While browsing through Pinterest recently I got a nice little surprise when I saw someone had pinned something from my blog. So out of interest I looked to see what else may have been pinned. Then I saw a heap of comments after one pic (from my polymer bead necklace tutorial post), starting with the first person's "yeah, not a fan". It then went on to "we make these in bible school. Too childlike" and so on. OK, so not everyone has the same taste, but I wonder why they felt it necessary to make a negative comment. A reasonable amount of what I see on Pinterest is not to my taste but I don't see a need to put someone else down because of it.
This really shouldn't bother me, but it did a little and it got me thinking about how when you put yourself, and your style, taste, likes and dislikes out there for the world to see, I guess you open yourself up to criticism. In my working life as a Graphic Designer I learned to sift through negative comments to work out what the issue was, and take the personal nature out of it. But sometimes it still stung. Maybe it's a hazard of what we do. Maybe it's just my ego.
How do you deal with negativity? Do you let it roll off your back? Are you calm and rational, not taking it on board? Do you write a polite little correcting statement to set the record straight? Or do you feel like emailing that twee-loving, styleless oaf and with a comment back at her "yeah, not a fan" ;-)
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AH! i had that happen once too... someone pinned a tutorial of mine with the comment "good idea, but i could SO do better" i ended up commenting to thank her for pinning it and invited her to add a photo of her finished project to my flickr group. and then i fumed for a bit. she actually added the picture to my group, which i just found amusing. i suppose a good reminder of why i strive to keep my negative comments to myself.
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable! Some people just have no idea how to relate to other people, do they. And saying she could do it better... Well, I think if someone says that then its obviously not true! Good on you Rachel for handling it in a dignified way, you're twice the person she is.
Deleteaw, thanks :) and shame on me... i forgot to mention in my comment that i disagree with the negative comments about your necklace!
DeleteI think people forget that their comments may be read by the person they are criticising. DH and I made up a very meaningful name for our daughter. One day we decided to google it and were surprised by what we found. The only hit was someone who had seen her name somewhere posted a question on a baby website as to how to pronounce it. Some of the replies included... "I'm just taking a stab -
ReplyDelete"hol-ee-krap".... "Oh. Dear. God. What sort of illiterate...*mumble mumble mumble* Seriously, it looks like their fingers had a seizure on the keyboard or something."...."WTF did you call your poor kid that?" We certainly got a laugh at how bold some people were. I did comment on the thread to explain the pronunciation and meaning of her name - so that when she is old enough to google her name she will at least be able to read the positive with the negative!
BTW, I loved your polymer clay necklace - I thought it was unique, colourful and funky :)
That's awful Laura, I just wonder what makes people say such awful things. And isn't it weird how if we do something a little different to the norm some people can't deal with it. I'm sure your daughter will appreciate the thought and you and your husband have put into choosing her name.
DeleteOh no that's just terrible! I just don't think it's nessesary to comment if things are not your style or taste! Some people just don't think about how their "not so nice" comments will effect someone! I probably wouldn't comment back because I would be worried that I might start a war! :s
ReplyDeleteI love your necklaces... they (who commented) obviously have no style :)
Ouch indeed! I try to ignore those kinds of comments, because you can't please everybody. When I feel less charitable, I remind myself that I see such a lot of ugly rubbish on Pinterest, pinned with very enthusiastic comments, and obviously there are a lot of people out there with truly terrible taste :)
ReplyDeleteI've actually been struck by this sort of thing for a while, I'm constantly amazed at just how plain mean and rude, even abusive, people can be when they're commenting on blogs or forums. I don't know whether they're just doing it thoughtlessly, not stopping for 5 minutes to consider that it might actually make someone feel like crap to read it, and that there are REAL people to be hurt; or whether they secretly take a bit of perverse pleasure in 'speaking their mind' without having to really deal with the consequences in person - after all they can just tippy-type a hurtful message, hit 'send' and never think about it again. For mine it's the absolute worst aspect of modern life online and I wish people were more thoughtful.
ReplyDeleteI think we can't but help feeling at least a little hurt when people, especially complete strangers, make negative and unconstructive comments about us or things we make. But, I also keep in mind that for every bad comment there are always MANY more good comments.
ReplyDeleteI think it actually says more about the commenter don't you?
As I commented at the time I loved your necklaces and the fact you shared your tutorial with us!