Why Would People Come to this Site Just to Boo Me?

The internet is a cesspool but I have been fortunate in that the commenters for The Dissolve and Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place have, for the most part, been wonderful. On any given day they are the best part of this website. 

The A.V Club had a wonderful group of commenters in the early going but there came a point where reading the comments on my articles became as painful and pointless as pouring lemon juice in open wounds. 

I have, however, been writing about pop culture on the internet for twenty-six years. That’s a long time! Good lord is that ever a long time. I feel so old. So very, very, very old. 

If you do anything on the internet for a long time people will hate you. Heck, if you’ve been on the internet for a short amount of time people will hate you. 

The internet is a very emotional place and the emotion that it runs on is hatred. That’s why the concept of hate clicks and hate reading exist. People on the internet are so filled with hate that it leads them to continually experience entertainment they profess to despise. 

So it should not be surprising that during my long decades expressing strong opinions on the world wide web I have picked up some haters. 

There are some folks out there who think that I am a terrible human being in addition to being a hack writer and that my moral transgressions are so severe and so egregious that it warrants penning emails to me overflowing with bile and contempt. 

I know because every month or so I get an enraged online missive from a stranger I’m pretty sure I’ve never met or even interacted with online telling me asserting that I am a terrible human being and writer.

I understood this anger when I wrote for The A.V. Club. I was only one writer among many. I’m sure that the average commenter liked some writers a whole lot more than others. Also, at a certain point the general tone of the comments and the commenters became sharply more critical. 

And I was lucky in that the commenters for The Dissolve were almost uniformly great, but not as great as the commenters and readers here. 

And don’t even get me started on the patrons. To put things in Tony the Tiger terms, they’re great! 

I understand how you could resent me if you were a big fan of The A.V. Club but hated my writing and felt I did not deserve my position as its longtime head writer. 

But Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place is a one man operation. Oh sure, I’ve received some crucial help from my sister in law Romy and my podcast partner Clint and my illustrator Felipe but there’s only one reason to come to the website and that is to enjoy my writing. 

I’m the only writer! I’m pretty much the entirety of Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place. So it boggles the mind that there are apparently some people so deeply invested in hating me and making me feel bad about myself, my writing and my career that they ostensibly make a point of regularly visiting my personal website so that their withering criticisms of me as a writer and human being can be more authoritative. 

Writing blog posts in which I apologize or write about someone who has died generally bring these people out. Ironically one of their primary criticisms is that my writing is insufficiently empathetic and compassionate and consequently I am a worthless piece of shit who deserves to fail. 

These unseen, unkind judges of my writing and morality do not seem to understand the hypocrisy of agitating on behalf of kindness and compassion by insulting a depressive in unmistakably personal ways. 

Here’s the thing. I’ve made a LOT of mistakes over the years but despite my pessimism I like to think that the universe is fundamentally kind and that it’s okay to make mistakes and forgive yourself. It’s even better to forgive the mistakes of others. 

I am hyper-sensitive to criticism and hyper-sensitive in general. You don’t need to humble me with your words, anonymous hate emailer. The universe has already done that for you. 

I’m reminded of the iconic moment in The Simpsons when Lisa asks why people would come to a concert just to boo. On a similar note, I’ve got to wonder why anyone would HATE my writing, and me, to the point of apoplexy yet keep reading me all the same. 

I suppose I am hate-read by at least a tiny group of people, which is weirdly flattering and insulting at the same time. 

One of my big professional frustrations is that the site’s audience never seems to expand beyond some wonderfully loyal, devoted readers and commenters. 

But if the site’s modest readership are unfortunate but maybe a limited audience is okay if it keeps the hate-readers away. 

Help choose the movies I write about here by becoming a paid subscriber at https://nathanrabin.substack.com or by pledging the site’s Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace

Pre-order The Fractured Mirror, my next book, a massive, 650 page exploration of the long and distinguished history of American movies about the film industry at https://the-fractured-mirror.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Check out The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop and get a free, signed "Weird Al” Yankovic-themed coloring book for free! Just 18.75, shipping and taxes included! Or, for just 25 dollars, you can get a hardcover “Joy of Positivity 3: Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” edition signed (by Felipe and myself) and numbered (to 50) copy with a hand-written recommendation from me within its pages. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind collectible!

I’ve also written multiple versions of my many books about “Weird Al” Yankovic that you can buy here:  https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop 

Or you can buy The Joy of Trash from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Trash-Nathan-Definitive-Everything/dp/B09NR9NTB4/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= but why would you want to do that?