dear joe...
dear joe,
i want to start this by admitting to you, here and now, that what i tweeted about not being able to stand the way you talk can be taken as, and was taken for, a mean comment about your commentary. that, however, wasn't the intention behind my tweet; it's an honest opinion coming from an avid listener of the soulection show, but i won’t delve into that. that’s entirely another point on it’s own.
what i want to address is the way you chose to respond to my tweet and why a person such as yourself, a person with a degree of “cultural influence” needs to think twice before retweeting.
taking a moment to rewind, i want to point out some of the steps you took for us to even get here. if you notice, and i’m sure you’re more than well aware, i didn’t mention you directly. what i tweeted was something that was to live inside my timeline, a passing thought i placed into my account in real time. i didn’t invade your mentions column with this observation--now that would have been just rude and uncalled for. that sort of poor decision-making would have warranted the response you chose. and i didn’t even come up on your feed; you don’t follow me and i don’t follow you. so how did we get here?
after conducting a search in the twittersphere based on your name, you came across this little gem and chose to engage because it made you feel some type of way. now, if you left it at just favoriting this passing thought, i probably would have said to myself, “oh, this dude can take criticism with grace,” while i feel a bit sheepish about the thought of you reading something i wrote in candor.
but you didn’t just leave it at that. you retweeted it, showcasing what i said to your 24,615 followers while adding “all good, my girl loves the way i talk, thanks for listening anyway.” now, what people say when you’re not around is none of your business but you made it yours by choosing to address it in such fashion. but not only did you place what i wrote for my own timeline (and mine only) onto yours, you also opened a direct line of communication from your supporters to me.
i’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and just choose to believe that you did this because you thought this was taking the high road. but, in all honesty, that’s just naive. and foolish. by retweeting this, i assume that your goal was to incite a response from your supporters, to flock to you and lift you up with their fanatic thoughts of you while they put me down for throwing my differing opinion of you out there. this is problematic to me for a number of reasons. your action perpetuates a culture of online bullying and by doing this you show people that you will crucify those who hurt your ego. but, joe kay, aren’t you all about those positive vibrations?
i’ve been called a bitch by one dude due to your retweet, and your girl even came onto my mentions, only to subtweet again, once again referring to me as a bitch. by retweeting you opened a direct line of attack from your supporters to me. and since then i have seen different people favorite these attack tweets, which just means that they approve of this form of verbal violence. so, i have to wonder, does it make you feel better, seeing people willing to rise up and attack another, all in the name of your ego? is that what it takes for you to feel validated in who you are?
@dinosaguil commended you, saying that this is the way everyone should respond to negative feedback but i don’t see how that is. so the best response to a “hater” is to flaunt the pussy you’re getting while you open them up to forms of online bullying? but hey, he thanked her for listening though. i don’t think so.
you see, the high road, the road of a person who promotes and practices positive vibrations, would have been not to engage. if what i think really doesn’t matter because you have a woman who loves you, then why bring attention to it? the best response would have been no response. if you’re sure in who you are and what you feel, you don’t give space to the things that slight you.
now, i don’t care about the responses i’ve been getting because of the retweet, what i care about is how someone with influence such as yours handles a little bit of criticism. i write this in the spirit of standing up for those who have been crucified by you before and for the ones you will crucify in the future. what you did wasn’t playing nice. what you did was send your cronies out to people who don’t agree with you. and there are plenty more people out there who don’t agree with you. or like you. are you going to send your flock every time you come across something you don’t like? that’s petty. and unadmirable. very not namaste. quite a different message from the music and persona you share to the masses.
but hey, what do i know? i’m merely a girl whose opinion doesn’t matter because you already have one.
a humble soulection listener, hannah