It's has came to my attention that there has been a lot of negativity going around the blogging community. Negativity towards bloggers, from other bloggers, and from anon. commentors. This isn't the first time it has happened and I'm sure it won't be the last. Our blogs our public domains, so it's bound to happen occasionally. But I had my share of personal attacks yesterday, and I wanted to shed a little light on the situation.

Yesterday morning I received, what I would call a hate mail (please note that in any other circumstances I would not post a personal email. With that being said, I believe this was sent under a false name and email account. When I tried to respond by email I received a delivery failure notice):

Dear Kristi,

We newbie bloggers have something to say. And believe me when we say it is long overdue. We aren't writing this email to be mean but we want you to know a few things. be sure to read this.

we are tired of you getting so many books. when you know you can't possibly read them all. you are greedy. Save some for the rest of us. You don't have to have every book that comes out. Go to the library. You have a job. But your own books.

Aren't you too old to read teen books. They are aimed at young people. You old bloggers need to give up and let the real teen voices be heard. How can you have the same views as a teen when you are not one. And your reviews could use some work to. They are a little short don't you think. Like we said let the real teens have a chance.

We are sick of you acting like you are better than everyone else. You think you have the best blog in the world. News Flash, YOU DON'T. Its only a matter of time before someone comes along and knocks you off your throne and I hope we are all there to see it. You are such a fake person. I don't know why people even like you. I hope you get what you deserve. It's called karma.

Just so you know there are a group of us that are not following you on twitter or your stupid blog anymore. Please do us a favor and stop blogging.

Sincerely,
Lena

I'm not sure who Lena is, and honestly it doesn't matter. This email was meant to be a mean email, it was meant to attack me personally. There are proper and improper ways to contact a blogger when you have a problem with them. This is an example of what NOT to do. Had the composer used a more professional tone, and refrained from name calling, perhaps I would have taken them more seriously. Like I said, there is a wrong and a right way of doing this.

In my defense (since the email account that this was sent from seems to miraculously be closed, and even more so it's ridiculous I'm even defending myself, but so be it) I do receive a lot of books for review, yes I do. I'm not denying it. I try and do read almost 95% off all the books I receive for review, it may take me a few months or more, but most of them do get read. Also I rarely ask for books. It's been months since I've sent a request. Most of the time, authors and pubs contact me directly asking for a review. And no, I do not accept every request. And I DO "buy" a lot of books.

You're never to old or young to read what you want. I also watch children's movies too! The scandal! I may not be a teen now, but I was a teen once upon a time. I still think my opinions are my own regardless of my age.

If I act like I'm better than everyone else, I apologize for that. That wasn't the way I was raised, and I never meant to insinuate that. I honestly don't think I have the best blog ever, far from it actually. We are always most critical or ourselves and I am no exception to the rule. I still wonder why I have a following on my blog. And you have every right to decide who you would like to follow, it my blog isn't something you like, please feel free to stop. I hope you find something that you do enjoy.

My second bout of the dark side came from a series of comments that were left on a two star review that I did recently.

Let me start out by saying this: My opinions and rating of a book are based on how much I enjoy reading the book. Period. It's my right to express MY opinion truthfully and honestly. I will not apologize for not liking a book. I stand by decision to write a negative review and will continue to do it as the occasion arises. There are blogs that only post reviews for books that have favorable ratings. I am not one of them. If that is not something you'd like to see, please feel free to stop viewing my blog.

This particular commentor was very rude and childish. There was a lot of profanity in the comments and mostly contained personal attacks on myself, and no actual substance toward the review itself. Of course as in most instances this commenter decided to stay anonymous. Initially I left the comment. But as the night wore on, anon decided to come back and make personal attacks on some of the other commentors, that I WILL NOT tolerate. A personal attack on me is one thing, but I will not stand there and let someone attack my blog readers.

Luckily, I have an awesome support system of fellow bloggers and authors who are sure to remind me of the type of person I really am.

The moral of this story. Shit happens.

It's up to you as the blogger to decide how to deal with these instances because if you continue to blog, it's bound to happen. Don't let it stop you. Don't let it get you down. I recommend ignoring the commentor. Most of the time there is nothing you can do in their eyes to rectify the situation, you're already the bad person. I know it's hard to ignore things like this. Yes, even I have a hard time ignoring it, there was a recent situation where I was being slandered about on Twitter, it was harsh to say the least, and I acted impulsively, when I shouldn't have. Yes, I only defended myself, but sometimes it's better to leave it alone.

It's up to you to decide whether or not to leave the comments. I almost always end up deleting them because of personal attacks. You don't want to censor your comments, but there are certain things that step out of bounds, don't be afraid to hit that delete button.

Don't cross over to the dark side.

• Tweet This!
• Share this on Facebook
• Digg this!
• Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon
• Share this on del.icio.us
• Share this on Technorati
• Post this to MySpace
• Subscribe