Uhh yes! They Can, They will and They Should!
Social media, is a strange place. People sitting behind their Laptop keypads and Smart phone screen get the ultimate power of being invincible and perform things which they wouldn’t otherwise in real life. For some it means a blessing, with new jobs and businesses. But for a handful ones, it is the means to spread HATRED.
And the recent times the surge of these handful ones are to the extent that you will have to find the Good Readers and Followers among the people sitting, all ready to judge and pass those lewd, unjustified comments to you. Content creators, now have a habit of dealing with such netizen, some ignore, some give them peace of mind, others block them out of their feed.
But doing either of them, one thing they have to endure is to face them and see them eye to eye. With absolutely no fault of theirs, they have to endure such pity comments on their pages/ feeds or inboxes.
Efficere Marketing, for this feed went ahead and ask few of our own very famous content creators on how do they deal with such negativity.
@Shrimarai
Shrima is a lifestyle influencer with her own blog and Instagram page with name @shrimarai. Being related to one of the celebrities, she is often judged compared and targeted upon for the connection she has with the person. However, she sticks to her genuine-self and continue deliver the awesome content with great poise and elegance.
In a recent event when her celebrity connection was diagnosed with Covid with not at all critical situation, she exchanged her worries with them personally and continue to deliver her work on the platform as usual business. Now, from a normal person’s perspective this should be the course and appreciable on how she continues to respect her commitment and continue to deliver her promises.
But for the other part, it was not. Result, her inbox was flooded with comments and messages on “How Can You”, uhh well you know what guys, “She Can, She will and She should”. And that was how it is supposed to be. So, she shut down the haters and continue spreading the smiles as always.
“What you see on a profile is 1% of someone’s life. And with professional influencers it is also a full-time job to keep the algorithm moving, the more you post and use new tools the faster their page is picked up on explore. It’s more complicated & more work than most people realize. Many times, I have seen comments thrown at a person without any politeness, understanding in a way that probably that we don’t often see in the real world. You would not just walk up to a total stranger enter their personal space and be rude. But people will enter a personal blog space and enter opinions and comments without a thought. We should especially be careful now as mental health during Covid is getting worse for many. a lot of people use social media to find a happy place for themselves to share their experiences and life and people should think twice before tearing into that space with negativity”
Namrata from @MomzandMore
Namrata is the founder member of Multiple Facebook Groups, which focus around building a Moms only community. She also hosts a number of other community groups in other areas.
Being an Instagram influencer herself, it’s a daily job for her to avoid and manage such incidents. On asking on her experience about getting such post to Approve to be posted on her Facebook pages, or the comments the posts get on the posts on the pages which she has to forcibly delete.
“Facebook Communities are a little different than Instagram. Being the Admins – we have a lot more control, rights and insights into what is being posted in the group. All the posts are put on admin approval – so, we go through the content before posting it. This helps. Yet, we get So many posts and hate comments which we have to forcibly delete. We do have strict rules in place and any posts or comments on race, religion, politics- leading to instigation is off limit. Any member who crosses a line and makes a hate comment on any post is thankfully reported to the admins always by other members instantly, if we missed it, and an immediate and appropriate action is taken – either they are removed from the group or blocked. The pages exposed to wider audience of all gender gets more of such activities. Hate posts against a religion – that happened so often. Instigating videos are shared, but we are very careful what gets posted.”
Admin, MomzandMore
The case of – Agrima Joshua!
With the Internet going wide, there are so many such incident being reported almost everyday now. What is more surprising is, that people like appreciate and share this kind of negativity further. The case of Agrima Joshua, which made headline again after 2018 is such am incident. Many celebrities have raised their voice against the incident as well. Read the full report here (https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/agrima-joshua-apologised-for-shivaji-joke-but-what-about-man-who-made-rape-threats-against-her-2712401.html)
She is being threatened rape and such low-level people, having a whooping 30k following on one the social media platform. Seeing all this, we really need to see what kind of ‘Youth Influence’ we are letting our Generation has. Though thanks to our Country’s cops, and same social media drive he is now arrested with Charges imposed on him.
Author’s take
I am all for genuine feedback and constructive criticism. If you have a point of view and voice, you should really use it to be heard. But all at what cost? For the people who have forgotten the line between being genuine and being hateful, who gave them a license to such ‘Moral Policing’ and voice out to people who never asked for your advice at all.
Being a Social Media Influencer, or putting up a ‘Public Profile’ doesn’t give anyone right to come and judge them license free. And this exist at every level. So even for the people who start the conversation with “NO OFFENCE BUT WHY THIS?” or those who want to hide behind “Laughing emoticons” and “Just Curious” slangs. PLEASE STOP.
You are intentionally or unintentionally hurting someone who is dedicating his/ her life to bring happy and meaningful content for you. If you cannot give them their due, at least don’t minimize their effort by criticizing them. There are multiple things in the world already, don’t make it worse by adding your negativity to it. If you don’t want any opinion, unfollow the person or pause the story or ignore. But sharing your piece of mind with them in such negative tone, is not helping anyone including you. So be bold, but be beautiful from inside as well. Share love, share happiness, share constructive criticism. But at the same time be sensitive to others, and walk a mile in their shoes before calling their journey easy.