Haterz Unite!

Now I'm noticing an interesting thing about some of these blogs about town. Occasionally, the blogger presents a post that someone or many someones take offense to. It happens all the time. A tremendous amount of commentary is generated. That in itself is not so interesting. It gets interesting when you realize that close to half that traffic is generated by people coming to the defense of the blogger with witty comebacks like "it's his/her blog and he/she can write whatever he/she wants" or "if you're hating it must be true."

That last one in particular makes a whole lot of sense. Because anytime anyone objects to something, it must be because it's true. For instance, when people protest the KKK, it's obviously because what the KKK says is true. I'm not sure I follow that logic, but I got a pretty good dose of it from reading a recent post on another blog. Here's what one sparkling wit had to say: "Keep it up DCB. All the hating means you’re on to something." Uh-huh. On planet Earth, where I come from, generally a huge groundswell of protest means you're barking up the wrong tree.

Or try this little gem on for size: "People who hate on a blog need to get a life…it’s not like this is scientific fact finding - it’s just opinion and commentary!" Obviously this observer, who goes by the name Asian Mistress and blogs for the Butterfly Network, doesn't understand the power of blogs to affect public opinion. Dan Rather, though, does. Even little local blogs that are read by 10, 50, 500 people have an affect. The reach of the web, especially through search engines such as google, make it attractive for even the looniest people to have websites. Racist nutcases have websites in which they state their opinions and commentary. Simply because a blog is composed mainly of opinion and not of research-based science does not protect it from public excoriation.

If you put your opinion out there, you can expect to find some disagreement.

It'd be nice if the people who agree with you come up with better support than "Haterz are just jealous." Yawn.

Half the fun of some blogs is reading the hater comments anyway. This was true of the Washington Socialites blog, especially in its sad last months.

Those who hate the haterz need to come up with better comebacks.