Letting the haters hate

Earlier this morning, I was doing something that is part of my “morning activities”: I was on Pinterest. So there I was just innocently pinning away and then I started to experience trouble pinning some things. Apparently, some people who I don’t know have blocked me on Pinterest. At first, I joked about it. Seriously, I had a good laugh. “I’m so evil!” I chortled. But I started to wonder why these people blocked me. I didn’t know them and weren’t following them or anything. I guess new people who join Pinterest get an email telling them, “Welcome to Pinterest! Be sure to block Dawn Wilson!” LOL

But, ya know, the whole blocking thing on Pinterest really doesn’t bother me. Like I said, it makes me laugh. I didn’t do anything to these people. I wasn’t mean to them. I didn’t send them spam or anything. So, I dunno. Whateva.

But it doesn’t hurt me. And if those people think it hurts me, then they really need to get a life!

That got me to thinking: There are other things people do on the Internet – specifically, social media – that can be seen as bullying or as being negative. Now, getting your ass torn out in a comment war is one thing. That is not cool. But the whole blocking on Pinterest, unfriending on Facebook and tagging people on Twitter with negative tweets can be used as a way of bullying and hurting others.

Me, I don’t give a shit.

Seriously, haters gonna hate! And you know what? I don’t care. Let me rephrase that: I. Don’t. Care.

I am too busy living my life and doing my own thing to give a flying fuck about people on the Internet deciding to put me on their shit list. Especially when it comes to people I don’t know.

You wanna block me on Pinterest for no reason? Go right ahead!

You wanna unfriend me on Facebook because I hurt your mom’s feelings? Fine!

You wanna point and laugh at my small number of followers on Twitter and tell everybody “don’t buy her books because she hurt me” or “don’t buy her books because she’s a two-faced liar” or “don’t buy her books because she worships the devil”? Have at it!

Meanwhile, I’m gonna be over here not giving a crap!

I am going to continue doing my own thing, just as I have always done my own thing. I will continue to write books because I want to write books. I will continue to pin things on Pinterest because I want to pin things on Pinterest. I will continue to be active on Twitter and Facebook because I WANT to be active on Twiter and Facebook.

And I REALLY don’t care if that bothers someone!

I have the right to live my life. Deal with it.

If people are all gonna be a bunch of crybabies or whiners or haters on the Internet because of something I did or said or shared or…WHATEVER then they can either take it up with me personally and we can work that out or they can waste their time and their life by hating on me and doing silly shit thinking it will hurt MY feelings. And if they choose the latter, then I guess they REALLY need to have more drama in their lives. I guess they HAVE to have something to cry into their pillows about. I guess they want that one Horrible Thing from the past to hold against someone for the rest of their lives. That’s too bad, but I’m not going to disappear because of it.

I am still here. I am still doing my own thing. And regardless of what kind of crap I have to take from people on the Internet, I will ALWAYS be here. I will NOT go away. I will not kill myself over their petty shit. I will not bury myself into a hole and hope the world forgets my shame.

Nope. I’m not going anywhere. I write what I want to write. I don’t do shit to get people’s attention or to get on someone’s nerves or to intentionally hurt another person. (Gotta keep in mind all the pussies out there who can’t take a joke!!) I’m not doing stuff to make up for anything because if I HAVE hurt someone’s feelings AND they actually take the time to talk to me about it instead of holding a grudge FOREVER and spreading hate, then it’s all good. I AM willing to work things out with people. I AM willing to acknowledge if I made a mistake, apologize and make things right with people.

But if instead they choose to do things on the Internet like blocking me or unfriending me or whatever, then they are just wasting their time. None of that shit hurts me at all. So you go right ahead and keep doing your passive-aggressive bullying tactics thinking it’ll make me fall apart into a million pieces. You go right ahead! It’s not going to work! I am going to continue living my life and doing my own thing! And none of that negativity coming from the haters is gonna stop me at all.

Why we need social media

For the longest time, I have had a love/hate relationship with social media. I don’t use ALL of the social media sites and rarely will I ever participate at Google+. But I love the social media sites I DO use – Twitter and Facebook – because they’ve been great to stay connected with people. I HAVE been tempted to leave them either because I have had problems with people who were being jerks or my friends’ complaints about “evil social media” starting to frighten me. But then I figured, heck, I’ve been on this long, why stop now?

And I have seen how social media has been helpful to people. It’s helped to bust criminals, put together clues on things that have happened to people, as well as get messages across that the public at large could not be prone to. (Journalists DO use tweets and Facebook pics/posts in their stories.) Today, I saw how using social media can be VERY helpful.

I am reviewing this nonfiction book for Night Owl Reviews that is a woman’s true story of different things that have happened in her life that drew her closer to God. (Good book, by the way!) In one chapter that I read today, she recounted a terrifying experience she and her friends went through that they were lucky to survive. On a holiday in an Australian rainforest, the driver lost control of their car and it flew into a deep part of the forest, front-first, and nearly sank into the mud. They survived that crash and pushed their car out of the mud, but the car was out of gas so they couldn’t use it to get out of there. So they started walking – and ended up getting lost. In a rainforest. None of them had a cell phone, as well as no food, radio or water. For hours, they trekked through the woods, and then they got lost. They were freezing, scared, starving, bruised from the crash, dehydrated and had no way to call for any help. The author of this story said that no one knew where they were so they would not come looking for them, and no one would know for several more hours that they were lost.

