I Finally Had a Proper Hater Response to My Story
My writing touched a sensitive nerve; here’s what to do if this happens to you.
Not everyone will love your writing, and it’s not your job to defend it to those who don’t.
Rule number one? Don’t engage. Just ignore the unsolicited criticism and move on. Focus on the occasional critiques that are helpful and useful — the ones that will actually help you improve your writing. Or better still the encouraging ones that tell you your writing is relatable.
No two people will have the exact same opinion on a piece of writing. In fact, it’s common for many people to have the exact opposite opinion about the same piece, having had an entirely personal and unique experience while reading it.
It’s important to remember when dealing with criticism that it is just one person’s opinion on your work. It isn’t the be-all and end-all of your writing career, it’s just a single view that might be shared by some and completely opposed by others.
You have to be happy with what you put out into the world. It’s ultimately up to you to decide what feels right and to stay true to yourself.
A few months ago I wrote a piece titled “Is Our Feminism Ardent Enough in 2020?” You can find it here:
Fast-forward to when I received a late response to my story that surprised me with its tone and content.
From somebody who describes herself on her profile as an “egalitarian and feminism critic”, her response told me what a “real” feminist actually believes and how I got it all wrong.
I could have expended some reactionary energy on a pithy and terse reply refuting her “suspicions” about my stated facts and assertions. But I recognized that it would have been a waste of my time.
Remember you will never change their minds
Facts and reasoned argument don’t change minds once those minds are made up. Due to several psychological phenomena, such as confirmation bias, it is pointless challenging entrenched views, even when they are factually incorrect ones.
When presented with evidence people disagree with, they will often construct a counter-argument in their heads that further cements their viewpoint.
We like to be right, so we seek out the evidence that supports our views and ignore anything contrary.
I made the decision not to reply at all
I laughed off the bizarre claims my respondent made and decided to use her response as a means to illustrate the point of this article.
The best thing you can do in response to harmless trolls and haters is to rise above them. I qualified that statement with “harmless” due to the fact that some trolls and haters make death threats and are anything but harmless. Those are not the people I’m referring to here.
Astute observers will notice that I framed my original article title on ardent feminism as a question. I was opening up a debate for my readers as to the issues feminists face today and exploring this, as any good writer would, from several angles and with wide and relevant research into the opening thesis.
The best thing you can do in response to harmless trolls and haters is to rise above them.
My claims and assertions within the article were formed not only from my own personal opinion about the need for continued feminist activism but also from a distillation of facts and events.
My detractor, in her lengthy, personal and vitriolic response, accused me of gaslighting, exaggerating, and not understanding some of the words I was using in my own article.
“I suspect you’re flat-out wrong in your claim,” she said at one point, because she didn’t know the facts. She was just guessing, or suspecting, because her views were opposed to mine, not because she knew any differently.
What made her refute my claims was not lack of evidence or the inadequacy of my research, but that due to her unshakeable views that she holds, she simply couldn’t accept or compute the facts that I was presenting.
If I had been a much younger writer, with less experience of the real world, I might have been offended or upset.
But as a relatively worldly wise woman now, I saw it for what it was: just a knee-jerk response full of hot air and hatred and of no relevance to me. Her response was not really about my article, it was about her anger finding an outlet.
I have no interest in naming and shaming her. That’s not my style. I have more of a “live and let live” approach to life and want quality and equality of life for all people, regardless of whatever prejudices and insecurities they harbour.
Her words didn’t hurt me because she didn’t speak from a place of knowledge or understanding, but rather from a lack of both, and with no interest in trying to understand or empathize with the differing view that I had presented.
As Shakespeare’s Hamlet might have said, it was, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Always reflect before you react
If you open a response to one of your stories and it is full of negative statements aimed at you, the best thing you can do is take a beat, reflect, reread the response and check whether its author has anything valid to say. If you can see that they have few followers and no profile photo, they are a troll, and not worth a second thought.
If they appear to be a writer with a reasonable following, have a look at their own work and assess whether they write about anything interesting. If the answer is no, simply ignore them and move on.
Your sanity and integrity as a writer is the most important thing to consider and protect in this situation.
It is highly unlikely that a good writer will leave an unpleasant response on your article. They will be too busy writing articles of their own that their readers will want to read.
There are trolls in all realms of the internet, including here on Medium. It is almost inevitable that someone will take umbrage to something you have written.
Your sanity and integrity as a writer is the most important thing to consider and protect in this situation.
Try to see it as a badge of honour
You know you have made it as a writer when someone is really irritated by something you have written. Sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is hearing someone else’s conflicting opinion of how it should be, and how you’re doing it wrong.
If you know your sources are good and your reasoning is sound, you can brush criticism off like water off a duck’s back and be reassured by your own diligent research.
Often haters are there to express their own projections of jealousy and envy because you’re doing, having, or being someone they wish they could be. They’re projecting their dissatisfactions onto you, and it’s not your problem to fix, correct, or satisfy them.
It just gives you a greater incentive to keep speaking your truth, voicing your opinion, and being awesome. You do you, and you do it best.