Unmasking Digital Bullies: The Truth About Keyboard Warriors With Dwight Heck
Have you ever encountered someone online who seems to thrive on conflict and negativity? In this thought-provoking episode, I explore the phenomenon of keyboard warriors and their impact on our digital landscape. Drawing from personal experiences and psychological insights, I delve into the reasons behind this toxic behavior and offer practical strategies for navigating online interactions with grace and empathy.
Understanding the Keyboard Warrior Mentality
- The online disinhibition effect and its role in emboldening negative behavior
- How anonymity and distance contribute to a lack of empathy
- The connection between personal dissatisfaction and the urge to tear others down
Navigating the Digital Minefield
- Effective strategies for managing your social media presence
- The importance of pausing before responding to inflammatory comments
- How to leverage platform tools to create a more positive online experience
Cultivating Digital Empathy
- Practicing self-awareness in your online interactions
- Fostering meaningful connections through thoughtful communication
- Supporting others who may be struggling with online harassment
This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to create a more positive digital environment. Whether you’re a social media enthusiast or a reluctant user, you’ll find valuable insights to help you navigate the complexities of online communication with confidence and compassion.
Don’t miss this opportunity to reflect on your own online behavior and learn how to contribute to a kinder, more empathetic digital world. Tune in now and start giving a heck about the impact of your words in the digital realm!
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Chapter Summary (Full Unedited Transcript)
00:00:00
The Rise of Keyboard Warriors: Understanding Online Toxicity
The host introduces the topic of keyboard warriors and online toxicity. He discusses how social media has emboldened people to criticize and attack others from behind screens, leading to increased negativity and hostility in online interactions. The episode aims to address this growing issue and its impact on society.
00:10:15
The Psychology Behind Keyboard Warriors
Explores the psychological factors driving keyboard warrior behavior, including the online disinhibition effect and anonymity. Discusses how the absence of face-to-face interaction reduces empathy and increases impulsivity, leading to more aggressive and hurtful online behavior. The host emphasizes the importance of empathy and thoughtful communication.
00:20:30
Combating Online Toxicity: Strategies and Solutions
Offers practical advice for dealing with keyboard warriors and maintaining a positive online presence. Suggestions include using social media platform features to manage interactions, practicing empathy, and prioritizing mental health. The host encourages listeners to be mindful of their own online behavior and contribute to a more positive internet culture.
Full Unedited Transcript:
[00:00:00 – 00:40:31]
Good Day and Welcome to Give A Heck on today’s show. It’s going to be just you and I. It’s going to be a solo podcast about a topic that has been, you know, getting rapidly worse as the days go on, as the years pass by and as social media and technology allows us to hide behind our screens. Whether it’s on a phone, a tablet, a computer, people are bold and brazen and going out and criticizing and attacking one another when they would never think of doing that face to face. And I think it’s something that needs to be addressed. So whether you’ve personally encountered them in your comment section, been targeted by them, or perhaps even caught yourself engaging in a similar behavior, this topic affects all of us in one way or another. So settle in and I’m going to explain some things about keyboard warriors and the toxicity that they bring to the online community and give you my opinions and I look forward to hearing your opinions about it. And reach out to me and let me know what you think in the comments section or send me an email, go to my website. Let’s get together and let’s communicate about this topic or any topic on any episode that I have done in the last four and now coming up on four and a half years pretty soon. So let’s start by defining what is a keyboard warrior. Well, you know, they want to stay anonymous. They like their relative ability to stay anonymous. Right. They can hide from one the consequences because really when they’re typing in their negativity and their criticism, they do not have to show who they are because they can be done anonymous depending on what platform it is. People have fake accounts and then there’s those that don’t have fake accounts and they really don’t care. They will put down whatever is on their mind and they interpret what you post or what you say based on their state of mind. So what do I mean by that? Well, let’s say today they are having a really character building day. They’re in a bad mood and they’re thinking, I’m going to sit down, I’m going to jump on my phone, my computer, my tablet and I’m going to check out one of the multitude of social media platforms out there today. They’re going to read something, they’re going to read it in their current state of mind. Are you that same type of person? I’ll be honest, I know depending on what mood I’m in, it’s not great to read stuff. And I know if I read something and it triggers me, it’s time to scroll by, not comment, not do something in the heat of the moment. Now if it’s a valid conversation, you