Typically when I give any attention to my haters at all, my readers will always tell me... "Why are you giving THEM attention? Shouldn't you be just paying attention to people to love you, like us?"
I do. I try my best to. I always try to reply nice people who @mention me on twitter and I appreciate all the love I get from so so many of you. Sometimes, just thinking about it makes me cry, and I have a big boxful of gifts and touching sincere handwritten letters from readers that I look at once in a while to just soak in all the blessings and adoration I've been bestowed upon by strangers. I am grateful to each and every one of you, I am.
But here's where the but comes in. It isn't easy to ignore the haters. It is easy to THINK it is, but hell it's super difficult. I wish there is a non-condescending way of saying this, but here it is - You won't understand unless you are famous.
If I had to come up with a statistic, I'd say that about 1,000 nice comments negates 5 bad comments. I can hear over and over again people commenting "Xiaxue is so pretty" (how is one supposed to reply to this?) but SOMEHOW, just one person saying "OMG saw Xiaxue is so ugly" will rile you up.
Why do I care if one person thinks I'm ugly? I don't think I'm ugly. Many people don't. So why is that one person's opinion somehow more significant than the rest?
I don't know how to explain this phenomenon and why it happens, but it is true and there is possibly a scientific name for it. You smart cookies tell me.
Let me tell you my exact thoughts when I read nice vs not nice comments:
Nice people x 10: "Saw Xiaxue today at Cineleisure, she is so skinny and pretty, just like her pictures! I love her hair!"
My thoughts: "Really not? That's so sweet of them but I think maybe they don't have high standards of what is considered pretty hahaha didn't they see my cankles? Ok lah maybe I'm pretty hehehe."
Nasty person x 1: "Saw Xiaxue today OMG SO UGLY PIMPLES ALL OVER AND SO FAT, DISGUSTING PLASTIC BITCH."
My thoughts: "FUCK YOU I DON'T HAVE PIMPLES AND I AM SO NOT FAT LET ME SEE HOW U LOOK OMG YOU ARE WAY FATTER AND UGLIER THAN ME HOW DARE YOU CRITICISE ME I MUST SHOW EVERYONE YOUR PICTURE."
Maybe it is the combination of rudeness from this person and the fact that he is not trying to butter you up making his opinion seem more "real" than others.
I don't feel sad when I read mean comments. So there is no point in telling me to cheer up or not believe the haters. I don't believe them and neither will I let the comments affect me in a sense that I wallow in self pity and think I am whatever they say I am. I am very self assured and thick skinned like that. :D
What I do feel is acute indignation and some annoyance. Sometimes, especially if it is an ugly person calling me ugly or a stupid person calling me stupid, I even feel a twinge of joy because it is so funny and ironic.
You may say that I am dumb because that is exactly what the hater wants, which is to upset me + get my attention and I gave them that. And you are right.
But I cannot help it. I need to vent, and mostly, the results of the vent gives me satisfaction and closure - because I get EXTRA love from nice people. And rest assured after 2 minutes I go about my own life and am happy-go-lucky until the next mean comment riles me up. Not all do by the way, only some.
But all in all, the statement "Ignore the haters" (usually followed by "they are just jealous") is wrong.
No, haters should NOT be ignored. They should be appreciated and loved. Why? Here are the reasons:
1) Revenge
Revenge is one of the strongest motivators there is. If you watched movies like Kill Bill, you will realise that revenge, or bestowing any form of unhappiness upon those you hate, can shape your entire life and let you achieve things you've never imagined you could.
Now I may not be able to destroy the lives of my haters (only a special select few) or actually kill them with the five point palm exploding heart technique, but I do my best to make them as unhappy as possible. How?
They say success is the best form of revenge.
What you must understand is this... Haters don't hate YOU per se.
They are not jealous, as claimed by so many people. Maybe some, but most aren't. Jealous means they wish they were you, but I can safely say a lot of my haters don't wish to be me, for they find me a pink haired midget. I am not yet that arrogant to presume everyone is "just jealous" of me.
No, what haters feel about you is a strong dislike for your SUCCESS.
