Please Talk Among Yourselves

Hello, today, I have another topic about trolling.  You know the word.  You are watching a video and make a mean remark about how the mother is dressed.  I am not talking about the self-talk you make

Candle Nestled Among Flowers
By Pegleess Barrios from Burst.

as you are watching the video (also called talking to the screen).  We have all done that. I am talking specifically about the trifling comment you added in the comments section.  Yes, that troll comment.

There are other forms of trolling and I have mentioned them before, but making rude and hateful comments on another site is becoming more common, and frankly, I do not like it.  Here is why.

YouTube or Bust.

I have mentioned that I watch videos on YouTube and I also make them.  Two of the families that I watch on a regular basis recently had comments that popped up on my Google news feed, and frankly, I did not like what was said about them.  I know what you are going to say, “Tricia, why do you care what is said on these YouTube channels?”  Well, I do care because these two families, who by the way, are friends with each other, and are Christian families, really care about their families.  I also know what some of you are about to say, “well, they asked for it, putting their lives out there for all to see”.  Well, yes, they do, and only God knows why they are making videos, but, I also believe that it is only in God’s plan that they do continue. 

The first family, an interracial couple, with a boy and girl, started vlogging before the boy was born.  The comment I read on Lipstick Valley.com was things like: “why are they (the husband and wife) are so “Vegan” and “Micro” manage their diet while they feed their children crap food”.  By the way, crap, meaning McDonalds, pizza, Mac & Cheese, you name it.  My question to these people is why do you watch?  No, seriously, why do you watch the channel if you are going to criticize the family? I have seen the latest videos and the children are eating the same thing that the parents are eating.  Not only that, the mom did feed baby girl the same thing that she was eating for lunch.  They very seldom eat the “crappy” stuff, as this troll called it.

The second family, an African American husband and wife, with 3 boys and a girl, started vlogging when the oldest boy was a baby.  The comment I read on the same site was from 2013, and the comment was on the next oldest child’s hair, and why his hair was not cut.  This was during the time when the two oldest was born and she was pregnant with the youngest boy.  Baby girl was born last year and will be 1 next month.  Anyway, the comment was on things like, “is she hoping to have a girl so bad that she refuses to cut this child’s hair?  Again, my question is, why do you watch this channel?

I know as a vlogger myself, I am supposed to have “thick skin”, but my question is, why be so mean?  My mom gave me this insight when we were talking about my business the other day.  As business people, it is hard to talk about the business with family and friends, and here is what I believe is the answer to my question:  People are jealous.  They are jealous because:

·         You accomplished what they are trying to do. 

Many people say that they are going into business or start a vlogging channel or a blog, but cannot because of time, money, and/or the backlash from family and friends until they are afraid of starting. 

·         You are making a success out of the very thing they want to do.

These families are making a nice size chunk of change from vlogging. They are being savvy about the brand deals they are working with and who they are working with.  I will not mention some of the brands, but they are some of the ones I want to work with in the future, but it takes time to build a relationship with these brands.  Some YouTubers have been at it longer than me, but I cannot let that stop me from trying.

So, I did a little research into Lipstick Valley.com….

Caution: I am using a little slang here.  I will explain myself along the way.

Three Women Discuss over Coffee and Laptops
By Sarah Pflug from Burst

So, I pulled up Lipstick Valley.com, and this stuff is lit.  For those of you who do not know what “Lit” means, “lit” means it is hot, a trend, or popular.  If you are a black person, this is the place to be (although I have seen other topics on other races).  As a black person, I beg to differ.  I did not like what I read from these posts, and I would have to say that these people are mean, jealous, and have no life goals.  I mean, people, do you even work?  Are you so jealous of these families to the point of talking about how they dress, how they feel about their children, and so forth?  How would you like it if someone pointed out your stuff on social media?  You would not like it, huh?  You are lucky that these families do not care about your catty mouth.  They only care about what their “true” fans think.  I did not nor I will not sign up for this site.  On second thought, I should not have said that these people who frequent this site do not have life goals.  Everyone has life goals, and these life goals may not line up with mines and yours.  This might be a way for some people to unwind from the day, like a glass of wine and a good book, only they choose to gossip about people.  See, that was a form of trolling and I am sorry for having written that.

I am not that type of person who is here for the gossip.  God and my mother taught me better than that.  That does not mean I listen.  I have no choice.  I have chatty church members, social media is always chatty, and my family and friends are chatty.  The only difference is I try not to start something.  If it is something I do not want to hear (like the opinions of people I watch on YouTube) I walk away, turn it off, or mouth off, which is something I started to do to these people.  Good thing you have to sign up to give your .02 (two cents). I probably would have blasted out these catty women out of the water.

So what if I find myself in this situation?