look at it later on in the day or the next day and you think to yourself because you’re thinking differently. Your emotional IQ is not heightened in the sense of, you know, flight or fight. You’re literally calm and you read it and you want to comment and you can be kind about your comment. Go ahead. I don’t care if it’s even a text message. Somebody sends you a text message, anything in print, whether it be in a newspaper, an email, a social media post, a text, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day we read things based on where our six inches between our ears is at, what our emotional state is at what our mindset is currently going through. So my first piece of advice is don’t respond, don’t type anything, don’t do anything and click enter until you know that it is something that is helpful, thoughtful. Right? Maybe it’s critical, but it’s good advice. It’s something that can actually help somebody. You’re not just tearing them down and making their lives even more difficult. Thinking of that. When somebody does do that to you again, sometimes the best thing to do is just ignore them. Scroll by if it’s your post and it’s that toxic, delete it. It’s not worth keeping there because somebody will come along and read it and be in their own state of mind, which is negative and they’ll add to it and they’ll just throw more gas onto the fire. And really do we need that in today’s society? We need to embrace our, you know, each other’s personalities and our own uniqueness. We need to embrace that ourselves and others own uniqueness of their personality and their what they represent and at the end of the day just keep on moving forward knowing that there’s going to be people that do it constantly and there’s not much you can do about it. You can report certain things to these social media platforms but you know, they really don’t care and they’ve done so much stuff in regards to us posting our own opinion and stripping that away, locking at us out of our accounts. I know Meta has been famous for that over the last few years, especially during the pandemic. And now Mr. Mark Zuckerberg has, I’m sure a lot of you know, already has said that’s going to stop. They’re going to move from California to Texas, that specific division that takes care of fact checking and they’re going to allow people to post their thoughts, so it’ll be interesting to see if it becomes like a Twitter. For those of you that like Twitter, great. I find it to be a social media platform where people are cranky and complaining and attack full of keyboard warriors and I limit my exposure to a couple posts a week to it. Otherwise that’s not a social media platform I enjoy. Why do I bring that up? You need to make that same decision. Is there certain social media platforms you like better? Are you a business person and only spend your time on LinkedIn? You’re a career driven person, whatever the case may be. So you’re on LinkedIn for a specific type of communication. Are you a person that likes TikTok and you just like all the the interesting videos that can be done on it, or are you a person that likes Instagram or Facebook? The list goes on. There’s so many different ways that we can utilize our time to either uplift ourselves or bring ourselves down. And I know myself, I don’t spend very much time on social media except for posting things about family once in a while and my brand. And I’m not saying it’s not important. It’s something I need to be more consistent about. Social media is inescapable. You need it if you’re a person in a high level career or a person that has a business that needs promoted or personal or a business brand or both. So I’m not saying that we need to run away from social media. I’m saying we need to use it in a smart fashion where it does not induce anger, hostility, you know, and just outright rage from certain people. The keyboard warrior crowds you know who you are. Again, if you’ve ever slipped into that and said something negative. I have, but I’ve caught myself and I’ve done it not even a handful of times in my whole social media existence because I really don’t have the right to do that to somebody else, Especially when I don’t know the circumstances or the emotional state of what the post is about. Unless I know the person really personal. Even then I’m not going to be a keyboard warrior, say something negative. I’m going to reach out to them personally because that’s what people do. We discover, we ask questions, good questions, and we move forward. So at the end of the day, there’s people out there that are quick to attack others. It’s just, it is what it is. Now it’s important to distinguish between when you’re posting a healthy debate and a Keyboard warrior behavior. What do I mean by that? Well, I will comment on a post, right? Somebody I know, somebody I know like and trust, and I’ll be very kind about my comment, ensuring that I’m very much a wordsmith and people have listened to my show know I pride myself in understanding how certain words, phrases can, you know, get you different results. Ones of anger or there can be ones of, of understanding and compassion. And basically you’re saying the same thing. It’s just how do you present it? What words do you use? Right. So that is something I, I would definitely say is important. If you’re having a healthy debate, don’t attack people personally, right? Don’t say to them, well, what do you know? You’re just a blah, blah, blah, right? Don’t do stuff like that. Have a healthy debate. If you get to a point where it would be like me, if I’m face to face with somebody, I will literally say, you know what? Could we just agree to disagree and walk away from this conversation? You know, it’s obviously stirring up stuff for yourself. Stirring stuff up for me. We’re, we’re, we’re at an impasse and move forward. That’s what responsible adults do. They don’t attack one another. Right. Face to face. You wouldn’t think of doing that. Some of you may, but you’re not in my tribe, so I seriously doubt anybody like that’s even listening to this show. So literally be somebody the same way when you’re typing things, if you, you can’t, you come to an impasse. Just we agree to disagree and walk away. