On Haters And Their Vapid, Shallow Ways

by David Rhodes on January 9, 2012

in Everything Else,Non-fiction,San Francisco,Videos

If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can find fault with, you will not do much. ~Lewis Carroll

Who doesn’t love anonymous internet haters these days, eh? Well, most of us I guess, but you have to admit that they can be pretty entertaining if you adjust your perspective.

For example, I posted a video to YouTube a while back that shows some firemen putting out a trashcan fire in front of our building, which I recorded from our second story window.

In the description I said,

“Members of the San Francisco Fire Department bravely tackle a horrendous trashcan fire on Market Street.”“

Which brings us to a prime example of an anonymous internet hater, who recently commented on that video..

This wasn’t horrendous, it was just a diddy little fire, could have been put out using a small home fire extinguisher. What’s so brave about this tiny incident, you should have put a few aerosol cannisters (sic) in the trash box to make it more exciting……

Where were you filming this from anyway, your bedroom window, how convenient, I bet you started this fire just so you could get a video on You Tube…….Pathetic.

Isn’t that fun? HAHA! Obviously I’m not going to waste two seconds beyond the time it takes to delete an asinine comment like this and then block the sender. Life is too short to spend any time at all thinking about it, beyond posting it here for educational purposes.

I’ll answer to this comment here, since I’ve deleted it from YouTube..

Dear SLP (Sad Little Person),

First of all, I’m sorry you don’t understand sarcasm. That’s what it is when I say “brave firemen” and “horrendous fire” in my description, and then you see that it’s a little trashcan fire. It’s to state the opposite of what’s seemingly obvious for the purpose of humor or to make a point.

So, repeat after me.. “SARCASM”.. very good! *pat pat*

On to point two.. we have these little fire extinguishers in glass boxes in the hallway of our building. Sure, I could have grabbed one of those and ran outside to extinguish it myself without calling the fire department. This is what our building manager would have said..

“Are you freakin’ KIDDING ME? You expended one of those for a city trashcan out front? Those are for INSIDE the building, idiot! You are SO paying for having that extinguisher recharged! Next time just call the damned fire department!”

Note – I have no desire to pay for recharging one of the building’s extinguishers when it’s the city fire department’s job to put out trashcan fires that happen on a public sidewalk. I’ve already paid for that in what are called “taxes.”

Ready to repeat after me again? “TAXES!” Very good! *pat pat*

Finally, as to starting this fire “just to get a video on YouTube,” guess what? I didn’t! I didn’t even call it in to the fire department. I smelled smoke so I looked out the window and saw the flames, then I was going to call it in but heard sirens approaching.

During that time I grabbed the video cam and turned it on. Sure enough, someone else had called it in and the video shows the rest of it. Did you notice the oblivious guy in the blue jacket who almost walks right into the stream of the firehose? HAHA! Now THERE’S something to comment on, if you want to go around making out what idiots people are.

“Hey, look at that idiot who almost walked right into the firehose Stream, LMFAO!”

But to say “I bet you started this fire just to get a video on YouTube” doesn’t make it so, and therefore your “pathetic” at the end is completely unwarranted and certainly not true. It’s not in the least bit pathetic! It’s FUN!

Repeat once again.. “FUN!” Yay!!

So now I’m done talking to the sad little person and I’m talking to you readers instead, because you’re all much more interesting than that person, and a heckuva lot smarter too.

I have to say that as entertaining as those type of comments are, I just don’t get them, just as this sad little person doesn’t get sarcasm.

I mean, WHY? Why would anyone go around leaving comments like this? Why do they want to spend their time leaving junk all over the Internet when they could be creating something that helps and inspires people, or at least makes them laugh, instead of tearing them down with idiotic assumptions and erroneous “facts” based on nothing?

Of course, this was just a diddy little comment that was easily put out by using a small home delete button. We’ve had our share of those over the years and they keep coming, but thankfully not by the truckload. But some people have it worse.. much worse.

I saw a post on Tumblr wherein a hater called a young woman all kinds of nasty names and threatened her, all for being outwardly gay. He said that if he went to her school (I take it they’re both high-schoolers) that he’d kill her.

To this, all I can say is WHY WHY WHY? ..ad infinitum.

So many questions. WHY such hate and viciousness? WHY such venomous evil?

Aside from that, it doesn’t even make sense. Practically speaking it defies logic, just as my commenter did when suggesting I should use a small home extinguisher and that I called the fire department just to get a video on YouTube.

In the post the hater called the girl a “sinning bitch” (implying that he agrees sin is wrong) and then threatens to kill her. I’m pretty sure killing another human being is an even greater sin than sexual promiscuity with the same sex, as far as sins go.

So yeah, no logic or sense whatsoever, but that’s the way of these things.

It’s easy for someone like me to diss a diddy little comment about a firetruck video, but it’s not always so easy for a young person to handle something like this.

