Lessons in social media: Delete sh*t. Stop giving trolls credibility. Write for your TRUE audience.

Posted on June 6, 2012 by elizabeth

There was a time when I rarely deleted mean comments. I let them stand. I thought I was being “intellectually honest.” I let people call me names. I let people crap all over my thoughts and feelings because, you know, I thought it was the open-minded thing to do.

I had this one commenter to whom I gave DOZENS of chances to play nice. And every.single.comment was negative. Always finding fault. You know what I finally realized? THIS IS NOT MY PROBLEM because no matter HOW I say something, trolls find fault with anything and everything. These are the people who wear the lenses of “believing the worst” and everything they see, they criticize.

It wasn’t until I started writing my book that I realized how much my writing had been affected by nasty comments. Since I write about religion (a notoriously divisive topic!) I’ve adopted this defensive stance. I’m constantly trying to pre-empt detractors. I’m so worried about saying it THE RIGHT WAY with offending ANYONE that I literally can’t write a sentence without all kinds of equivocations. I realized I was writing FOR the trolls, instead of for my TRUE audience.

I’m done with that. Today, a “fan” on my FB page left one of the most cruel and nasty comments I’ve ever read. And it was a tipping point because it involved my daughter. Yeah, THAT crosses a line. You don’t mess with my babies.

So, from now on, I’m deleting sh*t. Because guess what? I know 99% of my audience loves me–maybe they don’t agree with everything I say, but YOU LOVE ME.

And I want to write to YOU. I don’t want to write from a defensive posture. I don’t want to write from this place of second-guessing.

If I let the trolls silence me or even ruin my happiness, I’m not being true to YOU–those of you who keep reading, those of you who love me, who see me, who GET IT.

If I write for the trolls, I’m not being true to ME.

True, comments are the secret sauce of blogs and I love me a good discussion just as much as the next person. But for far too long, I’ve given trolls WAY too much credibility.

Why did I give trolls so much credibility? Why did I automatically dismiss all the good comments and then focus–with laser-like intensity–on the mean ones? It’s like I gave the nasty commenters PhD’s. It’s like I imagined them sitting in their million-dollar pent houses above Central Park, coming up with all these erudite thoughts. And I was all: YEAH! That person is SO RIGHT! I totally SUCK as a human being!

Hello. In reality, people who leave consistently negative, crappy comments? They ARE, undoubtedly, the most UNHAPPY people in the world. Can you imagine how much energy they spend on critical and negative? Dude! How exhausting! And when I allow their comments to stand, I just enable their toxicity.

Moderating sh*t is ridiculous. I should just be FLUSHING it (or using it to fertilize my vegetable garden–who am i kidding? I don’t have a veggie garden!). Responding to stupidity is a WASTE of my time. From now on, it will be summarily deleted. No explanation. Yes, I will BLOCK YOU FROM MY SITE. With impunity. Without explanation.

Because here’s the thing: I wouldn’t allow someone to treat me like that in real life. And now, I’m done allowing it on my blog.

The rest of you—THE MAJORITY OF YOU–deserve the best of me. And I truly am an open, kind, empathetic, loving, funny, personable human being. I will delete mean-ness because I want to be FREE to give YOU my best, freest and most open-hearted writing. Yes, we can ALL get along!!

DUDE.

***p.s. this has to be the fastest written post in the history of my blog. i literally banged it out in 10 minutes.

***p.p.s. lesson of the day: don’t let the ignorant comments from random strangers ruin your happiness! Enjoy life! Be YOU! Also, the hillllllls are alliiiiiiive with the sound of muuuuusic***

This entry was posted in SmartAssery, Weblogs, Writing. Bookmark the permalink.
  • Mark S.

    Yes!!!!

  • Barbie

    Sweetheart, what you are doing is modeling solid mental health and owning your personal God-given power.

    • Anonymous

      OK, I totally didn’t think of that, but you’re RIGHT! My therapist would be so proud of me today! :)

  • http://twitter.com/Saint_Upid Chad Thomas Johnston

    I totally relate to the experience of writing with trolls in mind. I recently had to unfriend someone on Facebook  because he could never say anything kind, and his comments lingered in my mind well after they appeared on my page. Without his input, I was happy to create for the sake of creating. But he built an outpost in my head and staked out my every status update as if he was hunting for game. 

    We who insist on writing for the public cannot let the public ruin the very gifts we so enjoying sharing with the portion of the public that actually appreciates them. It’s an ongoing learning process for me.