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth a healthy debate. Going to an angry debate, causing hurt feelings and, you know, literally remember this statement, it’s better to be than thought of an idiot. Then open your mouth and remove all doubt. How does that work in regards to being a keyboard warrior? Well, many people that are typing and causing, you know, toxicity on the Internet with their keyboards are not thinking about the fact of what others are thinking of them. Yes, we’re told all alive. Don’t worry about other people think of you. But you know what? That’s, that’s, you can’t do that all the time. You must live a life where you’re worried about the people close to you are. I shouldn’t really say worried, but, you know, concerned about what your words, whether they’re in type or verbally, are gonna. What’s the outcome towards your family, your friends, your co workers, your clients? The list goes on. Does that mean you constantly worry about everything that you say because that might offend them. No, it just is that you’re always cognizant that you’re always thinking about it before you open your mouth and remove all doubt. And the reason that statement exists and why I’ve lived by it for 30 years is something as a barrier to control what comes from my mind down to my mouth. What filter am I using? What filter am I applying? Do I understand the circumstances or am I just spouting off because of my current state of mind? So again, I’ll say it again. It’s better to be thought of an idiot than over open your mouth and remove all doubt. Right? It’s better to be thought that you’re angry or upset or somebody that is not too bright than to actually type it, say it verbally, whatever the case may be, and think, you know, just let people know that you actually are that way. Right. Hopefully that makes sense. So now we’ll continue on. What has keyboard Warrior done? Well, bullying. It’s huge harassment. I know. I had a big challenge with it. My kids are all adults now. For those that aren’t aware, that are new to show, I have five adult kids, right? And out of those five adult kids, there was excessive bullying done over the Internet, over social media, fake profiles created things said about other people and hiding behind a fake profile even. So you don’t even know who that, that keyboard warrior, that toxic person is. And had my kids torn down over the silliest things. And you know, to be honest, found out they were doing it too because again, you have the ability to hide behind a screen. How many people are harassed and bullied in the workforce through social media or they have a great idea and their business is flourishing and it does something that’s very unique and somebody thinks it’s ridiculous, it’s unfounded, it’s stupid, whatever the case may be. And they start hassling these groups. I’ve. I’ve seen and heard of many groups that get attacked too. Non profits. Or it could be a profitable business that has to listen to keyboard warriors. Because you know what keyboard warriors are doing? The toxicity, they’re puking. They’re hiding the fact that they do not like their lives, they hate their lives. So it’s easy to focus on other topics. Other people that are going through tough times and fanning the flames to feed their own already disappointment, their anger, their frustration. They literally just, they don’t know what to do to handle their own six inches between their ears. So they deflect away from their, their lives that they don’t enjoy, maybe they hate by picking on others. That’s what a lot of bullies are. The difference between the schoolyard bully back when I was a kid to bullies today is the bullies today can be, you know, all talk, no action. They’re going nowhere themselves, but yet they’ll tear themselves down in some, well, a lot of regards because they’re not helping their, their mental mindset. And then they’ll tear down everybody around them because at the end of the day they really don’t care about what they create or what they do outside of their own life because then it gives them something to gossip about. Because a lot of times people that are like that hang out in the same group of friends and, and family, they’re all the same, they’re negative, right? And it just feeds. They’ll say, well, you should look at this, look what I posted, look how they respond, look what I did, look how upset I got them, blah, blah, blah. And they’re chuckling and laughing. But deep down inside they’re hurting. Their lives aren’t great. They’re living with what I’ve experienced over the last 22 years in my financial planning practice, my life, you know, lifestyle coaching, business. They’re living a life in quiet desperation. They hate their lives. They don’t have enough money to pay attention, let alone pay their bills. They just are totally dependent, distraught, going to work, go home, get paid. So I don’t do feel for them, but I’m telling you, hopefully you’re not one of them. And if you recognize people