If you find yourself in the situation of giving an opinion that is troll-like:

·         Go to the person who is the subject of the talk. 

You might want to give you an opportunity to air your difference to them. Now, it may be a little difficult if it is social media.  Sometimes, you do not know these people personally, you never met them in person, and you do not know their home life, except what they are willing to share. 

·         Do you know what is really going on in their life?

On my channel, my social media accounts, and on my blogs, there are a lot of things I personally do not share and do not want to share with the public.  Some of it has to do with the people in my family who do not want their life being put on blast, and some of it has to do with the situation I am in, and the public does not be on a “needs to know” basis.  Besides that, people are nosey, and people get jealous and want to see you fail at something.   

·         Commenting with mean, evil things does not help the situation. 

What does trolling do?  For one, it makes a person who is miserable, have no love for life, nor care about people feel better about themselves while making the person being trolled feel worse about themselves.  One of the worse trolling methods is when the troll tells the one being trolled to go kill themselves.  In that case, it becomes cyberbullying.  This is common in teens and young adults.  This must be stopped. 

What if you find yourself being trolled or cyberbullied?

·         First, you need to develop a thick skin. 

Yes, it is not easy to ignore the comments.  YouTube and other sites have a way for you to report the person doing the trolling, but you may not be in a position to do so.

·         If you cannot handle it, find someone who can. 

If you have a business, you can hire a virtual assistant to screen your accounts, especially comments.  In fact, virtual assistants are good for a lot of tasks, which is something I will tackle in a later post.  If you cannot afford to hires someone or if you do not have a business, get a friend to screen your social media account.

·         If it is cyberbullying, contact an authority, contact your local police, your company’s security, IT, or if you are a student, contact a teacher, principal, or guidance counselor, and most importantly, your parents.  These are your first responders, and they do not take lightly the threats, the trolling, and meaningful suggestions.  They know what to do, and how to contact the next person in this sort of situation to the right people.

Finally, do not take matters into your own hands.  You could end up losing your life over this.  If you have to, walk away from social media.  It is not that important that you have to document every detail of your life on social media.  In fact, this is the reason for me not sharing everything.  It is not that I do not want to because I love helping people, but sometimes, helping people can cost.  There are the judgments, the funny looks and stares, and the comments.  I always welcome comments if I am wrong on something, but when it comes to my life and my well-being, I have to decipher what is best for me and my life.  I will listen because introverts are good listeners, but then I have to choose from what I want or need versus what you are telling me.  We all make choices in life, and my comment to you today is:

“Choose to be happy, and make the right choice in your life and the life of others.  You never know who you may touch the right way or the wrong way.”

Related Articles:

Attention all Trolls (This means Me Too).

Related YouTube Channels to this Article:

GabeBabeTV

The Daily Davidsons

Check out my Channel while you are there:

Patricia L. Logan

Motivational Monday: Self Doubt

As usual, from my Facebook status (I am starting to have a lot these days): “This is a retweet I shared about two years ago. I still feel the same as this person. I was raised to believe this and I will always carry this even I am about to draw my last breath. I also going through a period of uncertainty that reaches even before what happened over the weekend with Longaberger.

As a person, I am willing to stand by this company, but I need to be honest, I am not sure how long I am willing to do this. My first priority as an Independent Home Consultant is to take care of customer's needs. I hope the owners of this company know that. It is not what keeps them coming? New products can wait. If you cannot serve the general public with your service of provision, then maybe you should close your door for good. Yes, I am angry, and I am hurt. I may not have had many sales over the past few months with you and the reason was quite simple, I was dealing with self-doubt.

I had self-doubt in my abilities as both a consultant with a once upon a time billion dollar company and as a stationery/graphic designer/writer/crafter, trying to build a company from scratch. Why did I self-doubt? Simple, no sales, and no money to do promotions. I thought that by promoting on social media (especially my FB page) would get me sale from both Longaberger and my company, P. Lynne Designs. There were periods where I would just stare into the screen and wonder why am I doing this? I would hear the voice of God saying, "You got this", but I was not hearing it. Even when I did two projects last year for Judith Sharpe and Tiffany Thomas (which I still thank you both for believing in me), the doubt was still there. I still did not try hard enough to get the work I needed.

Two months ago, I made a decision to really get in there and push. That was when I accepted a scrapbook project from Pat Meadows that I can truly feel proud of (not that I was not proud of the other two projects from last year. I am finding my self-worth again, which is my long-winded speech of saying, self-doubt is a mood killer, a dream killer, and the devil's advocate. Do not give in.

