Weekly Blog March 3rd, 2019: Stop The Hate

Hello Internet!

I hope all of you had a wonderful week. I for one did not have a great week which was mostly due to the fact that I was sick for the majority of it. That’s why there wasn’t a Poem on Wednesday or a Writing Prompt Piece on Friday. I was spending all the time I would normally spend writing, sleeping and recovering from illness. Tuesday I really felt the sickness hit me and I thought it was going to be a 24 hour of sickness and it turned into a whole week of it, so that was fun. If you are sick, I feel your pain, but if you are healthy, this is a reminder to be grateful of what you have. Also wash your hands, drink some orange juice, and stay away from sick people as much as possible. Save yourself while you can! Now let’s quickly talk about the things that did get published this week. Last Sunday, I published a Weekly Blog talking about and celebrating Growth on the website. I talk about how far I’ve come and show some love to all the readers out there reading my stuff each week. On Saturday, I published the twenty fourth chapter of my Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver Fanfiction titled “Pokémon HGSS#24: Rising To The Challenge.” Jonathan and Beatrice have traveled through the Ice Path and have found themselves in Blackthorn City. Its finally time for Jonathan to take down the Dragon Gym Leader, Clair, and receive his eighth and final badge. But it’s going to be a tough taking down powerful Dragon-Type Pokémon. Yeah only two weeks this past week, but that’s what getting sick will do for you. Don’t worry, this week should be full of new stuff!

So even though I’m still not feeling the greatest, I wanted to bring up a subject that I thought was relevant and important to talk about. Over the past few weeks I have noticed an increase in blind hate and rage all over social media. Now hate is nothing new and social media sometimes brings out hate in waves, but the reason I bring it up now is because some people seem to equate hating things to a personality. Like their whole identity is that they hate something, especially hating things that are popular. Oh you like a popular television show or movie, well they are more than welling to write paragraphs on why your opinion is wrong, your opinions suck, and you suck. You don’t even have to ask. They will just jump on your timeline or page and tell you how wrong you are and they’ll treat it like they are doing a service. These people are contrarian just to be contrarian and they think that anything that is popular can’t really be that great. These people are called trolls, or bullies, or a lot worse, but no matter what they are called, they seem to hunt in packs and defend themselves behind their screen and their “higher intelligence.”

One recent example that comes to mind is that Rotten Tomatoes, the movie and television review website, had to change how their rating system works because a large number of trolls targeted the upcoming Marvel Movie, Captain Marvel (Washington Post). These trolls berated the movie, which hasn’t even been released in theaters, due to the fact that Brie Larson plays the title character. This attack by trolls also happened on Black Panther as well as Star Wars: The Last Jedi among other movies. They attack these movies trying to lower their score on Rotten Tomatoes before the movie is released hoping that their efforts will keep people from watching the movie. In response to all of this, Rotten Tomatoes barred any member of the general public (who are not movie critiques) from reporting on the movie before the movie is released in theaters. This way the audience score won’t be bugged down by these trolls before the movie is released. Will this stop trolls from attacking after the movie is out? No. But hopefully this will allow a wave of positive comments to counteract all the hate when the people who are not trolls see the movie and rate it accordingly.

I bring this up because I really don’t understand the attitude of trolls and people who only spread hate. I’m not saying that movies don’t deserve criticism and that we should only bombard popular movies with positive comments, but obviously these people didn’t care about criticizing movies. They just wanted to spread hate and bully people into not liking the stuff they like. Plus sometimes this trolling goes even further and these trolls end up attacking actors, actresses, and others involved in the movie. We have seen people delete their social media accounts after wave after wave of hate spread by trolls, and it saddens me. Nobody deserves all that hate thrown at them and people shouldn’t act like that. It shouldn’t be something that’s just expected and accepted because the people are in a popular movie or television show or wrote a popular movie. People have the ability to be a positive force in the world or a negative one and it saddens me that these people would choose to be negative.

I don’t know if anyone like that would be reading my stuff, but if you are out there and are reading this, I hope you take a minute to really think about what you are doing before you do it. I’m not trying to discourage real, actual constructive criticism. There’s definitely a place for that in the world and a way to do it respectfully. I also understand being in a moment where you are overwhelmed with a negative emotion like sadness or anger and you just want to lash out at someone in hopes that you makes you feel better, but that never works. Spreading hate just creates more hate. It doesn’t get rid of the hate that is being directed at you. I just hope that no matter who you are, you just take a moment to really think about what you are doing when you are about to send a nasty message or post a hateful message online. What are you really hoping to accomplish. Because 99% of the time, your hateful message won’t change the person’s mind or get you what you want. Black Panther and Star Wars: The Last Jedi were wildly successful and made a ton of money. Trolls aren’t going to stop that. People (including me) are going to flock to Captain Marvel and I’m sure it’s going to be a great movie.

So what are you hoping to accomplish? Are you trying to be a contrarian just for the sake of it? Maybe think about how you can spend your time better to form a strong personality based off of love, not hate. Are you trying to criticize something? Think about how you can present your argument in a respectful manner that people would be willing to listen to. Also think about if this criticism is warranted. If someone asks for feedback, then you can give them some, but don’t go around thinking that your opinion is somehow better than everyone else’s and you are doing a service to the world by shouting your opinion without being asked. That’s how you get blocked on Twitter. Adopt some of these thought processes and actively combat hate online. Even if something is not something you like or an interest of yours, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any value or that it deserves to get a ton of hate. It’s okay to see something you don’t agree with and just keep on scrolling. That is a positive option as well. Celebrate the things you love and let others do the same. I think if everyone did that, the world would be a better place.

Thank you so much fro reading that Weekly Blog. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, feel free to give it a like or leave a comment down below. Go ahead and tell me about something you are excited for or something you think deserves a little extra love. I’d be happy to create a chain of awesome stuff down in the comments. If you didn’t like this Weekly Blog, that’s okay too. I actively ask for feedback on my website and want to make it better, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a respectful comment down below. Just know that ultimately I can block your comments if you decide to be a troll and fill the comments with hate. Don’t do that. No one wants that. Also if you are new here or just want some suggestions on what to read next, I want to let you know that there are over 380 other pieces on the website that you can read. I post Weekly Blogs on Sunday, Poetry on Wednesday, and Writing Prompt pieces on Friday. Also right now I have a Pokémon Fanfiction Series that I mentioned earlier that is being published on Saturdays for the next few weeks. Go ahead and start with chapter one so you can get all caught up when the new chapters come out. While you are at it, you can also Follow me here on WordPress or Follow me on Facebook and Twitter. I’m more active on Twitter, but both will give you updates when new pieces are published here on WordPress. Finally, I want to thank all the wonderful readers, new and old, who continue to support me and all the things I write. February was another record breaking month in terms of visitors, views, and likes so thank you so much for making that happen! It makes my day/week/month/year seeing all that love! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

-Allen_The_Writer

Header Photo Credit to The Pavlovic Today
https://www.thepavlovictoday.com/stop-hate-elections-2016/