C. writes:
Do you ever get hatemail like the kind Scalzi talked about?
For those interested here is a link to Scalzi’s blog. In the post he talks about gender bias and Shawna Ahern, a food blogger, who gets really hateful comments through email. Here is an example, quoted from her blog post:
It’s more than offhand comments on Twitter or raging emails. It’s the systematic way that cruel comments come into my website inbox with every single post. When I posted the recipe for soft pretzels, within moments I received the comment: “I hope you choke on your own pretzels and die, you bitch.” Every day, there is some nasty, vituperative comment on a post, something I skim quickly then delete. It could be comments about my husband (“He’s obviously retarded. Look in his eyes. There’s something wrong.”) about our life on Vashon (“Oh that’s right, everything is perfect on your fucking ISLAND.”), about our food (“That looks like dog vomit. Why does anyone pay you to do this?”), and mostly about me (my weight? my writing? my hair? my mere presence in the world? take your pick). New posts and posts from five years ago — it doesn’t seem to matter.
The answer is no. I don’t. But this sort of assholeness makes me want to punch somebody in the face. Stop picking on her.
Like Scalzi, I get an occasional mocking email. I get a hateful comment or two, a substantial amount of passive aggressive emails, but pure out hate comes rarely. I’ve heard it said before that female bloggers and authors do receive more hate. Part of it comes with the territory of being a public figure. Put yourself out there and you will be judged. Part of it is gender bias.
As a woman, I am more likely to be called a fat bitch, to have people comment on the fact that I neglected to color my hair, or to have them pass judgement on my parenting. I’ve never cried over an email of this sort, but I have called poor J and told her about it, so it did disturb me sufficiently enough to vent.
It must be said that lifestyle bloggers receive more of those, either because their readership is wider or because they, to some extent, set themselves as a model of behavior. Have a blog about crafting, cooking, sewing, or one of those traditional “women” jobs and you will get hate. Some of it will be from men and some from other women, who for some reason or another feel inadequate and unhappy and stab you and twist the knife a bit.
Authors are not immune from hate, by any means. LKH, for example. But we do get less than other types of bloggers and most of ours tend to be “I can’t buy your books” or “Your books suck” or ”You don’t know what you are talking about.” Our biggest problem had occurred when a number of people felt compelled to ridicule the model on the cover of Magic Slays. I took it very personally. I didn’t want this blog to be a place where some poor woman’s breasts were being picked to death.
One of the reasons for the relative sparsity of hatemail – and watch me get a deluge right after this post, heh – is that this is a joint blog. I blog with my husband, and his presence probably acts as a deterrent.
The other reason is that I don’t react and when I do, I hit back hard. It’s a lesson I’ve learned very early on. I was five and an older boy was walking around the beach taking other kids’ toys. When it was my turn, I apparently latched on to his hair and it took two grown men to separate us. When I finally was pulled away, I had two hand fulls of hair that wasn’t mine. I have never outgrown that.
Women are more likely to be the target of this sort of nonsense. But we don’t really have to take it.
In my experience, senders of hatemail tend to go for soft targets and try to elicit emotional reaction. Once in a while I slip and respond, but mostly I either ignore the comments or send a form email, which leads to hilarity.
“I hate your books, I wish you were dead.”
“Thank you so much for writing to us. We appreciate your support!”
It’s a lesson that I hope to have taught to our kids: when met with internet hate, either disengage and ignore or hit back so hard, they taste their own blood and go away.
Life is peppered with assholes, but we don’t have to let them poison our fun. I hate to sound like an antibullying promo, but if you see this sort of nonsense, do stop it. Let’s not put up with that.
This isn’t hate mail (pretty far from it- unless it’s directed at iTunes)- but I haven’t been able to buy Silver Shark for my iPod through iBooks yet… Any word on when it will be available? (I’ve got a tight budget and allotted some cash to iTunes just so I could buy your novella, but now I’m wondering if I made a mistake and it won’t be there?)
I’m not sure how Ilona does her self pub things, Aurora, but if she does the same sort of route I do, that’s probably not anything Ilona has an answer to-that’s more in the hands of iTunes-generally, they get titles from their vendors (not authors, but those places we upload to) and then iTunes adds titles to the iBookstore on a schedule that seems to have something to do with…um…no particular schedule at all. O.o Which is a lot like other vendors, actually.
Shiloh Walker recently posted..Hunters Declan and Tori…now at Nook & Kindle as well!
I read quite a bit on my iPhone (teeny tiny screen, but it works!). If I can’t get books on iTunes, I use the free Kindle app, and purchase through Amazon! Depending on what platform you have, this might be a good option. Though if iTunes already has your money you may have to use those funds for a different day….
You can download the kindle app for free to your iphone/ipod and buy it that way as well.
*claps hands* You can kill a cat with cream. One of my favorite sayings.
Interesting comment about the hate mail. Some people feel it’s okay to talk to people on the internet that way because there is no consequence to their action. The “haters” enjoy it even more if they manage to upset you. Haha, they got you mad at them. Of course, most of these indiviuals would never dream of saying this to your face, because they are to cowardly to do it.
