I'm not quite sure what it is about me, but my entire life, I have attracted crazies and "haters." Some weird girl tried to get me to join her religious cult on a Pittsburgh PAT bus one day, and for whatever reason, strange people tend to think I'm up for their crazy-talk.
Over the years, I've also been the target of online "haters," "trolls" and just plain jerks. One time a whole group of adolescent losers started insulting me and my blog. That drama went on for weeks. Every once in a while some crazy commenter crawls out of the woodwork and tells me off for no apparent reason too. It's usually something stupid and obscure like I say I dislike wearing the color orange or something. All of a sudden, someone who happens to love the color orange, who thinks they invented the color orange takes my post as a throw-down invitation and it's on. Weird.
I also seem to be targeted on these stupid ranking top list things. One time, someone hijacked my user name profile and put a not so nice nickname in there instead of my user name. Think of what a female porn star might say. I'll allow you to use your imagination. I think people purposely went in and gave me super low rankings too. Whenever there's a public ranking system that doesn't require someone to log in, everyone else soars (usually because I believe in good karma and rank other people high), and then my rating drops like a cement block in an ocean. There can't be that many people who think I suck that badly. I refuse to believe that. When the hijacking became too much, I gave up. I removed myself from the MA top list and told myself I didn't need the traffic or the drama.
I wouldn't take it so personally if I didn't invest so much time and effort into this blog. I love this blog. I am a self-taught blogger with no graphic design skills. I didn't even know what html was when I started. I was just a girl who wanted to write and thought that if I had an audience, I'd be more likely to stick to it and not put it on the back burner like the twenty or more manuscripts that live on my computer and get neglected on a daily basis. I can be serious, humorous, downright disgusting (ACL posts and pictures), but if there's one thing you can definitely say about my writing, it's that I'm honest. I write what I think and for that, I think I often get the backlash.
I find this difficult to understand, why people want to pick on a blogger they don't know who happens to have her black belt. Maybe it's internet muscles or something. Maybe it's because I'm a girl in a mostly boy-dominated niche, but whatever. I know my blog doesn't suck, and so I largely ignore it. And despite being stomped on by people who steal my content and then get mad at me when I call them on it, I continue to put good karma out there.
When bad things happen throughout the blog world, I pray for people, offer good thoughts and help however I can help. I didn't know little Maddie at all, but when another blogger I read mentioned the Spohr's and how they had lost their daughter, I read almost the entire blog, sobbing the entire time, before adding a comment in a sea of comments to say I would pray for them. And I did pray, a lot, because I couldn't imagine being in that situation. . .
Which is also why I want to draw your attention to another blogger tonight, Anissa. I don't know her and I've never met her, but the blog world apparently loves her and she's suffered a massive stroke just days before she was supposed to depart for the happiest place on Earth with some friends. I happened to end up on her blog the other day due to a Disney related search (we're going soon too), and then I started hearing horrible things. What she is going through right now is something I can't even imagine. What her family is going through is beyond comprehension. She has three kids; the youngest just beat leukemia. I mean, like she needed one more thing.
Then I started watching all these posts go up about her, buttons to donate to her family and I realized that the blog world really does rally around its own in times of trouble. And despite not knowing her, despite all the crap the blog world likes to throw at me sometimes, I'm going to continue to send out good karma. Please say a prayer for Anissa and her family tonight. Send the good thoughts and karma in her direction.
I strongly believe in the power of positive thinking which is why I've continued to write all these years, despite the porn nickname, the hijacked stuff, and the mean people. I believe in the good in people and I definitely believe that those of you who continue to read here, will send good thoughts to Anissa and her family tonight. Please do.
