Shutting Down the Twits & Crits

Shonda Rhimes recently shut down critics who attacked her inclusion of saucy gay sex scenes and adultery in her hit shows Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder.

Rhimes is a notoriously big fan of tweeting, so she's adept at the inane discourse that takes place there. She even encourages her cast members to tweet comments to their legions of fans during broadcasts of her shows. Cute? Fun? A complete waste of time? Whatever.

But she did get attention for taking on viewers who didn't care for the gay sex scene in the new episode of ...Murder. So she essentially turned a negative into a positive.

Forget for a moment the utter hypocrisy of her twit anti-fans not complaining about the depiction of yet another grisly murder. No, it's two guys smooching that gets the whackdoodles really teed off.

So, with the advantage of Twitter, it seems a writer, producer or artist is able to fire back at any crank or anti-fan from a safe distance. Or, on the bad side, they seem required to do so.

But what if the writer goes too far, like, to the doorstep of an anti-fan? Such is the case as reported on Jezebel and elsewhere. Author Kathleen Hale went way over the line, finding the actual home of a fraudulently named book-hating online reviewer (Salon caught up in their feature Battle of the Trolls).

Kathleen Hale: white, rich and cuh-razeee?

But because Hale is connected (by marriage-to-be) to New York Times writer Frank Rich and other bigwigs in corporate publishing (she's also blonde, white and rich), she seems to have been given a pass by many, even for acting like a psychotic stalker, a term she uses in her essay. Note I said like a psychotic.

This Jezebel coverage -and this big-name author- are news to me, but part of a much longer saga with a whole slew of mostly female writers and hate fans that's been going on for years, mostly with the likes of 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight, those books' completely untalented and yet massively oversold authors, and their legions of hateful anti-fans.

As for the current bile-fest, as a form of revenge, book "fans" and anti-fans are giving Hale's (apparently underwhelming and over-praised) book one-star reviews, in abundance.

The Jezebel article linked to familiar sites, a few of many that document the ongoing idiocy of Goodreads.com

On a much, much smaller scale, a few cranky vicious non-reviewer hate fans posted one-star reviews or other nasty simpering swipes at my award-winning novel Every Time I Think of You, all of which backfired on their part and resulted in a surge in sales of my books. So, they're like a toe fungus that inspired me to go for a nice run.

Note I typed like a toe fungus. I didn't say these people actually are toe fungus. I didn't type that they actually are psychotic or bipolar manic freaks who should be prevented from ever being online because they are apparently people who do more damage to themselves than others by displaying their demented hatred of complete strangers.

But they act like it.

My little foray into this sordid realm, most of which inhabits GoodReads,com, back in September, was a mere singe-like taste of the vats of bile spewed back and forth between much more well-known authors and their viciously persistent anti-fans.

And yet, with only a few glances at the various links from the Jezebel.com post about Hale, I found more links to yet more blogs about the awful, horrible, nasty and vindictive "reviewers" on Goodreads.

And after a mere few minutes perusing the related links, who should pop up on a blog pointing out serial haters, but a few of my own momentary vultures! Hey, gurrrlz!

This one really likes to hate my books, even if she hasn't read them:

And back on Goodreads, the revised Terms of Service have gotten these serials haters up in alarm.

Loder-whatever, a pompous windbag (see below) seems to suffer from short-term memory. He not only went after me, but "shelved" my books with disdain. That's when stupid GoodReads members tag books with hateful dismissive terms like "will-never-read" or "never-ever" or other obscure hate terms that dodge the Terms of Service banning outright hate speech. 

Anyway, Loderasshole admitted he didn't even know what the argument was about, but then went on again and again to post more than once about me, calling me a "nutter" who "had a meltdown."

And yet, here he is, quoted as pompously and falsely claiming to have "never" made personal attacks on authors. He's actually done it several times.

  And while I just popped into this morass again via the Hale scandal, he's apparently a fulltime GoodReads troll and thoroughly invested in yet another thread (7000 posts long in just a few days!!) on GoodReads.com all about limiting GoodReads' members' ability to attack authors.

Only a month after my single little complaints about the vultures swooping down, the entire site has changed its Terms of Service to be more limiting in a nasty reviewer's ability to personally attack an author. And that's good.

Yet, in the same way that rightwingers' parrot blame towards "Obama," the hate-fans are parroting "Bezos," as if the site's purchase by Amazon.com, and its CEO, is at fault for their being "censored."

Tracy and Shelly, serial book-haters

You see, according to the book haters, they must have full anonymity to review books, because their opinions are more important than yours, and even if they're sock puppets (fake), or trolls, or shills, or psychotic bipolar twit Brits, their anonymity must be maintained while authors put out their lives, art, bios and personal details for the vultures to chew on.

Because apparently, when on overpaid obsessive author like privileged Hale overreacts to a fake and apparently equally obsessive "reviewer," that's indicative of all authors' behavior. And, according to some GoodScreeders, all authors should be banned from posting anything about their reviews.

No, seriously. That's been typed many times by the more obsessive hate-reviewers.

And of course the preposterous attitude of such online trolls is, 
A: if an author does not respond to their hate, the trolls win. 
B: If an author does respond, the trolls win. 
Because that's all these weasels have, being resident "librarians" on a massively flawed book website.

But now, Amazon.com, which now owns GoodReads, has the audacity to try to make GoodReads friendly to authors! Shocker!

Part of my atypical mini-hissyfit back in September included my complaining about a profanity-spewing non-review being allowed to remain online. It's still there, as is a clearly unhinged two-star manic hate screed against the award-winning book I published three years ago. Hey, Jason! Off your meds again?

 


He also hates Pulitzer-winning Dave Eggers and Williams Shakespeare, so I'm in good company.
 
And, hey look! Bipolar Jason puts me on a par with this "loser" tome, Brokeback Mountain.

So, hey. Hate a book read by millions and another recognized for centuries as a classic? 
No worries. 
You go, Jase. Be a rebel! (eye roll)

It seems that GoodReads' policy has changed to still allow (allegedly) mentally unbalanced people to spew venom on a book, but not so much on the author. 

And it's not hypocritical of me, an author whose work includes characters with disabilities, to use the terms about mental illness, not as a pejorative insult, but as an accurate description of this person, particularly when the same accusers use more childish variations on such insults aimed at me.

Jerky Jason loves and hates and hates and loves!

Still, it is "crazy" when certain obsessive trolls continue to give one-star "reviews" to books they've never read. It's kind of like a child sticking her tongue out before running out of the room. And like pre-school, that's allowed for such children.

What's so blatantly stupid about such people is how obvious they are. 95 percent of noted readers like or really, really like my books. 

But a strange, pathological few hate me and my books because I told off a 19-year-old twerp who scribbled swear words on my book page.

5% hate me? Those are good odds.

So, in sum, while I don't give a hoot what asshats like these think of me, when you hate on my books without knowing what you're talking about, you're proving yourself to be a jerk.

I may not have the time or inclination to go after specific haters in the way that TV genius Rhimes does, and I may continue to be curtailed on GoodScreeds, but I reserve the right to say whatever the frak I want to here.  And unlike vengeful author Kathleen Hale, I don't need to rent a car to find these few incredibly creepy book haters. 
Because they all live on GoodReads.com. 

(Laura Miller on the Goodreads/author battles)