Mean Comments And My Relationship With The Comment Section

======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====

There are few things I enjoy more than writing a piping hot take. I don’t know if it’s my face or my disdain towards universally liked things (probably a combination of the two) but somewhere along the way I became a fairly polarizing figure.

There’s a sick, twisted pleasure that I get out of riling people up and thanks to the World Wide Web, it’s become incredibly easy to do so. Anonymous internet commenters have hurled their metaphorical feces at me for nearly as long as I’ve been writing and I’d be lying to you if I said that it never bothered me.

It is human nature to want to be liked. There’s no two ways around that. But wanting to be liked and needing to be liked are on different spectrums. Would it be nice to have the adoration of people? Absolutely. When I first started out that’s exactly what I wanted. But I quickly learned that having the hatred of these anonymous trolls is just as good and in many ways better.

You know that phrase “any press is good press”? Well the same thing goes for attention. Any attention you get is a good thing as long as it doesn’t involve you getting too drunk, getting in a fistfight with someone, or throwing up somewhere you shouldn’t. I learned to embrace the hate. I let it flow through me and I think it’s really helped my writing.

When I first started blogging, it was offensive to look around and see all of these rude comments being typed up about my appearance or perceived way of life. I quickly realized that there was a sliver of these negative reviews that had a little bit of love of them. It was hard to see under the surface of such vitriol but it was there.

I had an awakening of sorts. Very similar to times when I would be lightly disciplined by my parents for being mean to a sibling or throwing a tantrum when I was asked to do something I didn’t want to do.

I would get yelled at. I would get thrown in time-out. I was never physically abused as a child (and I’d like to make it clear that I did not grow up in an environment where my parents were screaming at me all of the time) but when I acted up I would definitely hear about it from my guardians.

The thing about it though was that I knew it was coming from a place of love. And just like when I would get yelled at for not being nice to my little sister, I now occasionally get yelled at by the internet. It used to get under my skin a little bit. Now I embrace it.

In fact, I would say that I get more pleasure from a mean comment than I do from a positive one. Feedback is feedback. And at the end of the day it’s better to get a reaction of the negative variety than nothing at all.

You guys don’t realize it but you need me just as much as I need you. You get to let off a little steam by poking fun at me for sleeping on an air mattress or writing a questionable, albeit true column about how much it sucks to wear a condom and I get to continue writing. This is an ecosystem.

It’s been said before but I’ll say it again one time for everyone reading this: The haters fuel my soul. Nothing puts a smile on my face more than a comment on one of my columns about how punchable my face is or infuriated you became just reading my something that I typed.

I love you guys. So with all of that being said, above are a few of my favorite “mean comments.” I know this has been done before and it’s probably been done better, but I had a lot of fun making this video. Enjoy it. Oh yeah, and rate and subscribe to Touching Base on iTunes or wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. They’re funny dudes. .

40

Respond

Email this to a friend

Hey, I saw this on Post Grad Problems. Check it out.

Johnny D

fashion icon

• jduda@grandex.co