are that are like that, maybe have a polite conversation with them or send them to this podcast and tell them, you know what, you don’t have to be like that. There’s better ways to do life. You don’t need to attack others. Let’s just focus on your life. Let’s help you start to climb again in life instead of being camped where you are right now, where you’re looking at the world around you, the people around you, and looking to tear them down, be toxic just so you can feel better. So again, looking forward to comments, people messaging me about your opinions about this topic. So the psychology behind it. I’d got some research material here, so I’d like to, you know, read some of it out to you and bring it up. Why do people become keyboard warriors? Well, psychologists have looked into this. There’s something called online disinbition effect. I hope I’m pronouncing that right, which basically Means people feel less restrained when they’re behind a screen, which we already mentioned. The absence of face to face interaction reduces empathy and increases impulsivity. Empathy, do you understand empathy? Do you understand that feeling for others when they’re going through troubled times and giving words to them, whether again verbal or written word that uplifts them and helps them through their tragic times is the way everybody should be. Unfortunately, very few and far between are that way. They literally either scroll by and don’t comment and say anything, they don’t give a, like, they don’t give a heart, they don’t do anything, they don’t contribute to society. They’re living in a world of quiet desperation on the opposite end of the person that’s a keyboard warrior and toxic. So my point is, is there’s people from both sides of the coin right now that are struggling in their lives and you know, again, not trying to judge them, just trying to bring up a topic for people to actually think, am I anything like that? Are the people around me like that? What can I do to make myself better so that I’m uplifting people and not tearing them down? So keyboard warriors, people that feel emboldened by anonymity. When you can hide behind a username and a profile picture, you’re less likely to face the social consequences of your words, right? If you are posting on a site and somebody starts hassling you and you even go look at their profile and they live somewhere in the US and you live in Canada, they know your likelihood of you jumping on a plane and coming down there and confronting them face to face either or doesn’t matter which country to which country isn’t going to happen. They’re in Europe, you’re not going to jump on a plane and fly there and challenge them to their nastiness that they’ve just spewed all over the place and that’s like that all over the world. So people hide behind that ability to be anonymous, right? Whether you see a picture of them, whether you see their about information, you don’t even know if it’s accurate. There’s so many cloned and garbage stuff that even isn’t even an actual data about that human being. They’re hiding behind things. So you know, they like the instant gratification they get by firing people up, as we already mentioned. And you know, at the end of the day there’s just no chances of people suffering any consequences. Even with all the bullying my kids went through and I know parents that are going through that today with Social media, where people get hassled and say inappropriate things. I even had it happen with one of my grandkids already. The police can’t do anything. You can report stuff, you can do whatever you want. But it’s a long, drawn out process. And in many times, these keyboard warriors, even if they’re not school students or adults, they just go create another profile and start all over again. I had one daughter that has gone through that for the last decade, and one person terrorizing and victimizing them and just sets up new profiles. It’s that easy. And messages and starts chatting within their. Their stuff. They pretend to be somebody else, but eventually you realize it’s the same person just hiding behind the screen again, toxicity at its finest. So what do we do about this stuff? Be aware. Talk to our friends and family about it. See what their experiences are, see with what they do and how to deal, how they’ve been dealing with it and share your own experiences and what you’re looking at and how you’re going to deal with it. But again, it happens. And people like the fact that if they’re being negative, especially on sports sites, I’ve seen that a lot. You got a favorite sports team, go on to their local fan page and you’ll find people from the other teams on there stoking the fire. They might pretend they’re from your home city or they’re a fan initially to get part of a group, and then they don’t care how long they’re on there. They just want to be on there long enough to stoke the fire, say some negative stuff, be jerks, and then move on. And they just start over and over and over again. This digital mob mentality that has often led to viral hate campaigns, even like literally picking on one type of group. Look at the LGBT community and how all the hassling and garbage they have to put up with or specific. It can be specific groups of any type, right? It can be political, where people attack one another because of their political views. Whereas prior to social media they were friends. All of a sudden I’ve heard it right to my face. I’ve had people tell me such and such is this type of political background. Well, you know, I didn’t think they were like that. I didn’t know that I