People will believe what they want to craft a story that fits their narrative. Sometimes not engaging is the best response.
Picture it: The early days of social media when there were no rules of engagement. It was a miraculous time when a writer could forge a friendship with an editor at their favorite magazine because both adored the same cookware or obscure ingredient.
It was the wild, wild west still. Curating the list of people I’d follow on Twitter back then, I selected writers, bloggers and editors — my people. So when I posted a quick query tweet one afternoon in the late 2000s seeking a contact at a brand that I needed to finish a story I was writing, I didn’t see anything wrong with it.
A self-proclaimed “professional mommy blogger” though? She did. In fact, she screenshotted my tweet and used it as the basis for an entire post about the “bad apples” on social media.
Apparently, I was the poster child for entitlement. Who knew?
Except, that wasn’t true. I wasn’t looking for a handout, only a contact for a quote. As a professional, my bio was clear about who I was — a working journalist with more than a decade of experience. I was also a blogger, but it was secondary to my work in journalism, writing for websites and print publications.
When I read the post — and I did soon after — I was shocked. The assumptions the blogger made were legion. Surely, this was a misunderstanding, I thought. So I reached out to her, explaining that I was a journalist looking for a connection to finish a story I was writing about cameras for a top women’s website.
As it turns out, there was no mistake. She had assumed because I had a food blog, a vagina and two kids, I was hustling as a mom blogger like her and doing it wrong. She didn’t apologize, or even remove the post. Instead, she doubled down on her perception, sending me a holier-than-thou email from her moral high horse. And then she followed it up in the comments insinuating I was a new blogger (again, no. I was a journalist. As for my blog, it wasn’t new). It was clear she’d never admit wrongdoing, so I deleted the email, then the Twitter post and moved on (well, after venting to friends who were confused by the mental leaps she made).
What I didn’t do was respond publicly. I was on deadline, not looking for a public battle, and already over it. I sometimes wonder if I should have, calling her to the carpet for making assumptions and using her blog as a bully pulpit. There was a whole other conversation to be had about the ethics of what she was doing. But ultimately, it wasn’t worth it.
By the way, it later became an accepted practice to seek sources via social media. A best practice that developed was including your title and/or affiliation in the post — a good one, I think.
The experience taught me two important things:
People will perceive you how they want, regardless of reality
That “professional mom blogger” was looking for a villain in the emerging discussion about freebies for bloggers and saw the perfect opening with me when I sent the tweet. The reality that I was a working journalist with an assignment didn’t matter to her because it didn’t fit her narrative. So she grasped onto the low hanging fruit — I happened to have a food blog, be female and have children — and twisted it to fit her narrow view.
People will see you as they want to. This is one of those universal truths. It’s far easier to cram a person into the narrative you want to tell, than to employ listening, critical thinking and even empathy to see a reality for what it is.
Let them believe what they will and live your truth.
You don’t have to validate them with a response
While I did privately reach out to that blogger to clear things up, it wasn’t effective. It was still probably the right thing to do then, but these days I wouldn’t. No one is entitled to my time or mental energy — especially not when they are dwelling in toxicity like she was.
These days, I don’t validate off the wall communications with a response. When I was at the Bangor Daily News, for instance, I would often get hate mail from people who resented stories I did about a certain pasta sauce brand’s faux canning jars (they aren’t tempered for actual canning, experts say). Some of the emails even wished violence on me for the well-sourced stories.
This leads me to another universal truth: You don’t have to reply. Like ever. When someone twists you into a villain for their plot or pigeonholes you to bolster their story, that says a lot about them not you. Replying won’t change that.
In fact, there’s a lot more dignity and grace in not doing so.
Should you ever engage?
Of course. There are times when engaging can have a refreshingly good result. For instance, a reader once called my newsroom, certain she knew what I was all about based on her perceptions of something I’d written. After 45 minutes on a call where I did as much listening as I did talking, we parted on good terms — she apologized and I understood her concerns and stance better. That became useful information in future stories so I could see things from another perspective.
There are also times when a valid concern or question can be cleared up with a simple reply — or when the only right reply is thank you.
But you have to employ your inner bullshit detector. A cloak of calm around accusation doesn’t make a demand less toxic. Likewise, those who come at you with moral aggrandizing — my favorite of the ugly toxics — are best left to stew in their mess. Not engaging? Sometimes that really is the best response. Bless their hearts and all, you know?
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