Hey, Troll. Can You Not Dump Your Litter In My Comments?
By: Felicia C. Sullivan
Tags: Women, Writing, Creativity, Culture, Social Media

Cleaning up after you is a dirty business. There’s the reading, the blocking, the deleting, the don’t-let-this-get-to-you pep rally, complete with pom-poms and a megaphone. Honestly, I shouldn’t be doing this work — I’m not your parent; my job isn’t to teach you how to be a decent person. By now, you should’ve been schooled in all things human, and yet you still feel the need to unload your refuse all over my hard work. You’re fiending to tell me what a cunt I am for writing that marketing article that sent you over the edge.

So, I’m a cunt — your point?

I read plenty of non-sensical, self-absorbed garbage on the internet. You don’t see me calling people a cunt in the comments. You won’t find me unloading my trash on your living room floor. I’m a functioning adult, I keep on moving.

Maybe in the past five years, I’ve left two less than positive comments on someone’s work? However, I criticized the work, not the person. I didn’t attack them, call them a waste of space.

I don’t write about sex, feminism, or any form of catnip enticing men who live to demean and degrade women, or the women who practice misogyny for sport. I used to consider my work safe — customer segmentation studies, brand strategy, depression, strange fiction, and the books that inspire it, the sordid tales about my chubby cat — but au contraire, mon amie, nothing is safe. Apparently, when I write about how I worked years to create multiple income streams so I don’t have to rummage through bins and live on ramen and oatmeal for months at a time, it inspires mockery and vitriol. When I speak up about people stealing and republishing my work, it inspires rage blackouts on the level of a Greek tragedy.

Motherfuckers are acting like I drop-kicked their chihuahua.

Every single day, people want to tell me how to do the job I’ve been doing successfully for over two decades. Meanwhile, they’ve never worked in marketing or built a brand. People are desperate to explain book publishing to me while the extent of their experience is typing on Medium. And when I’m not being subjected to daily condescending tutorials by people who don’t know any better, I’m called all the names women are always called.

I’m told the tutorials I share can be found on Google. Well, yes. You can find anything on Google. Congrats on learning how to use the internet.

While I enjoy the occasional rant — and there is much to rant about in the world — keep your rage on your own page. Don’t dump it all over people. And if you’re going to rage, close with solutions. Deliver an alternative. Present and argue your point of view. Don’t simply stomp your little feet and whine for six minutes. You’ll certainly find an audience because anger craves company, but it’ll be composed of people who prefer complaining over creating.

Do you think I’m a snob because I’ve read a lot of books? Get a library card. Do you hate my work? Hate me? Fuck you, I don’t care. I’m not going anywhere, but you can take your hate-reading ass elsewhere. While you’re spewing hate and snark on how I don’t get over a thousand claps per article (seriously, this is what people care about?!), I’m consistently closing five-figure projects from people who find my work valuable.

Don’t fret, my little liebchen, I’m doing just fine.

Instead of kicking sand in your sandbox, write your own articles and tutorials. Spend six hours sharing research on how Alzheimer’s disproportionately impacts African Americans. Spend two months writing the equivalent of a book on how to build a brand. Write hundreds of articles on marketing and freelancing before you come for me. Lay your heart out to bear in vulnerable, personal essays and see how it feels when some random asshole stomps all over them.

Pitch an agent, then an editor, and work for years to write, edit, and publish two books. Stop complaining everyone else’s writing is basura but yours. Because agents and editors who google you are so attracted to online whining. People definitely want to hire someone whose sum total of online work consists of you suck comments. Readers who are not in your clique don’t care about your snarky blind-item posts.

There’s a difference between criticizing someone’s work and calling them a cunt into the comments. There’s a difference between critiquing a platform you believe is unfair to groups of writers and dropping CLICKBAIT! and THIS SUCKS comments on other people’s work. The former focuses on change and solutions while the latter makes you look petty and small.

Years ago, I held scathing opinions about literary journal gatekeepers — the Granta and Paris Review mags of the world. Did I drop rude comments on the fiction and essays published in said journals? No. Instead, I published an online and print literary journal that welcomed debut writers. I created that which didn’t exist.

I have strong opinions about bloggers posing as marketers on this platform and online influencers acting like brand strategy experts when their Instagram channel is their sole experience and case study — all of whom dole out advice that is just plain wrong. While I’ve made my opinions known, my larger response has been to publish and share my knowledge, expertise, and experience as a counterpoint.

If you don’t like what you read, create. Flood the world with your work. Critique, but publish and share an alternative. Dismantle systems. Build new structures.

But don’t think for a second I’ll tolerate you flinging your trash onto my work.