can no longer be their friend. And they’ve been friends for 15, 20 years. Because before we could keep what we vote on, what we decide in politics hidden right, it could come up in a conversation. People still had verbal conversations about it, but you didn’t really have to say, well, I’m right, left or I’m in the middle. You didn’t have to say any of that stuff. It just wasn’t a reality. Now today, look at the political dissension that’s gone on just in the last five years since, you know, since night 2019, 2020, going into the pandemic, what was the biggest thing and hot topic there, which has driven families and friends apart. I know families that don’t talk to their own parents because they had different views about vaccination and masks, yet they loved one another before the pandemic. Now all of a sudden there’s huge divisions. So politics cause huge divisions. Our religious beliefs cause huge division. Right? And obviously sports, the list goes on. Our health, what we think is proper food, what we don’t think is proper food. So we should we get back? Shouldn’t we get back? Do masks work or don’t they work? Are you going to use them? And everybody’s got an opinion, just like my dad joked about it, you know, everybody’s got an opinion like they got a butthole, right? They just literally, there’s no real reason. They just literally deflecting from their own lives, which is sad in a lot of ways. So you can have direct attacks on individuals, groups. We’ve already talked about that. It creates serious mental health impacts. You may not think it does, but again, as a person who’s lived with it through what my children have gone through, what fellow group people that I’m part of, groups have gone through, whether it’s just a group about cars, a group about, you know, there’s groups about personal development, there’s groups about sports, the list goes on. You know, at the end of the day, it causes huge mental impacts when you attack somebody and you attacked them over and over again, and then other people jump on the bandwagon and do the same thing. So my first solution for you is if you’re not a person that can handle any form of criticism, don’t post, don’t comment, just go on, read, look like pictures, watch videos, see family pictures, videos, maybe post the odd thing. But you, you can be on social media and not get attacked, right? It does happen where people, there’s a percentage of the population that doesn’t get attacked on social media because they’re not posting about controversial things or they’re not posting things that are too personal that people will have a very defined opinion about, let you know about it and attack you. So just look at your social media usage, try to gauge what how do you feel when you’re on social media? 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour? Do you feel good about yourself or do you feel terrible when you get off? That’s a huge indicator for really anything in life. If you watch a specific type of show and it makes you feel crappy, why are you watching it? Are you a person that watches the news or listens to the news or reads about the news two, three times a day? How are you feeling after you’ve done that? Do you think that heightens your state of mind? And then all of a sudden you get onto social media, you see something, you’re already heightened, you already got a little bit of anxiety going on and you start typing away. And no cons, you don’t think of the consequences of your actions. Now, if you want to type something on your phone, tablet, computer, whatever, type it out. Don’t send it. Whether it’s a text, social media, post an email. I always tell people, wait. Wait till you’re calm. Read it again. Read it out loud. I find reading things out loud lets your brain interact with the communication better and you’ll get different thoughts about it. And if you still feel the same way, even after you retyped it, edited it, did whatever, and you’re confident that you are at a great state of mind and it’s not going to cause too much dissension, it’s just going to be a thought process that you want to have a healthy debate about. Go ahead and do it, but put those steps in. Don’t just send stuff and expect nobody to give a. Give a crap about it, because they do. So, you know, and it’s not just influencers and celebrity, it’s everybody that’s getting picked on. As I mentioned, there’s, you know, your school groups, your teenagers, your marginalized groups like the LGBT community, maybe it’s the immigrant population that’s getting picked on. Who knows, right? There’s so many sensitive topics out there right now, we won’t get into all of them today. You’re welcome to again comment and us have a healthy debate about things in regards to keyboard warriors. If you want to keep it more personal, just DM me. Anyway, we’ll continue on when it comes to online communities and their toxic behavior goes unchecked. I go into some groups now and they put in there that you will automatically be removed if you don’t follow. You know the rules of this group, right? You bully, your behavior, whatever. They say, all this stuff, yet they don’t do anything. And even if you message Them, they don’t do anything and they still allow it to be rampant because they enjoy it themselves. They must enjoy it themselves or they don’t moderate their group properly. If you’re on groups like that, leave them. Why stay on them and allow somebody to continue to spew garbage and make you feel terrible? The ones that stay there, great, that’s their choice. Maybe that’s the hamster wheel of life they’re living on and they