It’s normal to dislike things, and I think expressing that dislike is normal healthy behavior. Venting can be a way of dealing with your frustration, and publicly venting can sometimes help you find others who feel similarly to you. Sometimes it can even promote positive change when it’s formed into constructive feedback.
If you’ve been online at all for any period of time, I’m guessing you can easily see the issue. While it’s normal and can even be beneficial, the current internet doesn’t operate like that. Negativity promotes a lot of attention, which gets rewarded by various engagement algorithms, and as a result turns a lot of attention-starved people into haters almost instantly.
It can happen to anyone. You could be the nicest person alive. Find something you dislike enough and if you talk about it enough and you will become a hater. You might not recognize yourself as such, but the people who disagree with you definitely will. Which will just invite other haters (both those who disagree and agree with you) to build up a shitstorm that will ultimately contribute nothing positive and enact everlasting harm.
It might sounds like I’m exaggerating, and my intention is not to tell people you can’t dislike or disagree with each other. However, it is happening on a daily basis, and my hope with this post is to highlight some of my own observations about it.
Let me start off with the incident that pushed me to make this post. While this is something I’ve observed for a while and have many incidents I can point to, what actually got me to start writing this was a video calling out the vtuber Ironmouse’s singing (titled something like Ironmouse please stop singing, I think)
To give some background (disclosure) on me, I used to be very into vtubers when the pandemic happened. Although that was mostly limited to Hololive and mostly the Japanese members (though I did have some affection for EN generation 1) I bought the merch, subbed to streams, and watched endless amounts of clipped content.
At some point, I fell off. Not completely, as I still enjoy checking in on some vtubing stuff when I see it, but I’d say it went from something I consumed daily to something I only look at if someone happens to be playing a game I love. I used to be at a point where 90% of YT recommends was vtubing content, but now it’s more like 10% if that.
I’ve always been loosely aware of Ironmouse from the time I was super into vtubers, and I became more aware of her when I started consuming content from Connor (aka Cdawgva) who is one of her best friends. I’ve seen a few clips of her and I’ve heard her sing a few times in the past, and my general opinion has always been “She seems nice, not someone I would watch everyday and certainly not a perfect person, but nice and somewhat talented”
To put it another way, if someone said they disliked Ironmouse’s singing, I wouldn’t necessarily concur or disagree, I’d mostly just respect their opinion and move on with my life. However, from the title of the video (Ironmouse please stop singing) I could feel a sense of “This seems a little much” even before I clicked on it, and after watching a minute or two of it, I was already done with it
They weren’t saying the most extreme things I’ve ever seen people say about her, but the attitude that came from the videos creator felt very disrespectful. What was worse than the few minutes of the video I watched, however, was the actual comments. Rather than a healthy discussion, it was primarily people shitting on Ironmouse and badmouthing the people who liked her at all (regardless of singing)
That is the problem with haters. It isn’t just an unhealthy mindset for the person to be so focused on their dislike of something. It becomes even worse when they create an atmosphere that just invites more people to also feel like them and feed the perpetual cycle.
A different example.
For a time on Youtube, I got recommended content from this creator Sebbywebz. I think because I was getting into Expedition 33 (a game he loves to glaze) and was also a huge fan of FF7 (the original, important to note for later) He has a nice voice and if his content was mostly positive, I could see myself subscribing to him.
From that introduction you can probably surmise the issue. Suffice it to say a lot of his content focuses on the opposite. I mentioned before that he really likes FF7, and the reason I had to stipulate the original is because he HATES the remake. Not just dislike but actively hates it, and he’s cultivated a whole audience of people who also hate it.
They’ll shit on SE. Shit on the developers. Shit on people who like the remake (shills, drones,w/e) Bring it up constantly (especially when playing games they think are better) Their dislike of something practically dominates all they have to say.
And you know it’s not that I don’t get why. It’s rewarded. Nothing brings in the attention quite like being haters. Regardless of how unhealthy it is for the people involved or the people who drawn into it. It’s a money maker.
However, what does any of it accomplish? People obviously do not feel any relief from the venting (if anything they just find themselves getting further frustrated) Any community of people they find is mostly just them hating something rather than an actual connection (Something a lot of us need) On the contrary they’re just making sure others will dislike them more than others will like them.
I like a lot of things and I dislike a lot of things. You could say that somewhat defines who I am, but are those all that I am? I used to think they were, and I think that only isolated me more than anything. Obsession with the things I loved or things I hated only held me back from a broader sense of contentment.
The more I’ve opened myself up to certain things, the less frustrated I’ve been when things aren’t ideal. I think people and the world would be a lot healthier if we could just stop.
I might add a pt 2 to this as there’s a few more examples I wanted to give, but I’m running out of steam and focus for this right now