Hey haters, hate this. Part 3
May 16, 2017
By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMiami.com
- Don’t let the social media echo chamber fool you.
- Haters, aka trolls, tend to be a minority.
- Haters force people to take sides.
- Despite the fact that a majority of people keep their allegiances to themselves, majorities tend to side with the hated.
- Marketing & advertising wise, it might even be good for some brands to find themselves on the receiving end of a little helping of hateful trolling.
- It might push the good guys to take your brand’s side.
- The underdog effect.
- Laugh and the world laughs with you.
- Cry and you’ll cry alone.
- Hate and, sooner or later, you’ll find yourself a member of a toxic minority.
- Exhibit 1: Black Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Latino Twitter.
- Many people regard them as a force of poetic, social media justice.
- Well, yes and no.
- Sometimes we minorities just get too carried away by victimization, outrage and aggravation.
- We appear to be so easily offended, so thin-skinned, prickly and unpredictable that we paint ourselves into a cultural corner.
- I am not saying that racism or bigotry are not still a pervasive reality in society, the workplace and academia.
- We must stay vigilant and speak out.
- My concern is that, all too frequently, just causes have a penchant to shoot themselves in the foot by letting fringe elements co-opt and hijack them.
- It happens to the best of them: environmentalism, climate changes, Black Lives matter, Dreamers, La Raza, feminism, right-to-choose, medical marijuana, you name it.
- Necessary movements and organizations that all too often make the mistake of allowing unhinged haters to become their most visible standard bearers.
- Let me give you a small everyday example: a few weeks back I was riding my bike on Rickenbacker Causeway, a breathtaking scenic artery connecting mainland Miami with Key Biscayne.
- As I rode by The Miami Seaquarium, I bumped into the usual gathering of animal rights demonstrators at the entrance of the aforementioned establishment’s parking lot.
- You can imagine the crowd: an assortment of tree huggers of different ages and walks of life.
- Ponytails, sandals, you get the picture.
- A peaceful, harmless and even relatable crowd for the most part.
- However, there was this young woman covered in tattoos who looked like a meth prostitute who, megaphone in hand, verbally assaulted en masse all the cars coming in and out of the aquarium.
- Here’s one of the lines I picked up as I rode by, and I quote: “why don’t you clueless unimportant people find something better to do rather than watching animals in captivity so I don’t have to spend my fucking weekends here sweating my ass off?”
- This is what she was yelling at families in cars!
- I kid you not.
- All the other demonstrators, possibly nice people fighting the good fight, just watched and did nothing.
- Their failure to stop this woman from vomiting her vile on families coming in and out of the place is akin to support by indifference.
- Hence, a legitimate cause such as defending the rights of large marine mammals is terminally tarnished.
- With similar logic, in the digital space small squadrons of self-righteous social media digerati with a chip on their shoulder the size of a baseball bat pride themselves of being the new arbiters of what’s right and what’s wrong with the world.
- They will right the wrongs of capitalism, consumerism, racism, cultural appropriation.
- Even misspellings.
- It’s become cringe-inducing to watch Latinos kick and scream on social media because gringos spell Colombia “Columbia”.
- Dude, have you heard yourself butchering the English language?
- Enough already.
- #facepalm
- This is why the “mainstream” doesn’t want to touch us “minorities” with a six-foot pole.
- Dealing with us (blacks, Latinos, LGBTX) is a friggin’ minefield.
- We are regarded as so thin-skinned, complicated and whiny that we keep painting ourselves into our own mental ghettos and cultural safe spaces.
- Constant victimization is not the way out.
- We have to moderate our MO of whining and crying wolf at everything around us.
- It is annoying.
- And totally counterproductive.
Hey haters, hate this. Part 1
Hey haters, hate this. Part 2