need it. Right. And if you participate in these discussions, again, expect to get, you know, feedback good, bad or ugly and indifferent. Right? They become loud echo chambers and people just virtually typing and really they’re shouting at one another, but they’re not shouting at one another. It’s all, again, interpretation. And the most toxic voices get the most responses from other toxic people. And it just goes on and on. So what’s the solution? Evaluate the groups you’re belonging to. Do they make you feel good? Yes. Then stay. If they make you feel good more often than not, then stay. If they make you feel good, 50 50, leave. That’s my solution on that. So, excuse me. At the end of the day, the biggest problem, as we did mention it earlier, is erosion of empathy and people not caring about what they say or, or what they do, their actions do, and how it’s going to affect others. Is it something we can practice? Absolutely. You can practice empathy. You can try to be in the shoes of another person and understand when they lash out that maybe they have things going on in their lives that they just don’t know how to control, that they don’t have support or help to get past how they’re feeling. And they need support. They need some empathy. They need some. I’m not sure how I can help you, but let me know how I can support you, right? Within reason. Help people be a sounding board to them. Sometimes people just want to hear from you. Even if it’s just typing and texting and they’re messaging you and it’s not a social media post, it’s messenger or they’re DMing you or whatever the case may be on whatever site. Maybe they just need somebody to listen to them, maybe get it past the type word, maybe jump on a video call with them. I know personally I enjoy video calls way more than I do phone calls now. Why is that? Well, I can see the person’s eyes, I can see their body response, their body actions. I can listen and tie that all together to their tonality and how they’re acting. Are they leaning into the screen? Are they leaning back? Are their eyes darting all over the place? Right. Maybe somebody just needs to talk to you, needs to vent, doesn’t need any advice. And sometimes a face to face can be done just perfectly with video. I just did it a few days ago with one of my relatives that needed to communicate and they really appreciated it. And I explained why when we do it, we have to do video calls. By the time the conversation was over, about 40, 45 minutes, the person felt better, I felt great because I could help them. And we both went away from that video call feeling great. And that’s what life should be, uplifting one another. So hopefully that makes sense. So really what can you do again, we’ve already talked about it. Scroll past. You can’t control other people’s behavior. You really can’t. If they mean enough to you, DM them, text them. If you have their number, reach out to them and say, hey, let’s jump on a call, let’s talk. You seem like you got a lot on your plate. Maybe you need to share it with somebody. And if you want to share, I’ll just listen. If you would like me to listen, plus give advice, I can do that too. But mean what you say. If you say you can just listen, then just listen. If they’re in the conversation, they change their mind and they want some advice. Give them some advice. Right? If you get into the conversation, you start giving advice and they don’t want it, and they originally said they did, then stop. Be what people need to be. As long as it doesn’t affect you and your health. Mental, emotional, physical. I hope that makes sense. Again, there’s literally so many features. One of the things we should touch on is the features that social media has. Do you understand that just unfollowing somebody on Facebook, for an example, or Instagram, TikTok doesn’t mean they can’t see their. Your stuff. They can’t. Especially if you have. Well, most of us, a lot of us do that, have personal brands, have public profiles. So all you’re doing by unfollowing them or removing them as a contact, a connection, a friend, they can still see your stuff. So what do I do? Guess what if somebody upsets me by their comments, not necessarily to me, just what they post, they’re toxic all the time. And their written word and what they post is just not me. I probably block people. I don’t know how many I block a week, a month. What does blocking do? They can’t find you anymore on social media on that platform. Right. And I have no issues of blocking people. Have I had people create other their profiles and reach out that way like I talked about earlier? Yes. Not hard to figure out. Block report, move on. You can report to the social media platforms that, that you’re getting harassed. Maybe things will get better now that, that Mark’s jumped into the, the fold of meta which controls. Oh my goodness, they control so many different social media. They got threads, they have Instagram, they have Facebook and then you know, the rest are motor, TikTok, you know, Instagram or part of me, LinkedIn on the more of the business side, career side. But there’s so many other ones out there as well. So don’t be afraid to block people. Right. Maybe you want to keep them as a friend. This is an example for Facebook. You can go in and unfollow them and still keep them as a friend and they don’t know that you’re not seeing their stuff. Right. You can also go in and limit what they see your posts. Maybe it’s political that you have to keep them as a friend. You can’t block them because of circumstances of your career, your job, your business, family, whatever