My friend Alan at Kick Acts Magazine and I got into an online discussion regarding internet haters (people who have nothing better to do than leave mean and hateful comments at internet forums). And it reminded me of a story that I think I will share with you.
A couple years ago, I was reading a story on the Aint it Cool News website about fan produced web series called Star Trek Phase II. Their goal has
been to produce new episodes of the original Trek series series (the missing 4th season if you will).
For the uninitiated, Fan Film making has replaced what used to be called fan fiction. In the case of Trek: Fans used to write their own Star Trek
stories back in the day that they would distribute for free to other fans (the quality ranging from horrible to professional). In the digital age Fan Film-making has taken it's place.
Now just the thought of this con jours up horrific scenes of an Ed Wood style train wreck production, consisting of fake looking sets made of cardboard, and plastic model space ships hanging by strings, etc.
But as it turns out, this group of independent (fan)film-makers turned out some impressive results. They built professional sets that looked just
like the sets of the original series, they created authentic costumes. They used professional CGI efx, they used professional editing, music scoring, etc.
As watched their fan produced episodes, I just kept thinking how impressive their achievement was, especially considering the fact that they had no studio to back them. That this all had to be self funded.
What's more they couldn't make any money off of it (Apparently Paramount pictures agreed to look the other way as long as no money was made from
their productions). It was a real labor of love, and even if there where brief moments that might not be up to the standard of a major studio production with a huge budget, you had to marvel at how amazingly good their production looked.
So when I went back to read the reader comments on this story, I was shocked at how many Internet haters just tore this labor of love apart. I am not talking constructive criticism I am talking just mean spirited HATE.
I remember one comment was along the lines of "I watched two minutes of this sh*t-fest and had to turn it off, because I was laughing so hard at how awful it was".
I was so angry at these haters, I wanted to call them out for the A-holes that they where. I wanted to ask them what had they ever accomplished or created that could rival the work of these fan film-makers since I knew that most of them probably couldn't even color in between the lines of a coloring book.
As a musician, I know that some of the most unwarranted and mean spirited reactions come from people who probably can't even play the radio, much
less play a musical instrument (and I am sure that many professional musicians reading this will agree).
But dealing with Internet haters is part of the game. If you are getting any kind of audience or attention, you are going to start getting haters too.
It's like the old style hecklers but worse because they have anonymity of the Internet. They don't have to face you and can hide behind an Internet handle.
On Youtube I get a lot of these, especially with the American Idol video getting so many views. Now the upside to this, is that with a site like
youtube, I have time to think of a comeback line, and since youtube sends all replies to the person who instigated the comment, I know that they will get it.
I have had some fun ridiculing haters on the Internet, but now sometimes I wonder if some of them aren't reading the previous comments and thinking; "I wonder what he will say if I say......."?
I wonder if I am just encouraging people to say mean things now.
In one weird twist of events, I let loose a salvo of smart ass replies directed at one hater who left mutlitple mean comments on a number of my videos and he started respecting me for being able to zing back at him so well.
When I was a kid I used to lose my temper at other kids who would make fun of me and get into fights. My Mother would say to me "Just ignore them".
Which makes no sense when you're a kid.
But as an adult you can see the wisdom in those words.
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