7 Smart Ways to Handle Negativity on Social Media

You’ve just poured your heart into your latest blog post. You got real! You got vulnerable!

…And now a total stranger is publicly ridiculing you.

Life on the Internet can be stressful. As you express your experiences and opinions, you are bound to run into the naysayers, the haters, and the outright trolls.

Dealing with these characters may not be fun, but they don’t have to ruin your day. Here are seven smart ways to handle negativity on social media and come out on top.

1Don’t Feed the Trolls

The simplest and most direct way to destroy trolls’ power? Ignore their hateful comments and refuse to engage with their negativity.

Trolls feed on attention. Your frustration and anger are their goal. When you indignantly reply to an ugly comment, you’re giving them exactly what they want.

Your anger at injustice and desire to prove your point will tempt you to argue with them, but remember: trolls aren’t interested in productive dialogue. They will twist your words, accuse you, and make non-factual statements—they will not concede.

It doesn’t matter how intelligently you present your point, the argument will only devolve further, resulting in a colossal waste of time and emotional energy. But when you deprive a troll of attention, they’ll soon slink away to sow discord somewhere else.

2Champion a Supportive Community

Say you’re reading a friend’s blog (or Facebook post or Twitter feed…) and you see that someone has left a nasty comment.

Instead of engaging directly with the troll (giving them the power and attention they want), respond with a positive comment for your friend. Let your friend know how much you enjoyed their post and that you appreciate her sharing it.

Your support will mean a lot to your friend and will encourage others to speak up, unleashing an avalanche of positive support to drown out the negativity.

Whenever possible, do your part to foster a supportive online community where people feel safe to have real dialogue, listen, ask questions, and express their points respectfully.

3Provide the Facts

Trolls frequently spout misinformation, propping up their arguments with factually inaccurate assertions. This can confuse other readers and make a troll’s argument sound credible to those who don’t know the truth.

If you see a troll making inaccurate statements, on your own social media post or someone else’s, share some primary sources that refute their arguments and back up the facts.

You are doing this to educate other readers, so don’t respond to the troll directly (shouting matches will ensue). Instead, leave a comment such as “Hey folks, there seems to be some confusion around [issue].” Then calmly state the facts and your sources.

4Respond With Humor or Kindness

via GIPHY

Trolls only have as much power as you allow them to have. You can disarm their attack by showing them just how little you take their hateful words seriously.

Respond to them with a witty retort or thank them for their comment.

Well, the fumes from the DVDs might be toxic and I’ve still got your money, so by all means borrow my lighter. pic.twitter.com/kVoi8VGEoK

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 31, 2017

Just remember, keep things clever and focus on deflecting their words—don’t sink to their level of ugliness or engage in personal attacks.

5Report Harassment

If someone is making you uncomfortable or even threatening you on social media, don’t hesitate to report them. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other major sites all allow you to file complaints about abusive behavior. Many platforms also have a “block” or “ignore” feature you can use to stop receiving the bully’s harassment.

If you personally moderate an online community, such as a Facebook group or message board, consider creating a “rules of conduct” post. If someone behaves inappropriately, you’ll have a clear justification for booting them and defense against any claims that they’re being singled out.

6Repair the Relationship

Sometimes the people who argue with us on the Internet aren’t vicious strangers—they’re friends and family. If you and your uncle are duking it out on a Facebook thread, maybe take a moment to pause and consider how much you value the relationship.

If this is a person you don’t agree with, but you still want to have an amicable relationship with, consider sending them a private message or ask if they’re open to a phone call to work things out.

In the public theater of the Internet, it can be difficult to admit “I was wrong” or “You really hurt me.” Continuing the conversation via private channels can help facilitate a peaceful solution.

7Practice Self-Care

Dealing with negativity can be exhausting and discouraging, so remember to take care of yourself. If a rude comment really got to you, call a trusted friend to vent and get perspective.