the case may be. But just learn the different tools that you can utilize to protect yourself so that people don’t see your stuff that you don’t want them to see. Right. Or you just, you just. I’m done with them and you want them gone for good. And I do that again if I see something or listen to something they’ve posted and it’s toxic and majority of their life is toxic. Maybe they’re going through a tough challenge that right now in their lives for the last three, four months, you’ve known them for a long time. Well, let’s simply unfollow them for now. Don’t unfriend them, just unfollow them and connect back up. Right. When you, when you realize that life has gotten better for them because you see them at different functions or different things, things with in regards to your job or again family, whatever the case may be, and life is better, then you can go and follow their stuff again, you can go look at it again. You can snooze people too, which is nice. On a lot of different social media platforms. Somebody’s in. You want to check 30 days later. So I’ll go and snooze somebody 30 days later. I look at their posts, they’re still the same. Maybe I’ll snooze it a couple more times. Maybe after 90 days they haven’t changed. Time for a block, right? Time to move on, right? It’s just, it’s just life. But every circumstance is different. If you’re uncertain or have a concern or comment or wondering what I would do in a circumstance that you’re in, again, reach out to me. I’m easy to get a hold of. Put a comment below and we can certainly have great discussion. So thank you for being somebody that’s interested in the keyboard warrior, you know, and somebody that really wants to uplift people on social media and not tear them down. So again, if you are struggling with the impact of online harassment, aren’t sure what to do, you can reach out to me, we can talk more about it. Don’t be afraid to seek help from people. Talk to your friends and family. As I mentioned, your mental health matters. And it’s okay to take a step back from social media if you need to, even if it affects your brand. If you have a brand, you want to be healthy mentally, physically and emotionally to continue to drive your, your brand forward. And if you need to take a vacation, just like we do in real life and we go somewhere to take a break, do that. Don’t be caught that you have to do something every single day if it’s affecting your health. Again, reach out to people. So as I wrap this up, I want to leave you with this. We all have a role to play in making the Internet a better place, right? It starts with self awareness, being aware of what you’re seeing, what you’re reading, how it makes you feel, and deciding whether you’re going to hit that send button on an angry comment that was left for you and you’re responding. Or if you’re just going to let it go and move forward and realize that they’re in a state that you’re not and they need to figure their own stuff out and you’re not going to fan the flames and make it worse. So just is your, is your comment constructive? Is it kind? Would you say it to that person’s face? Ask yourself that. If you wouldn’t say it to somebody’s face, what you’re typing, then why are you doing it? If that’s the only momentary dopamine hit you get. Go find a hobby. Go find something else that maybe sports, the gym, maybe yoga, Pilates, maybe a book, maybe positive podcasts. Whatever the case may be, don’t hit send on something that’s not going to enrich others lives and your life as well. So thanks for hanging out with me today. Give a heck fans, I appreciate you. This is episode 225. For those new to the Give A Hack show. I have been doing a weekly podcast, have not missed a week since November of 2020 since I started. I really appreciate your support. If you find value in this, could you do me a huge favorite? Go on to the platform that you listen to this podcast or if you’re on my YouTube channel, give it a like. Give it a download like subscribe right subscriptions on YouTube or on the platform you’re listening to. If It’s Spotify, Apple, YouTube, whatever it is. Again, giving a like giving a comment like literally. And if you subscribe, it tells the analytics to broadcast the show to more people and it allows me to continue to touch and help other people through their character building times. So until next time, take care of yourself and each other. And if I was to leave you one last closing motion message, pardon me, motion message stumbling over my words here, I would tell you just always any form of communication, verbal, non verbal, whatever the case may be, please be kind. Think about would you do that to somebody’s face? And if you would, then you’re going to be that keyboard worrier and I really can’t help you except tell you that you need to change. Life isn’t about stirring the pot up and making people upset and fanning the flames. So again, I appreciate everybody that’s been on long for the ride over these years and all the new listeners and viewers. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share with you great guests and great, you know, literally topics, at least what I think are good topics. So have a fantastic rest of your winter no matter where you are. Whether you have snow, don’t have snow, enjoy life, Spend time with family and friends. Create great memories because you never know what tomorrow holds. Today you have the present and do your best to enjoy your life. I look forward to talking to you soon. And remember, it’s never too late to give a heck.
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