In the beginning was the Word. This is how you want to start a conversation about hate, which, due to the ubiquity of social networks and their incredible boom in recent decades, has become an integral part of modern life. Do grandmothers still sit at the porches, who know everything absolutely about everyone and endow with biting epithets of bright and successful neighbors, and at the same time feel sorry for the unlucky ones who have gone astray? Surely there are some. But the scale of the disaster is different, because a much more powerful mouthpiece of labeling has appeared, and its name is social networks and hate. All this - Elena Snezhko, personal marketing consultant, expert in building a personal brand, producer.
Elena Snezhko
With the advent of social networks, Andy Warhol's prophecy that everyone will have their own 15 minutes of fame came true. He preached a cult of celebrities, often contradicted himself and he did not tell anyone that fame is pain. Why? Because social media has made us vulnerable.
In childhood and adolescence, we could envy the most popular girls in the classroom or at the university, but only they, the very best, knew that being popular is a huge responsibility, I would even say - a managerial gift, built on unconditional self-confidence or developed and a model of behavior built over the years. Someone feels it on an intuitive level, while someone needs to recreate themselves anew, building brick by brick of the "new self". Not many people know how to evaluate themselves in relation to themselves, and not in comparison with those around them. Especially women. Especially with regard to men. And then either you follow the rules and know everything about the scale by which you are judged and measured, or you yourself are this scale.
They post a post, I doubt it a little … what kind of reaction am I expecting?
My friend Polina calls and asks: "How are you?" And then she herself answers: "You cannot be bad, you are a scale." In fact, this is not the case. More precisely - not quite so. Because until the unshakable scale I still have to work and work, I am only on the way to it. Sometimes, before posting, I send my photo to a couple of friends to ask if it is possible to post this at all? Horror, horror.
I have several friends whose social networks I am interested in watching. One of them is the wonderful Nastya. At one time she was perplexed that as soon as she laid out her stylish outfits (selected, I must say, with great taste!) And reviews of exhibitions and theatrical performances, people unsubscribed from her in batches. But she was consistent, indefatigable and unshakable, and nevertheless broke through this wall - she won the hearts of her subscribers, and also received a high position in an iconic art institution.
There is also Ira. She has dogmatic posts, but a very loyal audience, thanks to which there is a successful monetization. I once spoke with her personally at some event, and she admitted that her path was extremely difficult for her: she still regularly makes excuses for her “rich” accessories in stories or posts - she herself earned so that no one would think anything !
And I also have a friend Sasha - wildly beautiful and with an exceptional sense of humor. I love her posts with bare breasts and caustic jokes that excite her and not only her audience. I directly see and hear the moralists whispering: "What does she allow herself!", And men drool. Her consistency, unconditional acceptance of herself and the confidence that follows is truly inspiring. Because everyone wants, but not everyone can afford or allow - to be yourself. She took all the best in herself and took it to the extreme. She is a real scale. And the path that Sasha went through is worthy of admiration.
I can cite many more examples of those who really understood the "scale", learned to work with it as if it was originally given to them from birth. People who "made themselves" and their public image, as a result of which they receive recognition and material bonuses. This is a difficult and slow path. But if it passes, it is worthy of sincere respect.
So what are these haters? Whose opinion makes us worry and destroys our self-esteem? Living and feeding on hostility, envy and hatred? Forcing the most self-confident to close comments, make excuses, delete posts and think twice before posting something on social media?
Haters are like the aforementioned grandmothers at the entrance. They are happy and easy to hand out labels. They definitely have their own scale, under which they want to adjust the whole world around them. But why should she interest us? The answer seems to be elementary, only this truth is easy to say, but hard to accept.
In fact, of course, hate is envy and projection. That is, it is a kind of anger, but anger, initially directed at oneself, although expressed by feelings of disgust and enmity towards others. Do you understand? We love people because they are like us or because they have something that we lack. And we hate for the same reasons. Both of these feelings can both destroy and create. Like water that will save you from thirst and drought, or, turning into a mudflow, takes away everything in its path.
Unlike love, hatred cannot be kept in oneself, it must be released, let go - otherwise it can “devour” mentally and physically. Hating is a way to devalue your negativity through devaluing others. That is why people easily succumb to low emotions and are happy to get involved in gossip.
Now think: if you evoke such strong impressions and literally cling to the living of those around you, then there is definitely something in you. Something of value to this world. A spark to ignite the flame and leave your mark.
Haters are not only those who write nasty things to you in the comments, send spam to Direct, discuss you behind your backs, and so on. A hater can be your boyfriend / girlfriend or even your boyfriend who is guided by negativity (read - hate, not love) and express their valuable opinion. By the way, this is a reason to think - why are they doing this to you? And we ourselves can be our own hater, if we constantly file ourselves. In this case, questions for thought are different - why do we “bale” ourselves, why do we do this to ourselves?
One way or another, it is possible and necessary to work with a hat (from the side or from oneself). For hate to stop destroying you and become your driving force, the hate must be controlled. And there are two ways here.
The first, as strange as it may sound, is to fall in love with hate. The more you polarize opinions, the faster your popularity grows. It's like with artists who deliberately shock and provoke the audience, bring their “best” or simply ambiguous features to extremes. After all, if they don't talk about you, then you are socially “dead”. You yourself create your own personal myth, developing it on the pages of social networks. And in this case, the events in reality are not so much important as how people look at and react to them. You yourself will find many examples of such stars in the gossip or on stage. The most important thing in this method is to learn to think like the audience; and so that not a day is without a reason to talk about you! So that no one relaxes, so to speak. But there is also a “but” - where can we go without them? Once stepping on the path of shocking, you run the risk of overplaying and annoying your own audience, when even the most patient and desperate will not be able to accept all this. For example, Oscar Wilde went too far with his experiments and connections with corrupt young men, about which he told the counter and the opposite. What's the bottom line? He graduated from the author of genius works in a very deplorable way. Another danger is the substitution of concepts when the external becomes more important than your internal. Overdoing it with love for hate, there is a risk of losing talent, spark and that valuable for the world, which we talked about above. The main thing is to remember that hate is a means, not an end.
The second way to manage the hate is called the "athlete's life." What does not kill us makes us stronger, higher, better. Pain motivates, educates, gives reason to think, understand and plan. Hatred directs us to itself. By working with hate, you can understand what is yours and what is not. Who are your people and with whom you should stop any interaction. After all, the power is in the truth. "Whoever has the truth is stronger." Find the truth within yourself, do not apologize for it or make excuses. Do not be offended and do not insult in any way. Don't explain yourself. And, most importantly, do not seek explanations for the behavior or words of others. Because you are the scale.
