Oh So Clear

How to Deal with Angry Comments from Readers

8 strategies that have worked for me

If you ever write a story that takes off, you’ll face a horde of people sweeping in who have no idea who you are. And that’s great. You want new people to find you. That’s the whole point of publishing your words online.

However, if the topic you wrote about is even slightly controversial, some of these people are likely to misinterpret your well-argued and nuanced essay and instead of engaging in a civilized exchange of opinions, they’ll immediately declare you an enemy that needs to be squashed.

They’ll furiously scowl at the words you dared to write, let out an ear-piercing warcry, and proceed to swing their battle keyboard. Like Bruce Banner — after getting a swift kick in the nuts — they’ll transform into an ugly rampaging destructive green monster whose goal is to tear you down.

Now, maybe you actually published something stupid. So it’s always worth considering the points of view that are streaming into your comment section and see if there’s something to them. If so, the enlightened thing to do is to acknowledge your stupid blunder and perhaps add a correction or addendum to your post.

But assuming you didn’t, assuming the words you put out actually conveyed a reasonable and cogent argument, you may still get bludgeoned by battle keyboards.

In that case, you will be left scratching your tits wondering what the heck just happened: “Wait. What? I never said that! No! That’s not what I think! Geez… I thought I made it clear in the first paragraph that this is NOT my opinion!”

You see, people often don’t argue against what you said. They argue against a caricature of what you said. What’s more, often they don’t even argue against a caricature of what you said, but against a caricature of something someone else said.

They assume you’re a member of an enemy tribe and they’ll attack an upside-down completely distorted and hyperbolic version of that tribe’s talking points — even though you may not even consider yourself a member of that stupid tribe!

It can be an ugly thing to experience and your first instinct might be to grab your grandfather’s battle keyboard from the wall above the fireplace and start dishing out some “I’ll teach you” yourself.

But that’s not what you should do. It will just lead to a full-blown flame war. And that will not only ruin your beautiful day, but make you look unhinged to onlookers and harm your reputation.

So, here are 8 things you can do instead of getting into a brawl if you ever face the wrath of a keyboard warrior.

1. Don’t be too quick to judge

The comment that in your mind sounds like vicious barking may not actually be intended that way.

Remember that a lot of subtlety is lost in written communication. It’s often hard to convey the right tone and most readers are not professional writers themselves. They just blurt out what comes to their mind without giving it much thought. And since you can’t see whether they’re clenching their teeth or smiling, the way their words sound in your head may not be how they sounded in theirs.

So always consider the possibility that the reader just wanted to chime in with their point of view and a curt or even hostile tone was completely unintended.

2. Don’t take it personally

Remember that the random person leaving mean comments on your post is not actually attacking you.

They’ve never met you, never talked to you in person, never spent an afternoon with you. They literally don’t know who you are. At best they know a couple of factoids about you and have triangulated a distorted mockup of you on which they put some horns. So what they’re attacking is not you but that evil horned mockup they created in their minds.

If you think about it this way, it’s actually simultaneously sad and funny. They’re like some modern Don Quixote fighting windmills and you’re the windmill. But what it’s not is something worth getting upset about.

3. Don’t give disproportionate weight to angry comments

You might get 20 comments telling you how funny, interesting, insightful, accurate, and plain out awesome your post is and one little comment saying “Ugh… What an utter piece of garbage.” Guess which one will have the bigger emotional impact on you? Guess which one you’ll be thinking about for an hour?

But it’s important to keep things in perspective. The vast majority of people actually enjoyed your writing and told you so. And there are probably many more that enjoyed your writing and didn’t tell you.

And if it’s really that rare case where everyone is pissed at you, then you just have to accept that you probably did push some explosive buttons. That’s not much of a biggie either. If you don’t want the drama, you can always delete your story. Or apologize if it's appropriate. There’s more drama tomorrow and yours will soon be forgotten.

4. Don’t take it as a critique of your writing skills

Some people have very strong opinions about some topics. And so a story expressing an opposite point of view will attract the wrath of fanatics even if it was written by the brainchild of a writers’ orgy attended by Shakespeare, Twain, Austin, Tolstoy, Orwell, Dickens, etc.

In other words, to some people, it doesn’t matter how well-written and argued your piece is. You could have won both a Nobel Peace Prize and a Literature Prize for it and it wouldn’t matter. If you’re giving voice to a hated opinion, they’ll descend upon you like killer bees whose queen you’ve stabbed to death in her nest while you were fishing for honey with a wooden spoon.

5. Battle unkindness with kindness

Generally, you’ll find that kindness is disarming. Rude people are not expecting it.

While they’re waiting for your reply, they’re shadowboxing in front of their computer, sharpening their keyboard on a grindstone, and putting bullets into the battery tray of their mouse. If you then respond with a friendly tone, they often don’t know how to respond. They end up as baffled as if they tried to swing a punch at you and you skillfully dodged it to then proceed to caress and kiss them.

In the best case, they then adopt a friendly tone too and you can then have a friendly debate and resolve any misunderstandings. And in the worst case, they’ll remain combative, in which case at least to onlookers you’ll come across as the one who isn’t being a jerk.

Either way, make sure you err on the side of being effusively friendly. After all, just because something sounded sweet and friendly in your head doesn’t mean it will sound the same way to someone whose forehead hemorrhoids are about to pop.

6. Don’t take yourself too seriously

First, remember again that you might be wrong and that some of the angry commenters might actually have a very valid point.

Second, acting all righteous and serious as if you have the capital TRUTH often just escalates things. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re not. Either way, rage lecturing isn’t the best approach. On the other hand, if you take a lighthearted approach and even add some self-deprecating humor, this often helps de-escalate things.

7. See it as an opportunity to improve your reputation

Often, when you’re engaging with someone in your comments, there might be hundreds or even thousands of onlookers taking note of how you’re dealing with the challenge.

This can be a bit intimidating, but it’s also a great opportunity. After all, if you want to earn a reputation for being reasonable, friendly, and thoughtful, there’s no better way of showing that to your readers than letting the silent majority of them see how you handle someone who’s disagreeing with you in a rude way.

8. And if all else fails…

If despite your best efforts, the other person just keeps acting viciously towards you, walk away. Fighting on the Internet seems to be a kink for some people and you don’t have to fellate their angry brains.

In fact, if someone doesn’t even attempt to offer counterarguments to your post and just plain out insults you, I’d just right out delete their comments. Remember, you wrote the story and the comment section underneath it is your turf. And if someone comes up to your turf and leaves a stinking pile of crap, you can just throw it straight out.

Examples of comments I personally would immediately delete include unoriginal classics like the following:

Ugh… What an utter piece of garbage.

The author of this piece is a complete idiot. How can people even like this sh*t?

This is the stupidest drivel I’ve ever read. There go five minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.

And if you can’t delete or hide such obnoxious comments, then just completely ignore them. These stinking poopers are really not worth your time :)

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