    Above all, I seek to remember that:

    1) I write because I love to write.
    2) Someone who does not like my writing does not negate the value of my writing.
    3) Someone else’s opinion likewise cannot invalidate my own.
    4) Just because something is mean-spirited and generates an explosive response in me does not mean it is “truer” than a kinder comment that makes me smile for a moment. Emotional truth is a tricky thing! ;)

    Just a few thoughts, since I saw all of this “go down.” :)  

  • http://thehomespunlife.com Sisterlisa

    yup!!! well said. Be you, it’s the you we love.

  • AKA Jane Random

    I love those moments when I realize “Hey! I’m the grown up here – I decide what happens” [within reason] It’s your blog! I don’t agree with everything you say but A) I’m a moron and B) I respect you immensely. Good job.

  • http://narrativeheiress.blogspot.com/ Ashley Anderson

    I’m happily in the 99%. :)  

  • http://heretichusband.blogspot.com/ Heretic Husband

    Never get between a mama bear and her cubs.

  • http://www.ayoungmomsmusings.blogspot.com/ Melissa @ Permission to Live

    I rarely comment on your blogposts anymore, but some of them have been triggering for me, and I sometimes my comments can be less thought through than my typical blogposts. I hope that none of my comments in the past have been hurtful for you, and I agree that you have every right to delete and block whoever does not accept you and encourage you. I continue to follow your blog because I admire your honesty and resonate with your struggle to recover from spiritual abuse.

    • Anonymous

      Hi, Melissa. I don’t remember any of your comments being hurtful. I know we’ve disagreed but it’s never felt attacking. I also understand our shared background and have never once judged you. I don’t *understand* some of our differences but I want you to know that I bear no ill will toward you in ANY way. We all have to live our own journeys. I wish you grace and peace in yours.

  • http://kfsullivan.wordpress.com/ Kim

    Yes, m’am! I want to read your perspective and hear other thoughtful ones, but I do not enjoy scanning through tons of negativity on anyone’s site to find such in the comments. Trolls can write their own blogs. I understand trying to have intellectual integrity and tolerance, but we the readers suffer as do you the writer when they are allowed to intimidate or overwhelm the dialogue. Thank you for your decision. I hope it will encourage other bloggers to follow suit. 

    • Anonymous

      Yes, I’ve come to think it’s part of my job to protect my commenters from trolls. I want this to be a safe place. It won’t be if I allow people to smackdown each other. :)

  • http://sarahaskins.com Sarah Askins

    Preach it sister, preach it!

  • http://www.carisadel.com/ Caris Adel

    This is great!  and that was a crazy mean comment :(

  • Sharon

    Love this! Good for you!

  • Massimo

    Loved it Elizabeth! I’d just comment that I think your write more about FAITH rather than RELIGION. Don’t you agree? :-)

  • http://www.twitter.com/MattPTurner Matt Turner

    I worked with someone back when I was in Texas who was ALWAYS negative. Seriously. It could be the most beautiful day with a perfect temperature and she would complain about it. Because I worked near her and couldn’t move anywhere else, her negativity started to drag me down to the point that my wife noticed that I was talking far more negatively than usual. I tried to manage it or shrug it off since I knew she was the outlier of the majority of people I was working with but no matter what, it was dragging me down.Fortunately, the negative lady moved to a different position somewhere else within the building and I got better over time. In that situation, I had no choice but to deal with the negativity but I am glad to see you finally taking up a stand for something that you can control. As the motto goes “Don’t feed the trolls.” :) Love and peace.

  • KatR

    It’s the random meanness that gets me. I understand that if you post on a controversial topic people might get riled up, but what you posted on FB was the internet equivalent of “Look at this picture of a puppy on a pile of marshmallows!” and that person was just a nasy beeyotch in response. Don’t. Get. It.

    • Anonymous

      Exactly. It’s the random meanness that really blindsides me. What i’ve learned is that 99% of the time, it’s THEM. They are just…mean. And hurt. And wounded so badly all they know how to do is lash out at others.

      • Truthseeker

         ”…And hurt.  And wounded so badly all they know how to do is lash out at others.”  As they say, ‘hurt people hurt people.’  I have been painfully trying to learn what it means to love my enemies.  I am trying to step into their shoes.  It does seem like they have to be coming from some kind of hurting place.  I want to learn how best to respond to them.  I want to learn how to rise above myself in order to do so.  I am not there yet…somedays I am and some days I am not.  I am just wondering about all this.  I have plenty of ‘hurters’ in my camp-my immediate family, even, so I am living in the ‘lab’.   Frankly, some days it feels like they have dipped their spears in poison.  Yet, I am thinking that is a measure of their pain and their felt need to lash out for some reason.  I was that way, and on occasion, I have lashed back at them, so I am still that way sometimes.