Remember, no matter how “personal” a comment may seem—such as someone on Instagram criticizing your weight—those hateful words are coming from their insecurities and baggage. You don’t have to let their issues ruin your day.

Be secure in your value, focus on the positives, and let the negatives fade into the background.

Beside vs. Besides—How to Use Each

Beside and besides are quite commonly confused with one another despite their different definitions. Even though they are spelled almost the same, they are not used in the same way.

The Basic Difference Between “Beside” and “Besides”

Beside, without the s, tells us the location of something. Besides, on the other hand, means “in addition,” “in addition to,” “moreover,” or “as well,” depending on context.

Using “Beside” in a Sentence

Beside is a preposition that means next to or at the side of. The preposition beside physically places two nouns side by side.

Kaia and Rhea sit beside each other in the orchestra’s first violin section.

I place my dream journal beside my bed every night.

The barn beside the farmer’s house was falling down.

Will you sit beside me at dinner?

Though it would sound a little more informal, these sentences would be grammatically identical and consistent in meaning if beside is replaced with next to.

Kaia and Rhea sit next to each other in the orchestra’s first violin section.

I place my dream journal next to my bed every night.

The barn next to the farmer’s house was falling down.

Will you sit next to me at dinner?

Using “Besides” in a Sentence

Besides can be used either as a preposition meaning “in addition” or an adverb meaning “moreover,” and it is a little less stiff and formal to use than those two terms.

I dislike fishing; besides, I don’t even own a boat.

Because the tone of this sentence is conversational (not like an essay, for example), it would sound stuffy if we replaced besides with its synonym, moreover.

I dislike fishing; moreover, I don’t own a boat.

A middle ground might be to use what’s more.

I dislike fishing, and what’s more, I don’t own a boat.

If you do choose to go the less formal route, know that having besides at the beginning of a sentence is perfectly acceptable.

I dislike fishing. Besides, I don’t own a boat.

The same holds true when besides is used as in addition. Besides is the more conversational and less formal of the two terms.

Do you have any M&Ms besides the green ones?

Do you have any M&Ms in addition to the green ones?

“That’s Beside the Point”—How to Use It

Beside the point is a common idiom that means “unimportant” or “not relevant to the matter at hand”. Many people incorrectly use besides the point, which is understandable since both besides and beside the point can crop up when a topic is being argued or reasoned through.

He did steal the diamond, but that is besides the point. He stole my heart!

No one wants to be guilty of a real crime and a grammar crime when using besides (that is to say, in addition). Use beside instead.

He did steal the diamond, but that is beside the point. He stole my heart!

If you feel grammatically empowered after learning how to use beside and besides, read about these other commonly confused words.

“Seasonal” Words: Do They Exist?

Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language,

Henry James once wrote.

With the start of spring and the promise of summer, now is a good time to think about seasonal words. Writers, by nature, are collectors of words and catchy turns of phrase, but are there some that should be retired when they fall out of season? Look to literature for inspiration.

Words for Spring

Spring is associated with birth and youth, and the emergence of color after drab winter days. Vernal, verdant, fertile, burgeoning, and callow are favorite spring words, as are blossoming, sprouting, and bursting forth. A line from Rainer Maria Rilke says it best:

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.

Spring is also the perfect time to express words of love. Pablo Neruda, master of love poems, invokes spring themes:

I want to do to you what spring does with the cherry trees.

You can’t help thinking of romance with spring-like phrases such as breathe in and come alive.

Words for Summer

In summer, the song sings itself.

wrote William Carlos Williams. Summer is the season of daydreams, beach walks, and carefree afternoons soaking up the sun. Languid, languorous, and leisurely are favorite summer words, as are jaunty, jovial, and happy-go-lucky.

Summer is also the season of heat and passion. Think sizzling, sweltering, searing, and scorched. In Mad in Pursuit, Violette Leduc describes summer well:

I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of summer.

Of course, no summer vocabulary is complete without recreational words like picnic, cookout, camp, and vacation.

