It’s a weird thing when you hear people have been talking about you behind your back and you’re 46 and not at school anymore. It’s even weirder when you get to see what they’re saying about you because its been written online.
You see just the other day I found myself on GOMI (Get Off My Internets) which is a forum where people go to rant/vent/discuss/critique blogs. It can be quite a vicious and bitchy place mainly because the people who contribute to the forums only seem to read said blogs to hate on them. Personally I don’t get that part of it, I mean why would you continually read something that you really angers and irritates you? As the saying goes, “anger is just sad’s bodyguard”, I’ve learned not to read stuff that makes me angry because invariably that makes me sad. But that’s a post for another day.
I am not a person that pays much attention to statistics on my blog. I gave up the numbers game long ago when my job took me to a place where the numbers mattered more than the writing, so I never looked at the stats for Sharpest Pencil. I can’t tell you the number of visits or the page views or any analytical details but at the end of the year I received an email from WordPress which packaged together a whole lot of information about my blog for the year. I read it and was rather surprised to see that my 5th biggest traffic referrer was GOMI.
I had looked at GOMI before and if you remove all the hate and venom there are one or two good points made by the members – although they wouldn’t have to talk about how much they hate something if they stopped reading it, it’s not like blog reading is compulsory or that their moaning about something they don’t like is going to bring about any positive change.
I was a bit scared to see people hating me but that inquisitive, self loathing part of me couldn’t resist a look. I was pleasantly surprised. Strangers who don’t know me don’t loathe me with an intensity they leave for other people. But I still couldn’t help wondering why people who clearly know where they can contact me are talking about me without talking to me and questioning me without actually wanting an answer.
I guess that when you put yourself online you do open your opinions and to a certain point, yourself, up to the public. If I have a forum to air my opinions I can’t deny you the same opportunity, if you think I’m too sensitive, too upper middle class, have a bad relationship with Mia Freedman or shouldn’t devote my life to my child you should have the opportunity to say it, I guess. Although I’m still not sure why go to a third party instead of directly to the source, or why let it worry you so much you need to discuss it with other strangers.
But I think that the worst part of GOMI for me is that I don’t get to have the last word, after all I am the kind of person who needs to have the last word. Okay maybe I don’t need it but I certainly want to at least try and get it.
Thank goodness I have this blog. So here goes
- To the person pissed off with me because I had the choice not to work I’m really, really sorry that I am so fortunate. I promise it provides me with more guilt on a daily basis than you could provide in a month of writing about it.
- To the person who thinks that I ‘m making a mistake by devoting my life to my child and that I might wake up one day and regret it, I have different views on parenting than you do, that’s okay. I won’t regret thinking that my child is the most important person in my life. Trust me, and if I do, I will handle it.
- To the people who want to know what happened when I left Mamamia, I’m not going there. I don’t share my whole life on my blog and I don’t think it’s fair to share that part of it in public, plus that’s water under the bridge
- To everyone going on and on and on about Mamamia – let it go, stop reading it if it makes you angry, incensed or irritated. You’ve been predicting their downfall for years and it’s not going to happen, even if you wish for it – be happy for their success and move on. You’ll feel better. I guarantee.
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1. – At least you know when I’m pissed with you, because I tell you! 🙂
2. – I wish I could get me some of that GOMI hate reading…. it would do wonders for my stats! 😉
3. – Yep – I don’t understand hate reading either – surely people have better things to do with their time that read websites they don’t like…
4. – Just get over MM – I left it behind years ago – it’s just a website – there are millions of others to look at…
5 – No, seriously… please, can someone start hating on me on GOMI – I feel really neglected…
You make it so damn hard to hate on you JJ. Try harder! 😉
I’ll start hating you on it JJ if you start hating me. What’s that Oscar Wilde quote Lana?
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Good work for writing stuff that inspires emotion 🙂
It’s a deal, Pinky! 🙂
Thanks Pinky, to be honest I think the only reason I am written about is my past connection with Mamamia…*plots to write something really emotive like how I love my dog more than my child* #halfjoking
Hi Lana, personally, if something I read drives me nuts or I find myself constantly disagreeing with it, then I stop reading it. I don’t feel the need to tell the world about it. And that is why I love reading the stuff you write about and that is why I share your stuff with my Facebook friends. If they don’t like it, then they don’t need to read it – seems obvious to me!
I especially love that you child is the moist important person in your life 🙂 is that because he’s always in the pool?
Thanks RES !
*runs to change typo* xxx 🙂
I think that GOMI has its place. I mean there are sites and blogs dedicated to snarking on celebrities, so I don’t really see this as any different. I also think it’s good to have that place because at least it’s not on your blog and in your inbox. You can choose whether you want to read what people are saying about you, just like they can choose to hate read.
GOMI also pushed sponsored post disclosure to the forefront of discussions in blogging groups (at the time the Aussie thread was started) and I don’t think that was a bad thing.
