The Anti-Hate Blogger Gang
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your unbelievably wonderful comments on my anonymous jerk commenters post, and to the people who reached out to me via email as well. It’s clear to me that the lovers outweigh the haters, and I should keep this in mind more often. But what is such a bummer is that a lot of people shared their own experience of dealing with mean, hateful people on their own blogs, and that really gets my blood boiling. If someone does not like what we post about, or for some reason doesn’t like us as bloggers, then they have this amazing ability to just click away. There is a BIG difference between constructive criticism and hateful commenting. I will be the first to admit that sometimes I read a blog post and respond IN MY HEAD something snarky and mean, but do I comment it? No. But clearly some people do not have this kind of self control. Or maybe they forget that we too are people behind these blogs, not just text and pretty pictures on a page.
So this is why we need our blogger gang, and with your suggestions I decided we will look like something that’s a cross between these:
We will be the Anti-Hate Blogger Gang and we will kick the asses of all mean anonymous commenters. This gang also works for those of you who are pacifists, since we can’t actually locate anonymous commenters and we would probably be arrested if we did (and we shouldn’t hurt people?) Now, if you would like to let people who comment know that you are part of this gang, you can change your comment form text to include a message that says something along the lines of “I am a member of the The Anti-Hate Blogger Gang, and leaving anonymous, hateful comments is not allowed. Please be nice.”
If you would like to do this on blogger, go to your settings, go to “comments” and there is a box called “Comment Form Message” where you can enter something in. I don’t use other blogging programs, so if those of you who do know how you can do this on them, like Typepad and WordPress, please comment and let us know! Much appreciated. Or, you could just put this text on your sidebar somewhere. I’m not a blog tech wizard outside of Blogger so I can’t help you outside of those templates.
There is no initiation to get into the gang, you just have to virtually pinky swear me that you have never left an anonymous mean comment on a blog. Ok?
UPDATE: OMG, awesome awesome awesome Kim has designed our gang logos!! I wanted to do this but I didn’t have time, so she gets some mad props for this. I love the brass knuckles one:
http://www.thehavingfunclub.org/antihatebloggergang.gif (This one is supposed to be the Blogger logo altered as brass knuckles)
http://www.thehavingfunclub.org/antihatebloggergang2.gif (For bloggers not using Blogger :)
March 18th, 2010 at 2:17 am
I love it! There are some really mean people out there and not just online. I’ve got my gang logo up already :)
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March 22nd, 2010 at 7:17 am
I really appreciate your blog post, I always check this once in a while if there is a new one.. thank you very much..
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April 18th, 2010 at 9:16 am
[...] I think you know what the moral of this story is. Speaking of mean, seems like there’s a lot of chatter recently about mean comments being posted in blog land. Which is why I love this. [...]
June 18th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
AMEN.
Brass knuckles are ON.
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July 12th, 2010 at 8:22 am
Just got my first hateful comment. Love the brass knuckles…going on my blog!
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August 9th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Totally agree with this post. The majority of commenters and bloggers are so nice, it’s just sad when a few bad apples can ruin the whole experience.
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September 3rd, 2010 at 11:09 am
I’m on board. Thank you for this post and for rallying up the gang.
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December 6th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
I love it! Definitely adding it to my blog! Thanks for this post and getting a “gang” together. Love the pictures too. Very fitting! ;)
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December 14th, 2011 at 11:14 am
Definetly me too!! So count me on..
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