They don't understand, in my case, how someone like me, so mediocre, so stupid, so untalented, can become a top blogger. They don't think I deserve to earn an easy living, or deserve the adoration from people who like me. They don't find me pretty, why do others?
Thus, they find that it is their life's goal to make sure everyone sees the "truth" about you and stop contributing to your success.
Would all the haters of Justin Bieber give two hoots about him if he is a teenage boy singing on youtube but never made it big? They won't. They just don't like this popularity.
So everytime I strive to achieve more in life, the haters' angry faceless faces are always at the back of my mind, and I am gloating, happy to see them unhappy as I get richer, more successful, more beautiful, more popular.
In fact, I'd say that they played a HUGE part in my blogging success.
Haters from the start told me I was stupid. I sat for the Mensa IQ test just to prove them wrong. Haters said I can never earn a living from blogging. I showed them I could, and what a great career it is. Haters said Mike will ditch me in a week, but we are still together, 7 years and counting, a baby in the making. Haters said my blog popularity will never last - but here they are, still reading as my visitor count increases per second.
And so that's how I say "FUCK YOU" to the haters, every single person who wished me ill, by showing them the more they say I couldn't do it the more I will.
Few things give me more satisfaction than achieving more in life than they could ever have, and when they insult me, I can go "I am Xiaxue, who are you?"
For that, I am grateful to them. Thank you for not believing in me, thank you for your motivation, thank you for giving me the sweet taste of revenge.
2) Love with the hate
While your haters are going on and on like a rabid dog, what happens? You get 3 camps of people:
- People who agree with the hater. See point 1) on how more of these are useful.
- People who disagree. You get extra love from people who like you defending you, and that's very nice when it happens!
- People who have no idea who you are and why you are stirring an interest in the hater. They go find out and decide for themselves. This adds to your increased publicity and they may decide they like you!
See? It's all good.
3) They give constructive feedback
and help you become a better person
HAHAHAHAHA NO THEY DON'T.
JUST KIDDING!!
Thought I'd give some politically correct answer about how we should listen to our haters? FUCK THAT. Haters are stupid and bitter and they wish the worst for you, never ever listen to their "advice" and change!!
They merely wish to mold everyone into default cookie cutter unoffensive sheep. Anything that you do that is out of the ordinary will get you haters.
Most of the time, exactly why they hate you is what makes you unique. For example, a common criticism of Lady Gaga would be that she dresses too slutty, but if she starts listening and dressing like a nun, she won't be who she is today at all!
So many of my haters dislike my strong controversial opinions, but I'm sure that's exactly what so many of you love about me as well, and I ain't gonna change that for sure.
And so today, in the spirit of loving my haters, I'd like to give special appreciation to a particularly persistent one.
For weeks now I've been seeing (presumably) the same hater post on different platforms about me. On tumblr, on facebook, and even creating a lovely account for me on instagram, making an effort to follow everyone I follow. LOL. Props for being so hardworking.
It's all the same picture, a print screen of my Garnier video compared to a photoshopped picture of me on my blog and saying how I have bad skin and am ugly and plastic.
She (I think it's a girl) also seems to think that just because Plasticzilla posted an email that someone sent to her claiming I created her hate site seems to constitute as proof that I did. Roll eyes, I also received an email from an "ex friend" of PZ, claiming she had drug fueled orgies with old men in Bali, does it mean it is true? It's almost laughable. Please, we all miss the genius that is Dawn Wayang but I am not the writer of that website! I do love whoever wrote it though!
Anyway, that's all fine and dandy right? Coz usually my haters leave their hate just on the internet, and it never translates to the real world... Until this!
Via Stomp:
My eyes censored by Stomp, who didn't seem to want
to give me extra publicity lol
This hater actually bothered to PRINT MY PICTURES, and proceeded to paste them on a toilet wall in Choa Chu Kang!!
Are you freaking kidding me???
Like she feels so strongly about me, that she bothered to waste very expensive printer ink on me and then, brought these papers out with her, went into a toilet, WITH TAPE, YELLOW TAPE, and pasted it on the wall.