I don’t really see a place for snarking on celebrities anymore than I do one for snarking on bloggers. I don’t think we NEED a place to be bitchy or critical. I just don’t know why we should be worried about people who really don’t know us. think about us.
As for the sponsored post thing – I have never really seen the big fuss. I don’t know how on earth it affects the reader to read something that has been paid for and maybe even help the blogger make some money out of it. You are not compelled to buy the product and the blog is free. We don’t demand radio hosts play a bugle sound before an ad they read out to let us know it’s paid. To me worrying about ten seconds “wasted” on a sponsored post is sweating the small stuff and makes not a bit of sense to me.
xxxx
To be honest, I don’t see the need for bloggers to keep writing about GOMI, it’s not going anywhere and I don’t think writing about it is going to change that.
I’d still prefer to have a forum where people can say what they want (whether it be nice or not) that I can then choose not to read. I definitely would have preferred the guy who sent me emails and comments calling me a fhead went there. For the record, I have been mentioned on there a few times too.
I guess GOMI has it’s place. God knows we women love to bitch. But the older I get, (wiser maybe lol), the less time I have for worrying about what someone else is doing. Life’s too bloody short!
Exactly. To be honest I was indulging in a bit of hate reading for a while – of course we all have sites that rile us up the wrong way, but I stopped reading it, unfollowed on Twitter, unliked on Facebook and blessed it out of my existence. Now it doesn’t even appear in my life, it’s as if it has stopped existing and I am much better for it.
I don’t get the place for bitching thing – but that could because I am hyper paranoid and sensitive. I get critical discussion but straight out bitching serves no purpose other than to hurt people xx
GOMI has its place? Sorry you guys but I’m going to have to respectfully but vehemently disagree. A place set up to specifically support people being hateful? The world does not need that. The relatively tiny amount of ‘good’ that comes from it does not erase the vile disgustingness of the overall premise of it. The world would not be a poorer place if it didn’t exist.
I can see your point 100% Kelly, I whole heatedly believe there should not be a place to support being hateful, but a forum for discussion is okay – it’s just that most of the people make it hateful with what they say.
Sadly I think many people could think the world would not be a poorer place if some of our blogs did not exist but to them I say – just ignore them, like I will ignore GOMI.
I fully support having an online forum for discussion – but the base premise of that site is to support and facilitate hatred. I just can’t even! (as you can see it makes me quite angry 🙂
Perhaps ‘has its place’ was the wrong wording. But people need to vent, they need to get things off their chest. I would hope they could do it in a discussion rather than outright snarking, but the way in which they do it is totally up to them whether or not we agree with it. I certainly don’t think it is positive or helpful to bitch or straight up hurt people at all. It reflects 100% on the person doing the hating than anyone else. But some people are like that. We all know someone IRL who is like that, we have all possibly tried to change someone like that. I’ve chosen to walk away from people like that in my life. As I said life is too short. So maybe it doesn’t have its place, but it does exist, and we choose how we take it on. I choose not to ever visit there. And really I’m wondering why I’m even wasting keystrokes on GOMI! lol
Clarifying: “wasting keystrokes on discussing GOMI” not “on” GOMI.
I don’t get hate reading and never will. If I don’t like something, I just don’t go there, why waste energy getting angry and feeling hate? There is enough crap in my life without it.
Good decision Dorothy!
Ewww. I had NO idea something as ugly as GOMI existed. I will NEVER understand online hate. Seems terribly cowardly to me. I love your blog Lana, ignore their black hearts.
Xxxx Alana
But this is the last word? Until … Rofl.
Until the next last word 😉
I’ve definitely read GOMI a few times, mostly to analyse why they do it. It is a morbid fascination with the way some people work and the way that they justify nit-picking other’s lives.
I’m sure they would disagree but I was much more prone to that bitchiness when I felt I had little to no control over my life and was in a very sad place. Which in turn makes me sad for them, trapped in a cycle of picking other people apart instead of building their own happiness. The saying that you’ve quoted, which I hadn’t heard before, makes sense to me in that context too, their anger at others helps guard them from any sadness they feel.
I think you are 100% correct Lila, feeling a lack of control over your life and getting swamped in past anger and resentments makes everything seem murky and dark – it’s a hard pit to get out of but the result is worth the effort.
Right now I have stuff going in IRL that I want to blog about SO badly to vent but it won’t be fair so of course I won’t. I also want to have the last word but I know some people have already made their minds up so it’s not worth wasting my breathe. Instead I’ll stew and start the book I have always wanted to write. As for GOMI, I feel people on those are miserable sods with little spines who find it easy to slag off others over the internet instead of real life. We’re all brave sitting at a desk. As for the last word. ME TOO! Loved listening to you and Mrs Woog – champions!
Thanks Emily xxx