What to Do When the Vitriol Comes for You

By Blair Glaser

Though she knew better, memoirist Suzanne Roberts (Animal Bodies; Bad Tourist) bit into the forbidden apple of Goodreads reviews. In a resultant Facebook post, she shared how she dealt with the “cesspool of not-so-nice things” readers had to say: she took one particularly egregious insult and made it into a mug. She now enjoys her morning coffee in a cup labeled Self-righteous Slut.

I call that move humor judo: transmuting the negative energy of your opponent by owning their insult and infusing it with humor. In my day job as a leadership consultant for mission-driven leaders, it’s one of the tactics I teach my clients when they’re faced with intra-company or public attacks. The more effective a leader is at influencing change, the more those who are threatened by change will try to derail them, so we co-create an anti-hate protocol in preparation.

I didn’t anticipate needing to create a protocol for myself in my role as a writer. Having been told repeatedly by my colleagues to ignore the comments, I’d managed to refrain … until emails from offended readers found their way to my inbox, including one response to a HuffPost essay that called me a moron and counseled me to “actually think before writing a think piece.”

Whether you are led to the cesspool by a pernicious curiosity or it finds you through email, social media or Goodreads reviews—hate, once it hits you, can infect you like a virus. It can shut you down, interfere with your sleep, make your body ache, and usurp your thoughts for hours, sometimes days, as you work through imaginary rebuttals to strangers who don’t deserve your time or energy. When Chris Wells, writer, storyteller, playwright and creator of the NYC performance event The Secret City was viciously attacked in response to a newsletter he wrote for his arts community, he said, “It gave me a panicked feeling, like I wasn’t safe.” It even made him question his career pivot from performer to writer.

Since online nastiness is pretty hard to escape these days, how do we writers survive the vitriol and continue our work? Here are four steps to help you heal when the hate comes for you:

1. Get the poison out

Imagine the hate as a foreign substance in your body. Humor, as Roberts’ mug demonstrates, is one way to alchemize it. Adiba Nelson (Ain’t That a Mother) practices humor judo by responding to nasty comments about her appearance with a silly GIF, which changes the energy. She’ll occasionally goad her trolls by responding, “That’s the best you can do?!”

But sometimes you get infected in a way that makes joking impossible. In these cases, I recommend creating a ritual that includes a physical activity. Get your heartrate up. Sweat it out. Clean your house. Be aggressive. Aileen Weintraub (Knocked Down), is a boxer who also rage gardens. You can even wash that hate right out of your hair, and as you shower, imagine it flowing down the drain with the suds.

Use your creativity to find a ritual that works for you. You may have to repeat step one daily, while simultaneously following step two.

2. Call in the troops

Contact your anti-hate warriors: friends, family members, colleagues; people who love you and can remind you of who you are. Lean on someone who’s been through it. When Wells was “scalded” by a vicious email (I’m leaving the content to your imagination so as not to give it energy), he summoned a board member of his arts nonprofit, a famous performer who he knew had suffered similar slings. He continues to listen to her advice: “It’s awful, but you get used to it and at some point you just ignore them and keep doing your thing. Also, delete it immediately.”

If you publish a lot, you might choose to create a formal anti-hate posse to summon when the missiles flare. These are people who will not only listen and support you emotionally, but also make you laugh and help you gravitate towards self-loving behavior like going for a walk, or even getting out to be social. Whatever you do, don’t isolate. Trying to muscle through it alone increases the risk of falling into a sinkhole of shame, which blocks creativity.

3. Schedule your thoughts

Sometimes it’s hard to let the provocation go. While you’re dropping off your kids or scrolling online, you’re also in your head, arguing with the hater. They’ve won when you’re doing this, but knowing that doesn’t always help, and sometimes makes you feel worse because you can’t stop! Instead, schedule time to think about it: no more than 15 minutes, two times a day. When you catch yourself in an imaginary argument with a mean-spirited stranger from the internet, save it for the time block you’ve set aside.

During the allotted time, let yourself ruminate, write it out, gesture wildly in your car, etc.

If you can stick to it, it has a paradoxical effect. You may find your steam has run out before the timer. And soon, you won’t be thinking about it at all.

4. Get back to writing

Nelson, a burlesque performer and disability rights activist, wrote opinion pieces for her local paper until she received a particularly brutal threat of doxxing. She discussed it with her family and decided that she would no longer write opinion pieces. She pivoted, and now shares her thoughts in her children’s books and culture pieces for publications like Parents magazine.

A harsh dose of hate may halt your creativity, but each time you return to writing it gets easier. Sari Botton (Goodbye to All That; You May Find Yourself ) says that while she sometimes takes the time to respond to harsh critical feedback, after many years as a writer, she no longer pays attention to nasty internet intruders.

Talking to Botton and others who’ve been on this path showed me that in regards to random hate, it’s possible to develop the writer’s version of a guitarist’s calloused fingers: natural protection that arises from repetition. 

Haters are going to hate. And when they do, don’t let them stop you from writing. Work the protocol, take a breather, and get back to it. You’ll find yourself, and your worth, on the page.
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Blair Glaser is a leadership consultant and writer with with bylines at Longreads; Oldster; Quartz; Yes!; Shondaland; Insider; HuffPost; and others. She’s finishing up a memoir about living in an ashram in her 20s. Connect with her on Instagram @Blair_Glaser or at www.blairglaser.com.