Hate comments lose their power when the target withholds attention

Evidence

Don’t give the person more attention than is appropriate. The triumph of hate commenters is in the emotional impact they make. It may help you to remember that it is often the impotent, frustrated outcry of someone who is not doing so well at the moment. You are just the wailing wall, the rock on which the wave breaks, and you don’t have to react at all if you don’t want to. Reinhard Mey puts it beautifully in his song “Mein Achtel Lorbeerblatt” about his critics: “So I do what a tree would do if a pig scratched itself against it. And I consider what each has to say, and keep nice and quiet, and sit on my eighth of a bay leaf, and do what I want.” — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 352

Categorization

• SEED: The tree-and-pig metaphor could anchor a short essay on emotional non-response as a deliberate practice, contrasting Stoic indifference with modern reactive outrage culture.
• XREF: connects to: Anti-fan hatred toward micro-celebrities far exceeds their actual offenses — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 387