might appreciate it.
Take the Art Basel Banana, for example: so many people fought about whether this was “art” or not, arguing in the comments and writing articles about how much they hated it - which was exactly the artist’s intention. He wanted to start a critical discussion about what counts as art, and each hate comment he got fuelled that discussion.
There are even content creators who make their living off ‘rage bait,’ getting followers from videos of themselves infuriatingly choosing the wrong dress for a black tie wedding and making it a 12-part series. While at times this is low-hanging fruit, using people’s own readiness to join an angry mob and then monetising it can put food on the table and hold up a mirror to the culture at large.
6. No one worth worrying about actually sends hate
Think of the coolest people you know again. Do they leave public hate comments, blatantly tearing people down for no reason? Do they belittle small creators, or openly hate on people more successful than them? I bet you they don’t. The people whose opinions are worth caring about aren’t the ones leaving you hate at all – because they’re busy sleeping like a baby at night knowing they’re not the kind of person who spews ludicrous vitriol out into the ether.
7. Every hate comment is an opportunity to love yourself
Love is a verb. If having good self esteem is a muscle you have to build up, hate comments are an F45 class. Each and every negative thing said about you is an opportunity to prove to yourself that deep down, you care more about what you think of yourself than what other people think of you.
After reading my own mean comments, part of me was hurt – but another, bigger part of me felt stronger than I did before, because while I did let them ruin my mood, temporarily, I didn’t let them ruin my self worth.
8. Receiving hate is doing charity work
When Keyboard Warrior Steve needs a dopamine hit after a long, hard day of disappointing his mum, that’s when he’ll hit send on a hate comment. Thank you for being a vessel for Steve’s self hatred, which otherwise would have sat inside him and rotted away – he isn’t strong enough to handle that kind of thing, but you are. Afterwards, you’ll quickly forget these comments and move on with your life, boldly creating art or contributing to work you find meaningful – so thank you very much for your kind donation to the Keyboard Warriors Association, they really needed it!
9. It’s nice to have an enemy
Having an enemy is a gift. Just like that one episode of Phineas and Ferb where they sing about the joy of having a nemesis, sometimes, having an imaginary opponent is the best motivation of all. If you’re someone who wants to do something even more after being told you can’t do it, you’ll get where I’m coming from.
The best part of this is being able to listen to songs like Mean and scream them with your whole chest: One day I’ll be living in a big old city, and all you’re EVER GONNA BE IS MEAN!!! Issa Knife!! Book a two hour karaoke session and feel so, so alive.
10. Their hate shows they don’t know what they’re talking about
As Sabrina Carpenter said in a recent interview about receiving hate, when people’s comments are completely untrue, instead of infuriating her more, they simply remind her that these people have no idea what they’re talking about.
Knowing that you can just say the most egregious things without anyone fact-checking anything is a great reminder that a lot of the time, no one even cares what you do, and their criticisms aren’t genuine or personal, but more of a reflection of them.
Despite all of this, it is also important to note that not all hate is created equally: death threats, ‘revenge porn,’ deep fakes, defamation, stalkers, and other situations that put you in actual danger cannot be excused or ignored. They are classified as cyber crimes and you should look into what actions can be taken to keep you safe.
As for hating for hate’s sake, the next time someone is being cruel online, remember, “you can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches. Ignore the critics…Only mediocrity is safe from ridicule.” - Dita Von Teese.
Go forth and be peachy.
