When Taylor Swift released the album The Tortured Poets Department in April, Kacie Rose, a creator who typically makes upbeat travel content, posted a video of herself listening to one of the songs.
The 15-second clip, which Rose posted to Instagram, showed her reaction: surprise and elation. She said she wanted to highlight “a cool part of the song”, and didn’t think much more about it.
But over the next few days, her video received a barrage of hateful comments, which attacked everything from her appearance to her mental health. “Reopen mental institutions,” one commenter wrote. “Worst humans to ever exist,” wrote another, apparently referring to her and Swift. There were predictions that Rose would be “alone forever” and even commands that she kill herself.
Rude, abusive or hate-filled comments are not new on social media – particularly to women and people of colour. For some, it feels as if the online vitriol is only getting worse. Many creators have found that if they want to be successful online, they must accept that such behaviour exists and develop strategies to work around it, at times even taking advantage of the hostility to further their brands.
Rose, whose full name is Kacie Rose Burns, said she didn’t love getting attacked over her Taylor Swift clip, but she also knew that it was the price of reaching such a large audience, which she used to promote her new book, You Deserve Good Gelato.
She never considered quitting social media, she said, and responded to the comments by making a video the next day about the negative attention. As screenshots of the comments filled the screen, she read a chapter from the book about not letting mean people bring you down.
She said she made the video for others, especially women and girls, who face online abuse. “I wanted them to know that it’s not them,” she said.
While studies show that posts on social media that evoke negative emotions, such as fear, revulsion or anger, elicit more engagement, and platforms promote those posts more, some creators have found that negative comments have also become the most visible ones in recent years. Posts about the most lighthearted topics – whether it’s enjoying coffee with a spouse, pesto recipes or even power washing a home – can be overwhelmed by angry comments that seem to escalate rapidly.
“The idea – if you were to post something as nonthreatening as ‘I love waffles’, could be met with comments that say, ‘Oh, so you hate pancakes?!’ – is a harsh reality for anyone that has been online for a while,” said Drew Afualo, a creator with about 8 million TikTok followers who is known for videos that call out and respond to racist or misogynistic comments. “It comes with the territory of being exposed publicly to so many people at once.”
When social media is at its best, creators can develop a supportive and even lucrative community of fans. When Rose, 30, moved to Italy she built a following of about 500,000 people on Instagram and 1 million on TikTok that helped propel her memoir to the New York Times bestseller list. Her followers also sign up for her group tours around Europe.
“I’m very lucky to have a really kind, supportive, loving community,” she said, adding that the vast majority of feedback she received was positive.
Afualo also said that the comments she received were mostly, “90/10,” positive.
But in an environment where harsh critiques can snowball, propelled by algorithms boosting posts and comments that elicit strong reactions, the world sometimes seems bleak. As Afualo said, “That 10% can be very violent sometimes.”
Social media platforms give users the option to block followers. In addition to that feature, many creators use filters, which allow them to automatically block comments with certain words. Users can also turn off their comments or limit them to people whom they also follow.
Afualo has become known for videos that speak out against hateful or mean comments. The videos typically show one such comment, which Afualo then breaks down, highlighting systemic issues at play and sometimes mocking the poster, topped off with her signature high-pitched cackle.
“My typical response, depending on the severity, is to farm content out of it,” she said.
One of her recent videos focused on a user’s comment asking why she had “no ring” after having been in a relationship for years, to which she responded: “You’re worried about me having a ring? How about you worry about your suffering – alone.”
There is also the option of ignoring the bad and focusing on the good.
Katie Woods, 45, who posts about renovating her family’s 19th century home in Britain, recently made a TikTok video showing the process of power-washing the house.
Viewers, including ones far outside her region, accused her of damaging a piece of history. (People also took issue with the sound of her voice, the size of the house and the music choice in the video.) But Woods said she had researched the safest method, hiring professionals to use a gentle pressure wash.
“Once one person has reacted in that way, it’s like one big pile on,” she said. “Inhibitions get cast aside, and it’s a free-for-all.”
But instead of fanning the flames, Woods said she typically stayed quiet. “Occasionally, I might drop in the odd passive-aggressive thumbs up emoji, but try my hardest to not engage with the negativity,” she said.
Experts in online behaviour also say that the best approach is usually to ignore nasty comments, as hard as that may be.
“I think it’s helpful for people to keep in mind that hateful comments they see are typically posted by people who are the most extreme users,” said William Brady, an assistant professor at Northwestern University, whose research team studied online outrage by looking at 13 million tweets. He added that the instinct to “punish” someone can backfire.
“Giving a toxic user any engagement (view, like, share, comment) ironically can make their content more visible,” he wrote in an email. “For example, when people retweet toxic content in order to comment on it, they are actually increasing the visibility of the content they intend to criticise. But if it is ignored, algorithms are unlikely to pick them up and artificially spread them further.”
Woods said she tries to focus on the positive comments instead. “Those, I’ll smother in love,” she said, “because focusing on the positivity is how we should all be living our lives, right?”
Eli Rallo, 25, a creator who posts lifestyle and pop culture content and is the author of I Didn’t Know I Needed This, recently posted a video essay on what it was like to be a woman online, touching on rude comments she had received about her appearance, family and eating habits.
“There have been times that I’ve wanted to leave so bad because of it,” Rallo said in an interview, referring to social media. “But I pushed through and I think from where I sit now, I’m glad those moments didn’t break me, and I’m glad I didn’t let them win. But I wish there was nobody to let win in the grand scheme of it.”
She said she also blocked people who posted abusive comments.
There is a limit to how much individuals can do to change the tone on social platforms, and at times the landscape can feel discouraging. But Afualo said that she finds a certain peace in knowing that almost anything online could be taken the wrong way.
“No matter what kind of content you make, someone is going to hate your content and by proxy you,” she said. “If you know that it won’t matter how ‘perfect’ you are online – someone is always going to be a hater, then you can take the power from it.” – The New York Times
