Hey haters, hate this. Part 3

  By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMiami.com

• Don’t let the social media echo chamber fool you.
• Haters, aka trolls, tend to be a minority.
• Haters force people to take sides.
• Despite the fact that a majority of people keep their allegiances to themselves, majorities tend to side with the hated.
• Marketing & advertising wise, it might even be good for some brands to find themselves on the receiving end of a little helping of hateful trolling.
• It might push the good guys to take your brand’s side.
• The underdog effect.
• Laugh and the world laughs with you.
• Cry and you’ll cry alone.
• Hate and, sooner or later, you’ll find yourself a member of a toxic minority.
• Exhibit 1:  Black Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Latino Twitter.
• Many people regard them as a force of poetic, social media justice.
• Well, yes and no.
• Sometimes we minorities just get too carried away by victimization, outrage and aggravation.
• We appear to be so easily offended, so thin-skinned, prickly and unpredictable that we paint ourselves into a cultural corner.
• I am not saying that racism or bigotry are not still a pervasive reality in society, the workplace and academia.
• We must stay vigilant and speak out.
• My concern is that, all too frequently, just causes have a penchant to shoot themselves in the foot by letting fringe elements co-opt and hijack them.
• It happens to the best of them: environmentalism, climate changes, Black Lives matter, Dreamers, La Raza, feminism, right-to-choose, medical marijuana, you name it.
• Necessary movements and organizations that all too often make the mistake of allowing unhinged haters to become their most visible standard bearers.
• Let me give you a small everyday example: a few weeks back I was riding my bike on Rickenbacker Causeway, a breathtaking scenic artery connecting mainland Miami with Key Biscayne.
• As I rode by The Miami Seaquarium, I bumped into the usual gathering of animal rights demonstrators at the entrance of the aforementioned establishment’s parking lot.
• You can imagine the crowd: an assortment of tree huggers of different ages and walks of life.
• Ponytails, sandals, you get the picture.
• A peaceful, harmless and even relatable crowd for the most part.
• However, there was this young woman covered in tattoos who looked like a meth prostitute who, megaphone in hand, verbally assaulted en masse all the cars coming in and out of the aquarium.
• Here’s one of the lines I picked up as I rode by, and I quote: “why don’t you clueless unimportant people find something better to do rather than watching animals in captivity so I don’t have to spend my fucking weekends here sweating my ass off?”
• This is what she was yelling at families in cars!
• I kid you not.
• All the other demonstrators, possibly nice people fighting the good fight, just watched and did nothing.
• Their failure to stop this woman from vomiting her vile on families coming in and out of the place is akin to support by indifference.
• Hence, a legitimate cause such as defending the rights of large marine mammals is terminally tarnished.
• With similar logic, in the digital space small squadrons of self-righteous social media digerati with a chip on their shoulder the size of a baseball bat pride themselves of being the new arbiters of what’s right and what’s wrong with the world.
• They will right the wrongs of capitalism, consumerism, racism, cultural appropriation.
• Even misspellings.
• It’s become cringe-inducing to watch Latinos kick and scream on social media because gringos spell Colombia “Columbia”.
• Dude, have you heard yourself butchering the English language?
• Enough already.
• #facepalm
• This is why the “mainstream” doesn’t want to touch us “minorities” with a six-foot pole.
• Dealing with us (blacks, Latinos, LGBTX) is a friggin’ minefield.
• We are regarded as so thin-skinned, complicated and whiny that we keep painting ourselves into our own mental ghettos and cultural safe spaces.
• Constant victimization is not the way out.
• We have to moderate our MO of whining and crying wolf at everything around us.
• It is annoying.
• And totally counterproductive.

Hey haters, hate this. Part 1

Hey haters, hate this. Part 2