You and I are WAY Too Old to Drink the HaterAde

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Kin Shing Lai on Unsplash

On taking things too personally and being willing to own our shit

This week I had an incident which I debriefed with a close friend, someone who grew up with social media. At 71, like most Boomers, I came to it much later in life, and am regularly gobsmacked at the level of ugliness that otherwise professional people publicly hurl at one another.

Look, I’ve stuck my size tens in my mouth enough times as a social media rookie to know what it feels like. This is absolutely directed at myself as well as in general.

It is an object lesson in allowing our worst to leap to the front, and then finding out later that the damage we’ve done can haunt us. That said, after publicly making asses of ourselves, and many of us get our turn in the barrel this way, we can also demonstrate a high level of emotional maturity and own our shit.

Of course it’s hard. The idiot, compulsive need to be right at all costs even when we are clearly wrong, in fact particularly when we are wrong, perpetuates the damage. That’s why, even when it stings, it serves to make things right.

This is a story about just that.

Yesterday I commented on a post featuring what was clearly AI-generated content. I called it out because the Original Poster (OP) seemed to present the contents as real. It was quite unintentional on their part.

I don’t trust AI and suspect that I never will in certain applications. We’ve already seen way too many people already working hard to use it to fool folks who just don’t have the eyes or the skill to spot what’s fake. And in too soon a future, the best of us, and I’m not that, will be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

We’ve already seen how some very bad operators are using it in elections and people a great deal smarter than I am have identified far greater risks.

While some folks equate my Luddite-like concerns about AI with similar concerns about the advent of radio and TV, NO.

Just like social media was a tasty chocolate drop full of razor blades, AI is far worse, with the potential to do far worse harm.

With that as a concern, I called out the post for being fake. I was hurried and didn’t take the time to consider the impact of my choice of words. In other words I ran my mouth and came off as a hater, which wasn’t at all my intention.

The reaction was swift- the OP was an attorney and I was threatened with a lawsuit for defamation. The response was laced with some choice insults, which kindly, I really don’t blame them.

You and I are Too Old to buy the Haterade*, especially in cases when we’re the ones who created the problem in the first place.

In truth, all I had done was point out that the video was AI and not identified as such. But the way I had written the post came across as rude and disrespectful, and frankly, I got the reaction I deserved.

This was a fine lesson not only in having to experience the reaction to words hastily written and ill-thought-out. It was also a fine opportunity to fix it, and if lucky, to mend fences.

While we’re not responsible for the nature of the ground on which our words land, we are responsible for the cleanup. It’s the same as though you tossed garbage out the window of your car.

You made the mess. You clean it up.

The problem is that too many of us, and I’ve been there, are too damned proud to make that apology. Or, as explained in this Men’s Health article, too fragile.

Instead, we may well strike out at the offender even more harshly, which is in effect our taking ourselves to task for being stupid in the first place. But too often we can’t see that, and we most assuredly aren’t likely to call it out on ourselves.

I’m not taking a bow here for cleaning up a mess I had no business creating in the first place. I am taking myself to task for being thoughtless, and talking about what happened. I wrote this person by private message and promptly apologized. In addition I rewrote my post, apologized publicly (which doesn’t hurt at all as much as people think it will), and hoped for the best.

Then I sat with it all day. Not fun at all, as I wondered if I was going to get sued for being stupid.

If stupidity alone was a legitimate reason for lawsuits, then we all belong in court at some point, just saying.

You see, in 2010 I wrote a triple prize-winning book on the power of words. That said, it was before social media has become the shit-flinging fest it is today. It’s also terribly tempting to assume that having written the book, one is now the reigning expert.

Nope. The book, no matter how good it might or might not be, simply speaks to the fact that I need to learn this lesson myself. The best way to learn it is to write and teach your topic. And practice it, which is where it gets hard.

This morning I woke up to a lovely message from the lawyer which was gracious, courteous and appreciative not only of my private but also my public apology. There was no mention of the harsh language, nor did there need to be. The person said they looked forward to remaining in touch.

I will, too.

For my part, as awkward as it is to show up as a jerk because I’m in such a Big Fat Hurry to make a point, the opportunity to turn that kind of mistake into a far more powerful connection with someone I’d insulted was even more important.

As my friend Janelle Barlow writes in her book A Complaint is a Gift, when an entity- in this case, us - makes a mistake, how we handle that mistake is what defines our character. It’s just one reason why so many of us on Substack read Notes and the comments, because those are likely more indicative of our fiber than those articles we write with plenty of time to consider the impact.

Far too many of us respond in kind when we get hit with Haterade- or what we interpret as such. Too many people live with it full time because of skin color or sexual preference, and that can make people hypersensitive. It helps to take that into consideration, the kind of stress this causes and why an otherwise kindly remark can be taken out of context.

It doesn’t help to make someone wrong for overreacting if we have no appreciation for context.

But then there’s this:

Last week after Trump’s conviction, I posted the New Yorker cover. A Trump supporter plastered an upside-down flag on my thread. My response to her, which I will not repeat here, got some 600 likes and many re-posts. I was livid, because in this case it was a trespass on my veteran status and much more.

It was also an insult to all veterans and service members, whether or not they support the man.

We may be a mess as a country, but we are also a country full of folks trying to do their best. Hurling hate at those who put their lives on the line so that these haters can speak their mind to do harm is, to my mind, unconscionable.

That’s not hate. That’s a boundary.

When we screw up and don’t intend harm but do harm anyway, what a remarkable opportunity to step up, own our shit, and be willing to take the results. There is nothing so clean-feeling as to own your mistake, do it publicly.

Of course it’s hard. Frankly I’d rather I hadn’t hung my bare ass out in public in the first place. But I will take the opportunity to do better, and make a friend in the process. In such failures, life gives us great gifts.

Let’s play.

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

Thanks as always for walking this road with me. I appreciate the reads and most especially the comments. This kind of article means a good stretch which is good for body, mind and soul. If it was worth your while, please consider

If you know someone who could use a little perspective, please also consider

Above all thank you!

*Haterade is a word offered me by a close friend, which was too good not to steal