In general, I would say I am a nice person – nice to strangers and friends alike. When people say mean things, I tend to let them run right off my back and keep going but lately people have been exceptionally mean. No, not to my face, but I might go as far as to call it cyber bullying. The thing is, strangers are bullying me for something I posted more than six years ago.
Let me set the stage – seventeen year-old Kelly was in Africa and was ecstatic about her entire experience on The Dark Continent. While on safari one evening I switched my digital camera to record and you may have seen the video I captured when I posted it in January 2013. In case you missed it, here it is again:
Was I really six feet from those lions? Probably not, but it felt like it. We were close enough that my dad asked the driver if we could back up. Was my commentary the most eloquent? Certainly not. I was caught up in the moment and actually put the video online to show my boyfriend of the time – definitely the easiest way to share a large file – not to show more than 500,000 people. Who are these people who just stumble upon this video and watch the entire clip? I have no idea but some of them certainly do have harsh things to say. Over the weekend I logged into my account and found more than 300 comments waiting to be modified. I automatically deleted any that had profanity but some of the ones that remained ….
These comments are harsh, rude, and disrespectful and I only chose five of them to show. No, I do not know these people and they do not know me. I understand I should not take them personally and yes, maybe I do sound bit childish on the video, but are they necessary? Absolutely not. I do have to say a big thank you to YouTube though – now that all Google products are linked and thus comments appear with your real name the number of rude and hurtful snipes has diminished, however, the amount of “leave your wife at home” comments is still startling. I guess that is what happens when you have too much time on your hands. I’ll leave you with two pictures from the same day the video was shot.
How do you deal with mean, anonymous comments?
My Lisbon Top 10
Greetings from Iceland
Travel Diaries: Giant’s Causeway 
The Sand Dunes of Qatar
Gemma says
That’s awful! I’ve always felt that unhappy people try to spread their unhappiness in the hope that it will find momentum and leave them behind. Please don’t let these horrible people dull your sparkle! Very sorry you’ve had to face these people, smile and the world smiles with you!
Nancy says
OMG….. how does scum like this even exist?
http://neatly-packaged.com/
Michael says
People have nothing better to do than put down others. I guess I’m fortunate that I’ve never seen or had negative comments like that directed at me. Not to mention, I don’t think you said anything worthy of those comments. It was hard to see, I appreciated the narrative!
Cece @pink sunshine says
Wow. That was so mean for no reason really. Just mean to be mean for the heck of it. Why? I have had no mean anonymous comments luckily but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t handle it well at first. I’d have to learn how to get over it. I get my feelings hurt way too easily.
Cece @pink sunshine says
BTW-Such a cool video. How crazy would that be to experience that first hand? SCARY!!
Nicole says
I think they’re trolls, definitely. It’s not like you were posting a professional video, it’s yours. Yes, it’s on the internet, but it doesn’t make it acceptable for people to be so rude!
I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this.
Fortunately, I haven’t come across any of this yet, as my blog followers are at a low number right now, but I think I’m just going to ignore, block, and delete when I do get comments like those!