Dealing with Haters

Why Tweets get canceled

At some point, you’ve probably seen someone get “cancell=ed” over their Tweets. Twitter outrage mobs do form, and you need to be mentally prepared, but don’t let that scare you into not putting out anything. Canceling doesn’t happen as often as you might fear. Nobody wants to be the one to “punch down,” so it mostly happens when you’ve got some amount of following already. That means you have plenty of time to get your “media training” in.

Out of context filter

The basic filter you should run your Tweets by is thinking about what your tweets would look like out of context because they likely will be taken out of context. The old-school version of this is known as the “Front-Page Test”-- how would you feel if it showed up tomorrow morning on the front page of the local paper? It can be funny to make inappropriate jokes. However, there is a line, and when you cross it, there can be consequences. You can delete tweets, but not memories.

Attract the occasional loud critic

Chances are you won’t be involved in anything as serious as that New York Times story I just linked. It’s far more likely that you will attract the occasional loud critic or be quietly removed from opportunities that you might otherwise have received.