To Block or Not to Block?

That is the question if you communicate online

Image created by author on NightCafe AI

“Not all the songs of earth, not all the stars of heaven, could fill your emptiness.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

If you express your opinions, ideas, or creative efforts online, whether for fun or profit, it won’t be long before someone throws you a digital dig. Jumping into the culture wars can get nasty faster than Jägerbombs get downed at a frat party.

Most of us are familiar with the amount of hostility that can be unleashed online even if we aren’t the target, particularly in an election year. We’ve been at this “us and them” thing for a while now. Whether we’re talking gender, lifestyle, sports, music, comic books, or breastfeeding in public, there’s someone out there just itching to “own” you.

When they do, our first impulse is to send those wounding words and the horse they rode in on into the void. I get it. I’ve done it, but hold onto your “hide” and “block” buttons; there’s a good reason why it might be better to refrain from closing the iron door too quickly.

Burns come in all shapes and sizes

One simple word can send a poster or content creator into an emotional whirlwind. Here are some examples:

“Cute”

“Really?”

“Please!”

“Wrong”

“Next”

“Loser”

“Harsh!”

Even a simple “no” can, in the proper context, be taken as an insult. But most naysayers stretch it out, sometimes tossing in ad hominem attacks.

“No, Boomer. It’s you who destroyed this country. Why don’t you shut up and go back to doing Wordle (as if it isn’t too late)? Those brain cells you blew at Woodstock ain’t growing back anytime soon. Maybe you should pack it in and die already.”

Classic troll behavior, right? But not everyone challenging folks online is so patently offensive. Sometimes, a critic can be surprisingly scholarly and still hurt your feelings. That’s because no matter how passive, an attack is an attack.

One from the vaults

When I began writing online, one of my earliest critics responded to what I thought was a lighthearted jab at the Roman Empire with a tirade that threw me for a loop. It’s too funny not to share, although the guy was serious. Here is the story that got his knickers in a twist:

Astonishing Truth About Vomitoria Revealed

The ancient Romans had them, as do we

medium.com

Denise, it’s unclear why, in an article about etymology, you commence with an intemperate ad hominem against 800 years of civilization that among many other things provided a fixed rule of law, universal citizenship, the right of free women to own (and control) their own property, running water, urban sanitation, and an extremely high rate of literacy compared to other Axial age civilizations. Furthermore, Roman society was highly tolerant of other mythologies, which is a quality notably absent in the neurotic monotheism of the Judaic, Christian, and Moslem mythologies that have between them caused infinitely more death and suffering than all the Roman conquests combined.

No society is perfect, but choosing to select a few of the least admirable aspects of a culture that lasted nearly a millennia is misleading, and more importantly is irrelevant to the central theme of your article. I could perhaps have been more interesting for you to have used the space to point out that Latin vomere came from the proto-Indo European weme (meaning to eject or spit); the same root transmuted into Sanskrit as vamati and into Greek as ἐμἐἶν. It is thus one of the fundamental root words in most modern European languages, having been absorbed not only into Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon but also into Lithuanian, Old High Germanic, and even Russian (as рвотное).

You have to admit he deserves an “A++” for effort. So, after I got off the floor, I carefully reviewed his comment and responded with one of my own. I’ll let you judge who “owned” whom in this case.

Thanks for your insight. The reason I wrote this piece the way I did is because my background and education are in communications and literature rather than etymology. I intend it to be neither scholarly nor comprehensive. Its purpose is to entertain a general audience and to correct a misconception promoted in popular culture. I would be surprised if anyone based their entire opinion about the Roman Empire on my little fun-factoid. Still, I appreciate your concern, and I bow to your superior knowledge of Latin, Sanskrit, Greek, Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Lithuanian, Old High Germanic, and “even Russian.”

I gave my response a lot of thought. Numerous versions ran through my head before I chose the one I did, from snarky to downright insulting. Some people might have shot back a nasty remark, deleted the comment, and/or blocked the sender.

I did none of those things. I acknowledged his points, explained why I took the approach I did, and tossed a little red meat to his voracious ego, albeit in a vaguely tongue-in-cheek way. Why? Because I stood to gain nothing by doing anything else.

Besides, he didn’t say anything legitimately offensive. Wrong-headed? Yes, he clearly didn’t understand that I was going for a little light history show-and-tell, not writing my master’s thesis. Superior tone? For sure, but that’s not the same as calling me an idiot, even though there’s some indication he might think so.

The upshot is that others could join the conversation because I neither blocked nor insulted my critic. I made $100 because I chose to respond as I did. See what I mean?

Furthermore, I could share it with you because I didn’t delete his self-aggrandizing, mansplaining screed in a huff. With any luck, your reads likes, and shares will squeeze another buck or two out of it for me. There’s no better revenge than that.

To block or not to block?

I’ve concluded that suffering the slings and arrows of negative comments is not only nobler but more lucrative for those writing online for money. I either ignore them or respond politely.

Fighting with folks only encourages them to throw more stones at you. If it’s a straight-up troll whose goal is to make trouble for the sheer glee of upsetting me, my refusal to play along frustrates them, and they go away.

However, if the negative commenter expresses an opposing opinion or viewpoint because they are sincerely interested in the topic, the ensuing discussion may draw people in and increase my engagement. I also might learn something. You never know.

There are occasions when I delete comments, block, or report people. Most frequently, they are trying to hijack my comments thread to sell something, like Bitcoin or a car wash solution. That crosses a line.

It’s a rare bird who can ruffle my feathers today, but it wasn’t always so. Years of online engagement have toughed me up. The egos of creative folks take a lot of abuse. It comes with the territory.

My advice to other creatives is to find a way to use the public's reaction, good or bad, to your advantage. As the old Hollywood saying goes, “The only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity.” Love or hate me, as long as you’re engaged, I count it a win.