Since I’m having a bit of a dry spell when it comes to writing about beauty products (mainly because I haven’t gotten anything new to even talk about), I shall touch a little on the subject of receiving hateful comments on your blog and how to deal with them.

Picture the following – you start blogging, and it has become a great hobby (and even a source of income) for you. You put your heart and soul into writing with hopes that your readership will grow, and that it wouldn’t just be your mum and best friend reading it. As time goes by, your readership increases. It’s exhiliarating, and it drives you to keep up with what you’ve been doing so far.

And then out of the blue, you get a negative comment on your blog. And it’s not just constructive criticisim, it’s downright nasty. With all the flowery cuss words a sailor could muster, and then some. Suddenly, you feel as though you’ve been attacked, and you don’t know why. It was an anonymous commenter. It’s hurtful.

Does that sound familiar? It sure does to me. Because when I received my first hateful comment (in was on my personal blog), I was confused. And then I got really angry. I didn’t even know the person, and there he/she was, spreading that sort of nonsense on my baby.

Anonymous Haters Are Chickens

First of all, calm down. I know that it’s easier said than done, but there’s hardly any use in getting all worked up over something someone wrote, especially if it was an anonymous comment. I never take negative anonymous comments seriously because I believe that words worth listening to are the ones from a person who’s man enough to say them to my face (well, in this instance, on my blog). Anonymous haters are cowards. All talk but no balls to own up (pardon my French).

If a hater wants to hide behind an anonymous persona, then he/she can be my guest and write vile stuff on my blog. They get deleted in an instant anyway.

You’re the editor of your blog, so edit and moderate as you see fit.

At the end of the day, it’s your blog. It’s your website. You reserve the right to allow content to be published, and this includes comments left by your readers too. If you don’t like what is written, by all means remove it. It’s up to you if you want to remove any sort of negative comments. Personally, it it’s constructive criticism, I leave it in. Or any form of criticism that isn’t foul.

If you get hateful comments on a regular basis (I’m sorry if you do), then it might be a good idea to moderate your comments for a while. When they stop coming in (and they will. Unless the person is really out to get you, chances are they’ll get tired of it and move on to another blog to poo on), then you can remove comment moderation.

Take comments with a pinch or two of salt. In fact, take a tablespoonful.

You might think it’s true what the negative comments say about you, but unless these commenters know you personally, chances are they’re only talking about you based on the photographs you posted. Unless you’re a professional photographer, there’ll be times when the photos do not really reflect the best of you, and this gives them an excuse to attack. I’m not saying that you should stop posting any photos of yourself. After all, practice makes perfect. But these haters are simply attacking you on face value, thus you should treat their comments the same as well. Delete!

Beware of trolls masquerading as other bloggers

I once had very nasty comments left by some prominent bloggers. It astounded me completely because my first thought was, “why are these people attacking my wee blog?!” These were not just negative comments, they were nasty cursing-about-my-mother-and-adding-genitalia-in-the-equation words. It was a good thing I was a a reader of their blogs, and from the their writing style, I had a funny feeling the nasty commenters were not them. So I contacted them and asked if they were the ones who wrote those comments. They responded immediately, clarifying that it definitely wasn’t them, but the work of some sick trolls lurking on the Internet. It was a huge relief, but just to be safe, I moderated comments for a couple of weeks before it died down.

So if you do get nasty comments from other bloggers, and you roughly know their style of writing, it doesn’t hurt to contact them about this. And if you get anything mean and untoward from me, well, it’s obviously NOT from me, because I never leave nasty comments on blogs. Well, not unless you blogged about *gasp* kicking a puppy or something 😉

You’ve got it made!

Let’s put it this way. What’s the point of writing a blog if no one but yourself ever reads it? Once you get your first nasty comment, rejoice, for you’ve made it! Your readership has increased to the point where you’re attracting the meanies. It’s a good thing 🙂 Have a laugh at their atrocious English (I’ve had some who couldn’t even spell properly), and then hit Delete.

Never sink to their level

The urge of wanting to fight back is incredibly strong. I know, because I’ve blogged about asking haters to leave me alone one too many times. By all means, blog about it. Respect your blog, because it’s something you’ve worked hard on. Be firm, but leave those nasty words about these haters out of it. Take the high road and not sink to their level.

So there you go, some pointers on dealing with hateful comments. At the end of the day, it is still your blog, and I’m no one to tell you what to do with it. These are my personal views, is all, and how I deal with them. Still, I hope they are useful to you.

Down with haters!