Unfortunately, this kind of abuse has become more and more common because of the nature of the internet. But I think your way of handling is the best. For the most part ignoring it or saying something nice in return is the best answer. Nothing takes the wind out of a nasty remark than a pleasant one in return. When my son was younger and used to be teased on the elementary school playground I told him. It doesn’t matter if you’re fat, wear glasses, have freckles, red hair, or whatever. If they think that they can get to you by saying something they will. Best way to keep it from happening is to ignore it. (Or come back with a pleasant comment or a nice perky quip [something I never am able to do, I think to slowly].)
Please continue to publish your books. Many of us LOVE them! Your best seller status speaks more than anyone else out there.
people who feel a need to put others down are themselves suffering from low self-esteem. I like these solutions. I also like how these responses simply don’t follow the script the haters have planned out – they don’t know what to do when we simply decline to play their game
Bizarre. People are just bizarre. I can honestly say, it’s nice to be a nobody. Getting hate mail would not make my day and my dogs hate it when I’m grumpy and the hubby doesn’t like the work it entails to change my mood.
If they are reading your work, and enjoy it, what is up with that?
Silver Shark was great! You made a very interesting world. Will there be any follow up to the storyline?
Thank you so much for writing to us. We appreciate your support!
Hee hee! I love it.
Kill the flies with honey!
I just finished Silver Shark, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I always wonder about the people who are on the losing side of a war – what are their lives like? This was a unique take on that, and I really loved Claire’s character. I think this would have made a fantastic book, rather than a novella. I would have liked to see her relationship with her old neighbors fleshed out more. Why did the kid steal the dagger? Despite obligation, why was she compelled to help them? I know those kind of answers could not be provided in a short novella like this. However, I loved how Claire went from her gray, colorless world to basically, paradise. Very neat. Thanks again!
“Thank you so much for writing to us. We appreciate your support!” HA!
It’s so much easier to be mean on the internet. It’s like a reflex.
I intend to read Silver Shark, I will, just after this next math and chemistry quiz! :S
hitting back, hard:
best fight I ever saw was between a little wimpy high school girl and a big athletic bully. the little one never threw a punch; she just did a ‘duck and cover’ thing to protect her face, but got black eyes anyway. since she didn’t hit back, she didn’t get suspended from school, and the school’s documentation came in real handy when she sued the aggressor in court.
can we say ‘college tuition money’, anyone?
I think the problem is a general lack of maturity in the ‘haters’. And by maturity I don’t mean actual age, there are teenagers who respond to blog posts who are polite and articulate when voicing a differing opinion, and adults who resort to name calling and being nasty people. I read multiple blogs as an early morning ritual, and when I comment I appreciate that I am adding my voice to the general conversation, but that it is just that adding my singular voice. I don’t scream at people in public when I talk: I try not to be abusive with my language if I meet someone face to face why would I in text. That is what gets me, a spoken word is there and gone lost to time and memory: when you put anything in text it is there in some form till all the data is deleted. That should be something that you treat with care, that you craft rather than blurting out things that make you sound like you are a six year old going “Is not! and you stink”.
Regarding posting to professional based blogs (authors, reviewers, musicians): I generally don’t comment if an author changes direction. I just stop buying their books. Creativity is hard. I will praise a writer for their excellence, but it is not my place to critique their work in print unless I do a review. If a writer asks my opinion that is a different thing all together. I will tell them what I think will make their story stronger, what will tighten up their plot, but unless they ask I keep quiet on the negative statements. They don’t need to hear why one person is not buying their product. Writers have the right to plot and write their stories any way they choose. Why write hateful things to them when they change direction, sometimes the writer has not changed at all, but the readership has matured past their writing style. That is not the writer’s fault, nor the readers’, but merely a parting of ways.
Y’all are my heroes…;-) I have never understood haters – I mean, who has the time to waste on all that negative energy? My mom (who spent her formative years in Atlanta), used to tell us “If you don’t have something good to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
The polite “screw you” response is an artform. I applaud your mastery of it.
kindle-aholic recently posted..Homemade Marshmallows
Its also how i learned not to read the comment on videos of youtube, like when that crash happened in Nevada and the video came up their was a whole lot of disrespectful, ignorant comment that got to me and i commented back, I learned they have a term for people who like to get a reaction by comment mean/ ignorant things.. they are called Trolls or trollers… people who like putting hateful comment on youtube or blogs cause they don’t really have a life to find anything better to do. I
By the way I love your blog/books… You always make me smile on somewhat horrible days!!!
My intro to the “troll” naming convention was message boards for online games. If there was one piece of advice I learned to take early as a board moderator, it was “don’t feed the trolls.” Exactly what Ilona advises, but I do like that troll imagery. It made it a little less difficult to respond calmly to an inflammatory post when I was envisioning the poster as a lurking little creepy monster who was NOT receiving anything to feed off in a post from me.
I don’t want to write too long a comment because I will go crazy mad and rave. But honestly, why bother telling people you hate them, or that you didn’t like what they wrote, or how they dress, or what they do in the kitchen, decorate, etc. If you really don’t like the reading material, don’t waste your time telling the author and bashing what they love to do, just build a moral bridge and get over it.
FYI, I DO love your books and I like your hair…W-O-W, that hair comment sounded creepy…ahhh, but it stays.
Have a good one. (:
[...] the other hand, it's good to know that this behavior isn't universal. Author Ilona Andrews says that she doesn't get overwhelming amounts of hate mail, but she muses that it might be partly [...]