“Hi, my name is Blah D. Blah and I’m a Hater.”
“Hi Blah D. Welcome to Haters Anonymous.”
Well, I very much doubt that there are any 12 Step programs for haters. I doubt haters think they have any kind of addiction problem and certainly would not be ready to say they were powerless over hating or that it had made their lives unmanageable. But haters can certainly affect the lives of others. Haters have upset people, caused professionals’ reputations to be damaged and at worst have bullied and traumatized some people to the point where they have taken their own lives.
Haters have a field day in the realm of social media. They can be found in all areas; groups for people suffering with mental illness, people with children with disabilities, people with addictions, people with horses and people who are just trying to get on and lead a decent life. Anyone, anywhere, can be a victim of haters. Haters do not hold back from attacking other haters either, which is a sort of equalizing factor I suppose.
It is easy to say: “haters gonna hate, just let it go.” It’s not so easy to do it when you are on the receiving end of the hating.
Why do haters hate? Why do they react the way they do? Do they have no empathy? Do they have no respect? Where does this hate come from? I think we would like to believe that in 2017 we are in a civilized world even though the daily news would tell us otherwise. We would like to believe that we are striving for a better world. Are we better? Have we made progress?
Let’s look at ancient Rome. The entertainment at the Coliseum in Rome might be a good place to start. A good afternoon’s entertainment of that time would be to watch some Christians be eaten alive by starving wild animals. Or to watch gladiators hack each other to pieces. Thumbs up…life! Thumbs down…death!
What about the England of the Tudors? If you were one of Henry the 8th’s wives you could lose your head in the relative privacy of the Tower of London witnessed by an invited group of members of the Court and the government. More common criminals or traitors would be publicly hung, drawn and quartered before howling mobs in a public square. This grisly spectacle involved seeing a person hung until almost dead, then be cut down and stretched out while his innards were cut out of him and tossed onto burning coals. All part of an afternoon’s entertainment. 
Were the crowds in the Coliseum haters? Were the crowds in Tudor England, yelling at the executions, haters? Have we lost those venues for haters and now they have to go to the internet? I’m just asking.
Or are the majority of haters people who believe they know better and know more than the rest of us? Do they feel compelled to tell us of the errors of our ways while they have the anonymity of the internet, and the shield of the computer screen?
Haters are all about the “thumbs down” approach to life. I am a “thumbs up” person and I have to believe the majority of people are like me. I’m a “liker”.
What about you?
Leave a Reply to Alli FarkasCancel reply