Words for Autumn

Autumn is the only season that has two names. The word fall for the third season appeared in the 16th century; prior to that time, only summer and winter were defined seasons with names. Spring and fall were shortened from “spring of the leaf” and “fall of the leaf” to define the in-between seasons.

Fall is the season of harvest, of crisp weather, and (of course) pumpkin spice latte. William Blake’s famous poem “To Autumn” begins,

Oh Autumn, laden with fruit and stained with the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit beneath my shady roof.

Autumn is crackling, golden, and vibrant – a cornucopia of color.

Back to school sale, Indian summer, and pumpkin patch are uniquely autumn phrases that rarely get used once fall has passed.

Words for Winter

When winter comes, it brings words such as snowflake, shiver, frostbite, and flurry. John Updike wrote of winter:

The day is short, the sun a spark hung thin between the dark and dark.

Earmuffs, parka, mittens, boots – winter has its own wardrobe of words. It has its own menu, too: hot cocoa, hearty stew, fruitcake, Christmas cookies, and milk.

Some winter words melt away with spring: icicle, hibernate, toboggan, snowball fight, wind chill factor, and arctic blast.

Words for Holidays

Each holiday has a unique lexicon of seasonal words. New Year’s Eve brings resolutions and Auld Lang Syne. April heralds Easter bunnies and Easter bonnets, egg rolls and egg hunts, and the iconic marshmallow Peep. In July, we get fireworks, parades, and patriotism wrapped in the American flag. Christmas is the mother lode: Santa, mistletoe, Black Friday, eggnog, nutcracker, Scrooge, tinsel, wassail, carol, and Yule.

Most words are evergreen and show up all year round, but some words evoke seasonal memories and feel out of place when they’re used out of turn. Pumpkin pie and picnic, for example, elicits a seasonal disconnect.

What are some of your favorite words to conjure up a warm spring day or a cold winter night?

English Words from Around the World

The vocabulary of modern English owes a lot of its richness to borrowing words from other languages, but it borrows from some languages much more than others. We have only one word of Finnish origin in common use, but it’s a good one. Sauna, a direct import from Finland, pulls double-duty as our word for a relaxing steam bath and as the perfect way to describe gloriously hot, humid summer days. Here are some other great words with international origins:

Orange

Which came first: the color or the fruit? In English, believe it or not, it was the fruit. The word first appeared in English at the end of the fourteenth century, around the time the fruit was making its way into western Europe. Like so many other words, orange entered English by way of French, but the roots of the word stretch back to the Dravidian languages of southern India. It took another 150 years or so after the first introduction of orange for it to become the word for the color, too. Before then, the English-speaking world had to make do with saying yellow-red or red-yellow. Ever wonder why we call someone with orange hair a redhead? If orange had come along earlier, perhaps today we would call them “orangeheads” instead. Well, maybe not . . .

Disaster

Students of Latin or Greek can probably decipher the original meaning of disaster by looking at its roots: dis- (negative, bad, not) and astrum (star). Long ago, it was commonly believed that the position of stars and planets directly affected our daily lives here on earth. So a sudden calamity or misfortune was often blamed on the influence of a “bad star.”

Zombie

We can thank the folklore of Haiti and the West Indies for contributing one of the most terrifying and popular creatures in the modern horror genre: the zombie. But the origins of zombie may not have been so scary. The word can be traced back to West Africa, and possibly derives from a Kongo word meaning “god.”

Ketchup

Ketchup wasn’t always a tomato-based condiment. Once upon a time, mushrooms were the main ingredient. In fact ketchup isn’t always even ketchup. If you live in the southern United States, you may spell it catsup. The etymology is murky, but the word seems to descend from a word meaning “pickled fish brine” in the Amoy dialect of southeast China. The word may have made its way into English after entering Malay as kēchap.

Algebra

The prefix al- offers a clue about the origins of this word. Like alchemy, alcohol, alcove, and almanac, algebra is a descendant of Arabic (al is the definite article in Arabic, like the in English). Algebra is a combination of al- and jabr, meaning “the restoration of broken parts.” Algebra appeared occasionally in Middle English as a medical word, specifically in relation to fractured bones, but this meaning was quickly overtaken by the mathematical one.

