Hate Mail
I had to read it twice to make sure it wasn’t a mistake or a joke, but sure enough – the email was filled with hate and profanity, and it was addressed to me. I received my first hate mail yesterday!
The writer/ hater, who is apparently female and (shockingly) chose to remain anonymous, is quite annoyed with me in general, but she finds my personal finance posts and my nutrition/ diet posts especially offensive.
According to her, I am a “rich, skinny bitch who has no f_____ idea about real people with real problems.” She generously adds a valuable piece of advice, saying that I “seriously need to shut the f___ up” and stop dishing out advice about topics I know absolutely nothing about.
Since I am fairly new to the blogging game, I wasn’t quite sure how to handle this, so I turned to fellow bloggers to see how they cope with hate mail.
This is what I found:
Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz is delighted with hate mail just as much as she enjoys her supportive readers. She says, “to all of my readers – every day, you delight me. Your comments and your hate mail and your fan mail and your Tweets and your blog posts make this whole work-from-home lunacy the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done… I am very, very grateful for all of you.” It looks like Naomi likes the interaction and attention – good or bad.
Scott H. Young thinks that “if you’re not getting hate mail, you’re writing probably sucks“. He adds, “It took me a while to realize this, but hate mail can actually be a sign you’re doing something right. Truly awful stuff gets ignored.” I find it mildly encouraging to think that I am not writing “truly awful stuff.”
Mad Kane embraces hate mail too and sees it as part of the freedom of speech. She rhymes, “I never will fret over hate mail I get: this is freedom, for better or worse.”
So, hate mail is just part of the game? I should not be alarmed at all? According to Scott, I should even congratulate myself on receiving it. Well, I am not exactly going to frame that email and hang it on the wall, but I think I will start a “hate mail” folder and save those emails. In a way, they are proof that people read, react and respond.
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Naomi Dunford responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 7:27 am →
My totally unasked for input — the first ten are hard. Then you can start laughing about it. A good way to handle it are to find some blog posts that made the front page of Digg and check out the comments. Those guys send hate comments like it’s a sport, but it makes you realize how uninformed a lot of the haters are.
I did a joke piece talking about how I didn’t know who Ron Paul was and I got called a typical stupid voter and I was just going to end up voting for someone who I thought was sexy (or something to that effect.) Well, since I’m Canadian I’m unlikely to vote for anyone in the upcoming election — sexy or otherwise. The most recent one (that hit the front page, no less) got me “this guy needs to get laid.” Uh, this guy is not a guy at all.
If that doesn’t work, find your favorite best-selling novel and check out the reviews on Amazon. It helps put things in perspective. There’s a whole subculture of people who hate things just because they’re popular. Congratulations on your first hatemail!
Hunter Nuttall responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 8:08 am →
I agree with Scott. Lots of people out there are full of hate, and ready to unleash it at any moment. The way to avoid hate mail is to be so bland that you’re not expressing one ounce of opinion or personality. Those people probably don’t get any love mail either.
So, congratulations, I guess! BTW, it wasn’t me!
MomGrind responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 9:37 am →
Thanks, Naomi. Unasked for, but helpful. I think I was more shocked by the hatred than I cared to admit.
Hunter – thanks… and I’m so glad it wasn’t you.
Chris responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 10:54 am →
Thank the haters because they are adding to your traffic. I got plenty of them already and I am pretty nice guy.
Keep Writing!!!
MomGrind responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 12:02 pm →
Thank you for the support, Chris. I’m a pretty nice girl too.
Jill responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 1:31 pm →
Oh, sweetie, I am so sorry! Your fellow bloggers gave you some great advice here. I’m at work right now, but I will call you tonight. Hang in there.
Mark Krusen responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 1:46 pm →
I’m jealous of you. I haven’t had my first hate email yet. If your making someone mad your doing something right. I feel left out. Will you come over to my blog and chew me out for bashing Hillary Clinton or something. Surely you can find something to bash me about.
hank responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 2:21 pm →
The way I handle it is to think of the audience out there; your audience is EVERYONE ON THE PLANET. There are nice people, funny people, happy people, and believe it or not, angry people.
I’m in the same boat as Hunter in saying that there are haters in the world and that’s just how it is – you’ll probably get more of them too, but don’t let it get to you.
MomGrind responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 2:59 pm →
@Jill – thanks.
@ hank – thank you. That’s a good way to see it. When I write, I think about the relatively small circle of my friends and acquaintances. I do tend to forget that when you publish on the world wide web, the audience is much larger than that.
artiphys (dbm) responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 8:21 pm →
hi V –
I agree with all the comments here. I have no hate mail yet, and actually it’s a bit distressing. I assume it’s simply because I have near zero readership.
When I played in a band, there were people (some rather influential unfortunately) who *really* hated us. Like not just didn’t like us, but actively thought we were something terrible, bad for music & society, etc. That just egged us on. You have to have a bit of a “screw it, I’m not pulling punches” attitude when you do something creative. It’s always a bit of a ‘transgressive act’, to paraphrase post-modern lit crit folk.
I was going to say avoiding hate mail will make you like Kenny G, but then I remembered — I really, really hate him! So that explains how to some people he’s OK, I guess. (NOT!!)
MomGrind responds:
Posted: April 7th, 2008 at 9:13 pm →
@ Dan – thanks for visiting.
“You have to have a bit of a “screw it, I’m not pulling punches” attitude when you do something creative. ” – I guess. Need to work on that.
@Mark – I’m on my way to visit your blog.
garry responds:
Posted: April 8th, 2008 at 9:59 am →
Hate is a normal part of society nowadays and I suppose its something we all better get use too if our blogs start to receive high volumes of traffic. I would say hate mail in a crazy sort of way is a sign of success. I think the best answer to hate mail is to treat it with the contempt it deserves. Maybe I will do an article on the mind-set of a hater………
MomGrind responds:
Posted: April 8th, 2008 at 10:22 am →
@garry = “Maybe I will do an article on the mind-set of a hater” – please do! Will be happy to read it.
The Masked Millionaire responds:
Posted: April 19th, 2008 at 5:21 pm →
There was a post on ProBlogger that dealt with handling negative comments.
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/04/19/how-to-deal-with-negative-comments-on-your-blog/
MomGrind responds:
Posted: April 19th, 2008 at 5:33 pm →
@ The Masked Millionaire: Thank you!
Hate Mail: Apparently, I’m a Bad Mom | MomGrind responds:
Posted: September 15th, 2008 at 1:02 am →
[...] can have such a strong emotional reaction to someone that they never even met. When I received my first hate mail, I was crushed. I had a very hard time accepting that someone could feel so much HATE towards me [...]
Ellen Wilson responds:
Posted: September 15th, 2008 at 5:12 am →
Scott H. Young. That’s who said it.
Ellen Wilson’s last blog post..Clean the Toilet and Become a Writer
How To Survive A Bashing In Blogosphere | Blogging Without A Blog responds:
Posted: October 29th, 2008 at 11:45 pm →
[...] Even smaller bloggers get “hit”. Catherine Lawson has, as have Hunter Nuttal Vered, of MomGrind and Natural of Thinking Out [...]
Dot Com Dud responds:
Posted: October 30th, 2008 at 6:51 pm →
I haven’t gotten any hate mail (yet) but if I did and they were as cheesy as other ones I have seen people get, I don’t think I could stop myself from laughing long enough to take it seriously. Although I do respect anyone who can fit that means swear words into an email.
Dot Com Dud’s last blog post..How I Promoted My First Blog Contest