One Common Issue with Negative Commenters & Ranters
Projection, projection, projection.
The longer I create in public, the more negative comments my content attracts.
This is nothing special — just ask anyone who has ever interacted with another human being.
Although I usually waste no time reading negative and unhelpful rants, I do sometimes stop and glance through some of them — just a few.
I can’t help it.
The human mind and its endless generation of ideas and feelings are too fascinating to ignore.
Despite my attitude towards negative ranters and instigators, negative comments and commenters can teach us much about the human mind and life.
I cannot resist the motivation and psychology behind the commenter, not so much the content or brashness of the comment.
Yes, much of it is projection, but don’t all of us have a little projector inside?
Projecting our moods and perspectives — not just onto each other, but also onto items, topics, animals, stars, etc…
Whatever we can lay our minds and their judgments upon!
Sometimes, it’s as though these commenters are holding up a mirror, but it reflects their own frustrations and unmet desires rather than anything about us.
In short, a critical comment might reveal more about the commenter’s own fears or aspirations than about the content itself.
And I think that’s part of what makes it hard to resist reading them: these comments are little windows into how we all grapple with our own insecurities and limitations.
There’s something deeply human in the act of reacting, judging, or projecting.
We’re all driven by our own inner narratives, and we shape our world by projecting these stories onto others.
It’s easy to see negative comments as hostile or mean-spirited, but sometimes, they’re just raw glimpses into someone’s unfiltered world, where they feel safer lashing out anonymously.
There’s a certain empathy that can come from seeing things this way, from understanding that everyone, to some degree, is projecting their inner world outward.
That includes us… Yes, me too. And yes, you too.
Ultimately, that’s the gift of creating in public — getting to see the full spectrum of human reactions, to witness the minds behind people’s comments and reactions.
The more I observe, the more I recognize that we’re all wrestling with something, and often, that “something” shows up in surprising ways…
In the end, these encounters remind me of the shared experience of being human, flawed yet endlessly fascinating.
We are flawed and yet endlessly fascinating.