They cut themselves, they wallow, they’re pushed further into drugs and alcohol and their lives are devastated, simply because they don’t have the life experience to deal properly with idiots. More often than we know, they attempt to take their own lives and are occasionally successful.

To any young people who are getting bullied, I just want to say that you don’t have to take it, because IT DOESN’T MATTER.

It doesn’t matter what someone like that thinks of you. Don’t let their inane opinion sway you, and don’t use their negative energy to sink further into self-destruction.

Here’s a great truth – they don’t have any power over you except what YOU GIVE THEM.

So don’t give them any.

Don’t give them one second of your time or thought. These kind of comments and negativity are what they do, and not just to you.. they suck energy out of victims and thrive on it. They’re vampires, but not in the glamorously gothic sense we see in movies, TV and books. They’re the real deal who don’t feed on blood.. they feed on your soul.

But you know how vampire lore says they can’t get into your house unless you invite them in? We’re talking about the blood-sucking kind when they’re standing on your front porch, but it also applies to these kind when you realize that you don’t have to invite them into your heart, mind and soul when they knock. You don’t even have to answer the door.

Just go about your business and when they realize you’re not a victim, which won’t take long at all, they’ll go away. More will come along because life isn’t in the least bit fair, but as you go along you’ll get better at dissing them.

You’ll eventually learn to care only about what matters, but it’s a skill that needs to be honed with time and experience. You’ll soon see that they’re nothing but diddy little commenters who are simply pathetic, and they can be easily extinguished with your tremendously positive attitude and self-confidence.

The glass box is in the hall, so just grab the extinguisher, pull the pin and squirt. Then go about living your life because that’s all that really matters.

 

Members of the San Francisco Fire Department bravely tackle a horrendous trashcan fire on Market Street.


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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

Rene January 9, 2012 at 10:52 am

We can relate, we get a variety of nasty, sick comments on our Tripawds videos occasionally. How anyone can say horrible things about three legged dogs is…well, I don’t even want to give them my energy so I won’t go on. You know what I mean.

When we encounter these people, all we can do is feel sorry for them. Send them a silent blessing for a more peaceful existence on earth, then go on your way. Eventually all of the blessings you send out to the haters will come back to you and humanity a thousandfold. Positive energy is so much more powerful than negative.

Reply

David Rhodes January 9, 2012 at 11:03 am

I agree.

It’s sad that I have to moderate comments on all accounts. Here, my YouTube, etc. I don’t mind someone who disagrees with something but sometimes they can get downright nasty. It doesn’t do anyone a bit of good and it just brings people down, so I don’t allow it at all.

I used to have open commenting here at the blog, until someone who had a personal issue with Dorian and I posted a nasty, rambling comment that accused us of things that simply were not true. He said a lot of strange things that made us look pretty bad, but again, it was far from the truth.

I decided to moderate at that point. The weird thing was that he KNEW us and daily visited his ex at the hotel we were living in when we first moved here. He could have easily knocked on the door and had a talk with me if he had grievances, or stopped me on the rear patio when I was coming in from errands. I’d see he and his ex out there every day. But he decided to try and embarrass me by posting idiotic accusations on this blog. Didn’t work though, he just came off as a lunatic and I deleted it anyway.

Yeah, I don’t get some people. Thanks for the comment, Rene!

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Rene January 9, 2012 at 11:22 am

It’s really sad that people hide behind their online identities. Most people I’ve met online have been just as great as I thought they were in person (like you and D!), but there have been a few who were total nutjobs like that guy.

We’ve always moderated comments. I’m sure if we didn’t we would get way more lunatics posting.

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David Rhodes January 9, 2012 at 12:57 pm

HAHA, thanks for the compliment! I don’t think I’ve met any from social networks or commenting who have turned out to be nutty, with the exception of you and Jim who are both delightfully nutty :-)

I’m not even sure I can count on both hands all the people I’ve met from cyberspace anyway, and I have twelve fingers! (don’t ask)

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David Rhodes January 9, 2012 at 11:06 am

Here’s a quick note about YouTube commenters, who seem to be the worst..

Before running moderation I’d get nasty, meaningless comments and I’d just delete them. But after enabling moderation I don’t get any. What that tells me is that if a troll thinks there’s no chance of it getting posted, they don’t bother. THEY KNOW it’s nasty and they take some kind of perverse pleasure in spreading hate online. But if it won’t get through moderation, what’s the point?

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cinderkeys January 9, 2012 at 10:17 pm

… they don’t have any power over you except what YOU GIVE THEM.

Well, unless they beat you up. Then it’s impossible to ignore them. For commenters on the internet, though, this is all true.

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David Rhodes January 9, 2012 at 11:35 pm

Bullies in real-life vs online. For the most part this was just about the online version. The real-life ones are a different matter, wherein instead of learning to have a thick skin and laugh them off, you need to learn to fight.

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