One last thing: To all independent consultants, rather you are with Longaberger or with some other direct selling company, I decided back in 2010 to have another source of income. take those skills that you gained with the company, and use them to your advantage and have backup income. I am not saying leave direct selling, but have a secondary income, even if you have a spouse or partner. Like so many companies before Longaberger, you were told everything is fine, and then one day, you cannot contact the call center. I believe that Longaberger will return in one form or another, but now is the time to come up with a backup system. I can now understand why consultants ask to join another company. That is not what I am talking about. Use your skills as a consultant to maybe teach a class. having home parties have taught you to not be afraid of audiences. This is one example, and I am reposting this on my blog.

Never self-doubt your skills or your abilities to help others.”

It is pretty self-explanatory, this post.  It sums what I have been going through in the past few months, including why I have not been posting on a regular basis for both my blog and vlogging channel.  It comes from a quote from Twitter that I reposted in 2016 (my Facebook and Twitter accounts are linked):

Retweeted Melanie※ (@SimplyShayXO):

#ThereIsAlwaysRoomInMyLifeFor God. Even though the darkest time of my life, even when I pushed Him away, He was there. He is always there.

It is the post I just wrote that I want to focus on.  To give you a backstory, this is what transpired ever the weekend (without giving out company info because I still stand behind this company for their products):  I was told, along with other consultants and leaders to not put in any orders until further notice.  You can read into it however you want, I am not spilling tea yet until they officially declare bankruptcy, or I can go back to submitting orders for myself or other customers. You can get angry at other people without hurting the relationship, and at the moment, I am angry at owners of Longaberger.  Please note that I am also angry for and at the former owners of Longaberger. The reason:  for softening the blow of what was really going on with the company and why shield it from the sales force and the employees?  I am going to leave that question right there because the same thing was going on with Toys R Us, Sears (I was let go from two stores because I was in the dark of problems stemming from that fiasco), even my most recent former employer, Archivers. 

Most people blame Amazon and Walmart for their company’s problems, but I smell an even bigger problem, which is why I choose to stay out of company politics, but when you are messing with my money, my livelihood, you need to speak directly to me.  Longaberger owners JRJR Enterprises was not speaking to the sales force loud enough, long enough, and early enough to say there were problems.   Actually, I take that back.  I did receive an email, stating for everyone to increase their sales, but they did not say why.  I thought it was them encouraging you to increase sales, like a normal motivational talk, not a “we are losing sales” talk.

So back to the whole reason for this post.

I was thinking about my reason behind the post on Facebook, other than this post resurfaced (which is a good thing), and I was in that funky feeling.  It was the kind of feeling that you were happy but not that happy.  That is one thing that Facebook is famous for, to remind you of your post.  I am the type of person who posts what I have to say on social media and leave it at that.  A post.  Like others, I do post what makes me angry, but I have calmed down my anger over the past few months, since some people pay attention to it, and sometimes they do not.  I do not post to get a reaction anymore.  If it is inspirational I make it a point to have my Facebook friends (and Twitter and Linked-in friends since the accounts are linked) to read it.  I want to make sure that you know where I am coming from, and I do not like posting junk, which is the reason behind me not posting when I get a high score on a game.  I want people to learn and be inspired by my experience.

I want you to feel loved.

I want to solve the problem that you are having.  That is the whole reason behind P. Lynne Designs, my stationery/scrapbook company.  Let me give some examples:

• You want to capture that moment when you first went to Barbados.  You decide to go on a cruise and you decide to take a lot of pictures.  Now, you may not think that a scrapbook album is an answer to everything memorable, but it is.  You can put in more than photos.  How about that ticket stub to a benefit concert put on by Rihanna, who happened to be visiting her mom, and it was for a neighboring school that she attended when she was a child.  Or the first time you tried rum punch. How about on the Lido deck? The program from that concert? 
• You need flyers for an event
• You need an article about the on-going effects of global warming or how to make canvas wall art.
• You need wall art.

Yes, this is how I give of my talent, but I cannot give if I am constantly doubting if the client is going to love it or not.  I need to trust my instincts more.  I love the way I see things, which is with an open-mind that says that the world is more than one way.  So far, my clients have loved my work.  I get results. 

This also brings me back to you, and my takeaway from this post. 

What is your talent?  You do not have to be a good artist, singer, dancer, or speaker.  Listening can be a talent.  Listening with the intent of offering good advice can be a talent.  Chad Raider, Youtuber from GabeBabeTV is a known baby whisperer.  Every time a baby is near him, they calm down, which has worked so far on the newest member of their own family, Reagan Elizabeth.  Know this, if people turn to you because you can make the best Mac and Cheese that can beat a 100-year-old recipe, that’s talent.  If someone says that you can light up a room with your smile, that’s talent.  Talent does not always be a physical thing.  It is your mood, your attitude, your very presence.  In other words, confidence can be a talent as well.  Being modest without being overbearing is a talent.  Patience is a talent.  Find that talent, and never self-doubt it.