        I don’t write this to rebut or be cruel.  It is something I have really been trying to learn more about.  Do you think it is possible that the more our own wounds heal, the less we will be wounded by their spears and darts?  If that is the case, there is still room to block folk like that because one may not yet be in a place to receive those kinds of blows.  And that is not a put down to the wounded receiver; it is just a fact.

        Jesus came for these ugly, mean, wounded people…me-at times.  I want to know how He would love them, because I am sure he does.  He loved/loves me.

        • KatR

          I don’t see how letting an abusive person have unfettered access to you (even if its only online) demonstrates “love”.

        • Tara S

          Even when we are in that saintly place where we feel so much compassion for an attacker that our own emotional wounds from the attack are barely felt, it is still an act of kindness and charity to set boundaries for the aggressor’s behavior.  To say, “I love you as a person, but I will not respond to this type of behavior, nor willingly make room for it,” is the most loving thing you can do for a person who does not yet understand how to be kind.  It’s as much of an act of mercy to the trolls as to the readers to delete the dreadful or unproductive things that have been said. 

          • Anonymous

            Brilliant, Tara.

          • Truthseeker

             Tara, that is a good point, that love includes setting boundaries where necessary.  I agree.

  • http://humbled-pie.blogspot.com/ Kari

    It was a *ridiculous* comment!  

    What a fantastic post.  I went through exactly this when I was blogging in bigger circles several years ago.  In fact, it’s why I quit blogging – even writing at all – for quite a while.  I mainly just blog for me and friends now, but I do let this kind of thinking get in my way too often.  I am bookmarking this so I can some back and get a pep talk whenever I start to worry too much about pleasing the people who so often just can’t be pleased.
    Just an awesome post here, E.

    • http://humbled-pie.blogspot.com/ Kari

      oops….so I can “come”  back and get a pep talk…  
      I should proofread *before* I hit “post.”

    • Anonymous

      Thank you. Trying to please people who can’t be pleased? YES, been there, done that! It’s the definition of insanity!! :D

    • Holly J

       Me too, Kari.  (And Elizabeth.)  It totally killed my writing.  So glad, EE, that you are not letting them do that to you any longer!

  • Pamela

    I love most of what you write, and even when I disagree, I still love you.  I am guessing that’s 98% (or more) of your readership.  Please keep writing for us, and ignore/delete/block the others, just as you said above.  So sorry you got the ugly post from “someone” about your daughter’s dancing.  Some people really are just clueless.   

    • Anonymous

      Thank you, Pamela. I appreciate you sticking around. ((hugs))

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1664722259 Debra Neufeld

    You basically just said “Trolls, taste my boundaries, BOOM!”  It’s a good and healthy thing. 

  • http://www.fromourfrontporch.net Sherri

    Good for you Elizabeth! I agree with you completely… 

    I think I’ve always been hesitant to open up more in my own blogging for fear of encountering what I’ve witnessed many of my blogging friends go thru with mean/nasty/negative trolls.

    There IS a difference between respectable disagreement and blatant ugliness. We have every right to separate the wheat from the chaff  as bloggers. 

  • http://twitter.com/byzcathwife priest’s wife

    as of today- I am copying you! I don’t get many comments, let alone trolls- but when the trolls strike- it hurts- NO MORE!

  • Michelle

    Oh, I definitely don’t “agree” with you all the time – but that would be just ridiculous! I love reading your blog beeecause it’s totally different than the way I think. Thanks for being the brave soul-bearing woman that you are! :)
    I get so worked up about what people think and say of me, too… that whole “fear of man” thing. As much as I tell myself that negative opinions don’t really matter, I just can’t seem to believe myself. ha. :)

  • Karey

    I actually needed to hear this today. It applies to a lot of us!

  • Margaret

    Amen! I too am guilty of playing it too safe because I don’t want any backlash. But where is the fun (or honesty!) in that?

  • theresaEH

    Sock it to’em EE!!! Joyless bullies, that is what those trolls are! Your daughter is a priceless beautiful diamond named Jewel!!!

  • sarah

    Ba-BAM!  :)  

    EE, your {honest} writing encourages and challenges me in so many ways, and has for years now.  THANK YOU.

  • Hanson

    Why censor yourself like that?

