If You Ain’t Got No Haters…
By Ana Braga
To quote the comedian Katt Williams, “If you ain’t got no haters you ain’t doing something right.” Why do people hate and especially on social media? Do haters know they are haters?
If you have been following me on social media for a while, you have noticed how hard I clap back on the haters. Although it’s fun at times, it can also be draining. I could say a simple “Good morning!” And they come out of nowhere and tell me that I’m wishing people good morning for attention or some even tell me to go “Fuck myself”. The truth is, social media has made it easy for haters to hide behind the keyboard and attack people. They see social media as a mirror and they don’t always like the reflection. They bring all their failures and frustrations and go after someone who is either successful, attractive, confident, and/or happy.
I’ve noticed a lot of them hide behind a fake profile picture and some use their own “real” photo or AI. I have been studying these people for years and you’ll be surprised at their limited, bitter and repetitive vocabulary. It’s almost as if these haters were a species of their own. You have got to be in an enormous amount of pain to go on social media and attack strangers. It’s almost like they want every confident and successful person to pay for all their trauma and misfortunes. For instance, I have been called anything from AI, transgender, hooker, whore, plastic, slut and more. They rotate through those insults to only find out it doesn’t work on me. I just point a mirror at them and pretty much tell them not to get mad at the mirror but to fix the reflection.
A few people have asked me how do I deal with haters and how can I make them go away? The answer is, you can’t. They’ll never go away as long as your light shines bright. A hater notices your talent and value, they just hope you don’t. From my experience dealing with bullies, they’ll try to break you and make you doubt yourself so much that you stop believing in yourself and achieving your goals. I have had people obsessed with me for several years now. I’ve noticed the kinder and stronger you are the angrier they’ll become. They either want to be you, be with you or destroy you. Because if you don’t exist, they can’t be reminded of how awful their lives are.
This is actually a big problem that most don’t know how to deal with and social media has made it much easier for haters to bully anyone at any time. But how do we deal with these unhealthy, unhappy and narcissistic individuals? What has helped me is to understand they are miserable and the way they attack you they attack others they’re intimidated by. I also don’t take anything they say to me personally, they’re often projecting and talking about themselves. You can either ignore, block or laugh at them, which I’m guilty of a lot of times. I don’t like bullies as they have caused hundreds, if not thousands of people to commit suicide. My humble advice is to love yourself, know your value, stand your ground and keep going. If haters/bullies are coming after you is because you have something they don’t.
Once you understand how they operate you’ll know how to handle them. Bullies/haters will never go away. I repeat, they’ll never go away. You’ll have to learn to get stronger. Learn you have worth, learn you have love, learn you deserve all good things life has to offer. Stand tall, brush your shoulders off and believe no one can stand between you and your dreams. I was told several times I didn’t have the look to be a model. Well, I have graced the cover of Playboy twice, a couple features in Vogue Brazil, Cosmopolitan US, Italy and Lithuania, just to name a few. I’m not saying this to brag, I’m saying I was able to prove all my haters wrong and accomplish my goals and dreams beyond what I expected. It’s funny, until this day a hater would come and try to discredit my publications and features while having none of their own. I just laugh and keep going.
If I was able to see my dreams come to pass so, can you. Loving yourself is the key and sometimes a clap back is in order!
Stay strong everyone and enjoy life, we only live once.
If You Ain’t Got No Haters…
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