By that time, they might be dead.

As I read this, I thought, Well, what if one of them had been posting about their adventures on Twitter? And a friend realized that the posts stopped, or there was no blog posts or pics on Instagram, and realize something was wrong?

But then I remembered that this person’s story took place several years ago – before Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and blogs. (Well, the blogs we know today.) No one would have updated or posted about ANYTHING on social media, because there WAS no social media at that time!

This gave me pause. It also made me grateful that we DO have social media. Thank God for people who post about their vacations and their adventures! That’s how other people – their friends, family and colleagues – can keep tabs on them. So often I have checked out the Twitter or Facebook page of someone I’ve lost touch with, or even their blogs, to see if they’re still alive. You know? I mean, social media is a great way for us to keep tabs on each other and be more aware of if something is wrong.

So, yes, I AM glad we have social media today. Maybe those college kids would have had a better chance of some friend thinking something was wrong because there weren’t any tweets or Facebook posts. (Smartphones make it possible for us to do that no matter where we are – another thing to be thankful for!)

In the end, one of the group who was still strong went on ahead and got help. They were rescued. But I think if they’d been using social media to post about their adventures and stuff, maybe it would be less worry for people who get lost because there is a chance someone following their posts would see no recent updates or tweets or anything, and realize they might be in danger and need some help.

Twitter can bring out the worst in people

I recently had to unfollow some people on Twitter. It's not because of harassment or a hundred thousand tweets they made every day (though one of them DID send out a heck of a lot of tweets every day, but that didn't bug me so much, really). No, the reason why I stopped following them is strictly for personal reasons.

Two of them, in particular, enthralled their followers with their ongoing soap opera of a romance. I thought the whole thing was funny, really. It just made me roll my eyes and chuckle. I even poked fun about it with one of them. Then one day, I started to wonder, what is the press saying about these two and their tweeting romance? They ARE celebrities, and I know that journalists use celebrity tweets for information. So what are they saying about these two?

I decided to do a Google search to find out. One article made my jaw drop. Some of the tweets by the female in this whole affair were pretty graphic, if not a little over the edge. What's worse is that she publicly acknowledged she was sleeping with a married man. (Shame! Shame! But then again, she IS an actress living in Hollywood. Hollywood has no shame.) As I read her tweets, some of which she later managed to delete (I thought you couldn't delete your tweets??), a thought struck me: I never knew she was such an s-word.

Wow. Seriously. I never realized their sexcapades were THAT obscene. And it was a huge turn-off how she kept tweeting about her sexual adventures with two men. TWO! (Ugh.)

I mean, show a little restraint, people. Good grief. I know there are nymphos in this world, but do they REALLY need to share that stuff on Twitter?

Well, I don't follow people just to read about their (disgusting) sex life. That stuff is NOT for public knowledge! Sex is something special and sacred to be shared between a couple, not something to tweet about. I really don't care for women who spread their legs for several men. I had already grown weary reading her tweets and this was the last straw. I unfollowed her, and I don't think I'll refollow her because now I know her wild side and I don't like what I'm seeing about her. Some people just can't control themselves or actually LOVE bragging about their sexual exploits. Well, I'm not interested.

And as for the other one, I unfollowed him, too. Now that I knew HIS wild side, I'll admit I lost all respect for him, mostly because EVERYBODY talks about what a "gentleman" he is but now it's obvious to me that a gentleman is something he is NOT! He'd rather bed a woman instead of making a commitment to her. And there ARE men like this, too. I was sad to see that he is one of them, but at least now I know the truth about him. I guess he has no qualms about sleeping with a woman he KNOWS is also sleeping with a married man. Let alone the three of them participating together. I guess nothing is sacred or special to him when it comes to that sort of relationship with a woman.

This whole thing reminded me of how celebrities and even famous authors were tweeting about things they shouldn't in the past, and how the press picked up on all of it. The press would catch something and, in the blink of an eye, it was all over the Twitterverse. One famous author, for example, ranted about a bad review she received for her book. After her public shame and ridicule, she was forced to delete her Twitter account.

People SHOULD be careful what they tweet about, because it WILL come back at them, especially if they are a celebrity. After I unfollowed this woman (who I will NOT call a lady), I went back to her page the next day to find her ranting about journalists who use Twitter as a source and telling them off and, oh, gee, "guess I should be careful what I tweet about."

Ya think???

I am not being fooled by those rants. I seriously doubt someone hacked into her account and made all those tweets about her affairs with two men. And, anyway, her whole admission of how she should be more careful with what she tweets about is the dead giveaway that those particular tweets used by journalists did indeed come from her.

Now, I am not prudish, but I AM a Christian with certain principles. And while I KNOW there are people out there who have no problem with the fact that they sleep around or have no shame in admitting they commit adultery or even a sex crime, I have certain limitations in what kind of tweets I want to read about. I don't want any association with them. I'm not following people on Twitter to get my jollies from their adventures or to live vicariously through them. And if they think that tweeting about their sex life or about being someone with a questionable character, then they've really lost my interest in them altogether.