What interesting word origin stories do you know? Let us know in the comment section or via our Facebook or Twitter feeds.

Essential History and Guide for Modern Acronym Use (Part 2 of 2)

Guest post from Scott Yates

Abbreviations and acronyms have embedded themselves in English as somewhat of an auxiliary language. If you thought Latin was a dead language, it isn’t. It lives somewhat zombie-like in some very common abbreviations like, e.g., i.e., etc.

(Notice how the “etc.” in that last sentence did double-duty there? No extra charge for that. ��

(Same goes for the double-duty parenthesis at the end of the last parenthetical winky-face.)

You could, if you like, read this list of Latin Abbreviations. Perhaps the next time someone quotes your writing and inserts “(sic),” you’ll be less confused, and definitely not flattered.

Then there are acronyms turned into words formed from the first letters of a multi-word name. (Remember “M.A.S.H.”?) When an acronym is widely used, it often becomes a word itself, and we forget its original meaning. You can look these up, but the laser, scuba and countless others, are actually acronyms formed from the first letters of word phrases. (If you’re into the more obscure military acronyms, check out the meaning of FUBAR — and its suffix BUNDY — as well as the somewhat surly FIGMO.)

The New York Times differs from the AP and others in turning acronymous words into words that are lower case, so U.S. Navy SEALs become “Seals.” Why? Because the Times says so. No other journalistic organization has hopped on that bandwagon.

In journalism it’s usually easier to spell out an abbreviation in the first paragraph of a piece and then sprinkle it with generic references like “that agency,” or “the association.”

Likewise, the Chicago Style Manual encourages students and teachers to “use abbreviations sparingly in text because they can make your writing seem either too informal or too technical.”

In blogging, too informal could also include current texting abbreviations like OMG, BRB, LOL, ROFLMAO, each of which should be taken out and shot. IMHO, anyway.

As regards the too technical caveat, there are clients out there who want their blogs laced with the heady brew of technology’s exciting acronyms and cliquish abbreviations. It floats their boat, and they’re willing to pay the freight, so I tell my writers to give them what they want.

Then there’s the common practice described in Albert Joseph’s Put It In Writing! (p.193):

“Always spell out the full term the first time it appears in any piece of writing, then follow it immediately by the acronym in parentheses, almost as if saying “…hereinafter referred to as…”

With due respect to Mr. Albert, I would disagree with his use of the adverb “always” and replace it with “never.” Should bloggers say, for example, “The National Football League (NFL) is…”?

No.

Instead, I think we should declare a Grammarly-BlogMutt Acronym Rule that a writer never follows a name with an acronym in parenthesis. According to this new rule, writers should spell out anything that needs it, and then just use an acronym in following references, but only if that acronym will be completely clear to every potential reader of what is written.

That’s the rub, however. For some readers, the NFL refers to the National Forensic League, which is an organization that arranges debating contests. (Maybe we can get them to organize a debate between those who would force us to make acronyms parenthetical, and those enlightened writers who follow the Grammarly-BlogMutt Acronym Rule.)

So, at the end of it all, what’s the rule for acronyms in modern usage? It’s the same rule that should be in the front of any writer’s mind before fingers get close to a keyboard: Consider the reader.

If you are quite sure that every single reader of what you are writing will be totally familiar with an acronym, then use it. But because so much of what we write today goes online, we don’t really know that much about the reader. What if it’s someone who is not a native speaker of the language? What if it’s someone new to an industry?

With those things in mind, we suggest that you just AAA — Avoid All Acronyms.

Missed Part 1 of this two-part series? Check it out here.

About the Author

Scott Yates was a writer for 20 years before he started a company where anyone can hire a blogger: BlogMutt. He had help in writing this post from one of the more than 3,000 active writers who have earned BlogMutt writing privileges.