Some months ago I got comments from spam writers on my blog site, not the Chinese language ones from last year. (Those evaporated on the day the Chinese President set foot on U. S. soil visiting President Obama.) Being new to the blog world, either too scared or too naive about how to detect spam, I didn’t really know what to think of them for a few weeks.
After I decided to answer a few flattering or seemingly heartfelt comments, wow, I started getting a flood of them from all over the globe …. that’s when I noticed some weird signs. At the time I didn’t know for sure that I could tell the good guys from phonies by their email addresses.
Why did I read them, what made me believe maybe they could be real? I saw that some people really read my things as they made comments about my content or style, like misspelled words (the way I always misspell a few words, and won’t change). A couple told me I almost made them into a ‘believer’, except for ‘whatever’. Another person actually said one post was ‘funny’ and so I liked that someone would get a laugh from my grief stricken ‘talking to Marc’ one night while listening to a stupid TV commercial. Life can be crazy funny after tragedy, as sometimes you’re so tired and stressed you just can’t handle hypocrisy!
But I want to share how what they said, however deceptive, self-promoting they tried to be with me, made me think of some really critical things re: my life as a blogger.
First, they responded to me as ‘writer’, not as a parent who’d lost a child. Okay, so I got they were young and thinking the world was theirs and they can’t see anothers pain. But their comments on my writing skills were both valid and …. flattering! Thru my grief and need to get posts out there, I hadn’t fully realized how my errors in writing were noticeable. I wasn’t mingling with other writers at that time.
After couple days I realized I was getting used to the flattery, and beginning to think I needed to ‘please’ them by concentrating on being a clever or better writer …. but my life felt ‘off”. I asked myself point blank ….’ do I want to be liked as a writer or appreciated for being true to myself, my original message‘?
I was losing sight about why I was writing and starting to write to impress rather than to express a deep personal experience. This seemingly silly struggle created a dichotomy inside that made me feel so twisted, like I was carrying around a heavy weight ….. and I didn’t like it! You start to feel life or the blog isn’t worth it, so I had to get things right inside again immediately!
I trashed all the spam, got good spam protection, but still sorta missed them …. some things they said were actually funny, and natural like young people can be. It was good to hear people at least interested in my stuff from a more critical perspective as verses hearing consolations for my loss. They were right on in dissecting my things, so I became more consciously observant about my style, grammar.
Some actually told me they had an ‘uncanny’ feeling something good was going to come from my blog. I got offers to guest blog. One guy from another country really affected me alot as he seemed to hone into one entry and how it really woke him up to new possibilities.
He wrote he’d been thinking that his ‘life was over’, that nothing could change. He was living a life of monotony, the same ol’ things without any hope for a way out of his depressing rut. His writing style was very convoluted, he struggled with getting the correct meaning out …. it was obvious he was truly depressed. But one of my posts spoke to him and gave him hope to escape the treadmill of the life he was on!
I’m grateful for the spammer experience! I did protect myself in who I wrote back or ‘allowed’ myself to comment to. I always deleted outright junk.
But the spam comments opened my eyes to issues going on in the cyber world, as well as the danger of ‘flattery’. I don’t desire to be like people out there who sell their soul for whatever reason. Being attacked helped me clear out some cobwebs so I’m not hindered by what people expect of me. I hate the way things can creep into your life and just strangle the real joy and focus you had from right under you! Integrity on my journey with Marc’s legacy comes first!
“Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls,”
Proverbs 25:28