And that, I suppose, made her day.
I don't feel angry or sad actually. I feel strangely very touched and happy.
Because love me or hate me, I feel very honoured that I evoke so much emotion in you that would drive you to put in so much effort for me. You know I love attention, so thank you for giving me so much of it.
This is the 1st time a hater ever sorta appeared in real life, and I feel like I'm finally famous. I AM SOMEBODY!! I am worthy to be printed on a toilet wall!!!
And moreover, the things she is so angry about are so silly!!
Like duh, EVERYBODY knows I photoshop my pictures and I'm plastic, I've just about said it a zillion times, so what's the POINT is spreading that I am??
And you know what is the most ironic?
For Garnier, they asked me to do one blog advertorial and one video for their Miracle Skin Perfector.
Here's the video, completely open on clicknetwork, and I have even tweeted to ask people to watch it, it is not like it is meant to be HIDDEN??
And so the hater took a screenshot and kept on saying I have bad skin, an ugly nose, and cockroach eye makeup... Ugly nose or makeup is subjective, but what I don't get is why keep harping on my bad skin?
I already clarified in the video that my skin is not usually so bad. You want to know why it was so pimply that day?
I was about 2 weeks pregnant at the point of this filming, and my body was adjusting to the new crazy amount of hormones. It also caused my skin to be very puffy and water retentive, thus the eyes that look kinda like I just cried.
Congratulations, you just insulted a pregnant woman, how very kind of you.
I'm not trying to find excuses, there many videos out there of me completely bare with no makeup, and I DO NOT have bad skin. I may have the occasional zit here and there, forgive me for being human, but usually it's still pretty clear.
This is my accompanying advert for Garnier, and even in the blog post I posted a few pictures of my unphotoshopped skin, saying it is bad recently.
So I've been completely honest.
Not sure if the hater is blind... Or?
But all this is irrelevant. EVEN if I have ultra bad skin in real life, so what?
This hater seems to think that I somehow deceived my clients and blog readers by photoshop and plastic surgery?
And that she is "exposing" me by somehow showing a video and picture of me that everyone who saw the ad already saw???
People who saw the video saw the bad skin, the ugly nose and cockroach makeup and STILL decided to buy the product, you think they are all blind and only you are enlightened?
WTF?? It's too illogical, I can't even.
(Btw the Garnier peeps loved both my video and advert, saying sales dramatically increased after that and they are thankful.)
She is so WEIRD!!!
I suppose she just feels very strongly that people who are plastic or photoshopped absolutely do not deserve to earn money from "endorsing" products????
But this phenomenon is happening everywhere in the world with most celebrities plastic in some way or another and magazines photoshopping their models to death, so why the anger with just me, especially when I'm the only person who actually admits to be plastic and photoshopped? Wth, help me out here, I'm genuinely confused.
In any case, I'm very happy because I know that I will continue earning from sponsorships and ads despite her best efforts to "spread the word", and I know this will cause her to be angry and upset. :D
She needs to understand... Clients don't come to me because I look exactly like my pretty photoshopped self with perfect skin, a perfect nose and perfect eye makeup.
They seek me because I write good advertorials, I have a good track record of being honest with my reviews, and mostly, because I attract eyeballs. And you, my dear hater, just made me more popular by letting more people know about me.
Now everyone visiting that toilet will want to go to my blog to see the photoshopped pictures and be amazed. Thank you so much!!
And thank you, also, for making my day by showing me how awesome my life is by seeing yours in contrast.
Really, right now I'm gonna sleep my gorgeous bedroom which has most of the renovations sponsored, while carassing my belly with my baby squirming inside. And I'd be dreaming of his fat cheeks and fat fists when he eventually comes into the world. All is good.
You, on the other hand, spent your day posting propaganda that won't work on a DISGUSTING public toilet wall. In Choa chu kang. Why so uncool the location, at least choose Orchard or something...
That's sad. So sad.
I'm afraid you don't know how sad that is, so I made you a chart, hope you like it.
But at least you got my attention for a day.
Shoo now.