    Say it with me: “shit.”

  • Samantha Alvarado

    I’m so glad, Fraulein ;) . 

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_4QMUQWAZLLY4IXV7UKUW42HTSQ jeanelane

    A good conversation requires give and take, from both (or more).  The people you are describing as trolls don’t care about good conversation.  They only care about. . . probably nothing!

    I may write and say some stupid things some times.  Its easier to do when writing because only ‘you’ know what you are really wanting to say.  I can see in writing a blog that more thought is required than my puny comments.  But you are one I’d love to sit down over coffee (or whatever!) and have a good long chat!

    Stay healthy!

  • Vosslers

    I’m so glad. There is a huge difference between a disagreement or a question given respectfully and someone who is just downright mean and ends up taking over a comment box. I honestly really dislike reading blogs where the blogger doesn’t just get rid of the trolls. They end up taking over everything and a normal conversation can’t happen.

  • Tara S

    I really do love you!  And hurray for dismissing the trolls!

  • Elzimme

    I LOVE you EE! Write for me!

  • gooddaysunshine

    So interesting how trolls behave.  Troll is relatively an internet thing, but we all have them in real life too.  We all know at least one troll. She or he goes out of the way to not so subtly put you down.  I have a troll.  It used to really bother me how she made passive aggressive comments to me everyday at work.  Now shes the only person who ignores me or is snide to me at work while the rest of us carry on normally. Its so stupid, its like watching a child break toys because they’re frustrated.  I tried forever to figure out what I did, said, didn’t say, to piss her off but I eventually gave up.  Now its mildly amusing.  She puts so much effort in this tension shes created and the whole world is happening around her.  Sad, the trolls are. I agree, just delete.  Not really worth the mental effort.

  • Katie W

    Every post you write pretty much rocks my face off !

  • http://somewiseguy.com/ ThatGuyKC

    I really can’t tell you how much I LOVE that you wrote this and have come to the place where you can tell trolls to pack sand.

    You’re awesome Sista. Hope you have an awesome weekend.

  • Julie

    I just want to cheer for you! Love this post!!! 

  • Anonymous

    DUDE. This is tres awesome. I’ve been thinking (again, because it’s a consistent problem) about how I don’t write honestly from my heart, not like I used to, because I feel like I need to slap a disclaimer on EVERYTHING. Like I’m writing a set of directions for a power tool, and I have to think of every single idiotic thing someone could possibly do with that tool, and address it, because otherwise my company will get sued for not saying, “Hey, don’t try to shave your face with an electric saw, that never ends well.” Writing FOR the trolls (or even just FOR the people who disagree with you – instead of sharing your story you just come out swinging trying to defend your point of view)  is exhausting and ultimately useless. I’m bookmarking this post.

    “With soooongs they have suuuuuung for a thousand YEEEEEEEARRRSSSSS…”

  • http://hobwas.wordpress.com/ Jenn LeBow

    Great job!  I’m trying to learn this both in blogging and in real life.  Well, mostly in real life, because only about 12 people read my blog and they’ve all known me most of my life and are nice to me.  ;)  

    Anyway, in real life, I totally pulled the most major bonehead move in traffic the other day, and the woman in the next car waited for me to pull up next to her at the stoplight so she could holler at me.  All I did was calmly repeat, “I am so sorry.  I am so sorry.”  I was wrong & I knew it, and her anger was deserved, though her vitriol wasn’t. As we pulled away, my son said, “She’s probably going to go home and complain about you, and we’re going to have a nice day.”  And I thought, “How did you get smarter than me about mean people already???”  :)

  • Luis

    Great call on drawing the line with trolls. My family wishes you and all your loved ones continued elevation of joy – health, happiness, and freedom.

    You are affirmed – in response to one of your previous posts :)

    Your write is as enjoyable, thought provoking, and enlightening as a captivating sound of music itself.

    Also, great achievement in breaking your mold from that obnoxious, fundamental perspective. This transformation is so much easiesari say than to actually do. No child has much of a choice on what their upbringing will consist of right? Was not your fault. You’re a champion.

    In regards to your record breaking 10 minute post – more time for your babies! There wasn’t any change in the quality content or style. Awesome!

    Well, God Bless. I just happened to come across your page today for the first time, and already spent at least 30min putting together my comment. :|

  • Erspitz

    Yes, delete that sh*t. Yesterday, I tore up a nasty letter I got in the mail. I don’t need to read and re-read and let those words circle around in my head or try to please the unpleasable. Good for you.