Positive feedback for my blog Gradient Lair, and my tweets….

Back in June I tweeted (and 32 people agreed and retweeted):

It is so weird to me that if people recognize the unsolicited good things people have to say about them, they are called “thirsty” or “desperate for approval” but if they dwell on “haters,” then they’re deemed ”focused,” on their “grind” (a word that I hate unless it is used in reference to coffee beans), and “driven.”

It’s backwards.

I think Black people are so used to dealing with racial (and gender, sexuality, socioeconomic, ability etc.) hatred that recognizing the good things and the good wishes that people have for us (or we have for each other) becomes sadly cliché, and even insulted. We have to be able to deconstruct the prejudices and appreciate the praises. Both, not either/or.

A lot of the “hater” rhetoric (isn’t actually about the type of hatred that I mentioned above) = imagined enemies for many people. A capitalist society tells us that no matter how (ethically or not) we earn money, fame, attention or even basic recognition, people are automatically ”jealous” of us and are out to get us. Possibly. But most of the time, it’s human insecurity telling others to inflate their egos to the point that even passing by them is an attempt to burst their balloon. Maybe someone was just…passing by.

All of the kind things (in the tweets above and more) said about me matter to me, since I enjoy writing and tweeting. These are the kind of compliments that are nice, not the aggression-filled quasi-compliments (usually from men) that are really attempts at power and control, or ones solely focused on appearance or something.(Actually, the best compliment a man [a friend] ever gave me was in 2007 when he said “I love how your mind works…” and meant it. Not about looks. Not about anything connected to sex.)

I don’t think that people should hunt praise. I don’t. I didn’t ask anyone to compliment me and I didn’t feed them lines seeking it. I just tweet. I just blog. I just write. And, the things I talk about are so niche that I never really expected anyone to pay me any mind actually. I am still surprised that 4100+ people follow me on Twitter. I thought that I would have maybe…50 followers at most when I joined in Twitter in 2009. There’s 100 here on Gradient Lair, which I just started in May 2012. I thought I’d have 10 readers at most. 

The good things that people say and constructive criticism coming from a place of love (not vapid insults coming from a place of hate) are motivation to me. It adds to the feeling that I already have from within myself to keep on doing.

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