Oversharing

I've been described as an "oversharer" before. I kinda get why.

I talk a lot, I have a lot of stuff going on, and there's very little about my life that I consider private. 

I've shared some pretty personal things, like drawings and journal excerpts from childhood, lists of my collections, details from my everyday life, photos of my living space, and information about writing projects I've produced since childhood. 

A self portrait from when I was 5

Some of the harassment and criticism I've received over the years seizes upon this tendency as self-evident proof that I am pathetic and self-involved to the point of obsession. I'm never quite sure what to do with it when some hater finds me, e-mails me out of the blue, and sends me disgusting messages absolutely seething with anger that I would dare to share these things. What is their problem, you might ask? Apparently, according to them, the sin I've committed to deserve this treatment is assuming anyone in the world would care about these details.

Some examples:

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Maybe you should take a chill pill. Not a lot of people are into the web, lots of people prefer sports, so when someone who is a sports fanatic stumbles across your page, there gonna think you have too much time on your hands. I mean, you do have a big page. You need to respect peoples thoughts and opinions. You should expect to hear things like this. Your page is hudge, expect to hear things like this.

I'm not looking to start trouble. I have better things to do. I could care less how big your page is, because I understand that this web-page-thingy building is what your into. I'm personally not into it, I'm into cheerleading,field hockey, softball,soccer, and other things. I just want to make you aware, maybe you should think before you type...

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Wow. We have got to get you laid! You are an unhappy woman who desperately needs something besides grammar and a slightly higher IQ than most. You are the female Comic book Guy.

I would tone down on the content of your reviews. They are novels themselves and no one wants to hear the mindless ramblings of an ugly girl with Princess Leah braids.  

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Sweetheart, seriously. Grow out the bangs and own the fact you're 29, and stop posting pics of yourself/friends on the internet. Rise above all this, because your life reads like one long, sad study in deep personal inhibition.

None of this is real, after all. And in the meantime, you are missing everything that is. I'm only here because I have to take breaks from studying medicine, you have no excuse at all. 

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I browsed your site, and I have come to the conclusion that you are a miserable woman who is very unhappy with her life. Your only satisfaction is pointing out the shortcomings of others. Sad, sad, sad. You better love someone and let someone love you before its too late.

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I came across your page and I have got to ask you, how old are you?? Your ideas are that of a adolescent girl that has never had a date in her life and frankly need to do some increasable soul searching, so maybe you can grow up and see the world for what it is. My suggestion is for you to get a real job with some real responsibility and learn what the real world is all about. I am in the army and have seen my friends go to war and have had to do some real pondering about God you are not special and you are not original, you are nothing but a teen that thinks that she knows the world, well I have a wake up call no one knows and no one will ever know.  

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Who gives a **** about you, really? Making a site all about you and your opinions is incredibly stupid. Talk about waste of space.

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Recently I was reading over some old online discussions that involved occasional references to my work in literary criticism. Inevitably, on this forum, someone would bring up the stuff I'd said and someone else would comment that I may have good points but that my website was embarrassing because of its large quantity of personal content. One person referred to me as a "lolcow." Another said I, as a person, was "an autistic cringefest."

Their language choices make it pretty clear what type of people tend to voice these opinions. But I have seen them over and over, and they go hand in hand with another very weird belief:

These folks think whatever they've seen of me online constitutes the entirety of my existence. More than once just on this forum, someone opined that my whole identity was wrapped up in asexuality activism (because, you know, they'd primarily noticed the stuff on asexuality activism) or that I am completely obsessed with cataloging minutiae of my life to the point that I cannot actually have a life.

It's especially weird to me that they're here claiming I don't have a life while at the same time guffawing over how much content I've produced. I mean, that content includes scads of writing, lots of art and music recordings, evidence of frequent conversations, vacation albums and photos of events I engage in with friends and family . . . so how is it that they can mock me for having a lot of content without accepting that said content CONSTITUTES EVIDENCE OF AN EXTREMELY PRODUCTIVE AND ACTIVE LIFE?

In what world is it empty or sad to post a bunch of creative work? In what world is it cringey to unapologetically say "I enjoy this so hey check out what I've been doing"? It's just . . . not "cool" to be passionate about something (or many things)? It's really weird because when I share my content in places dedicated to it, I get great feedback. People appreciate my contributions and sometimes express surprise over how much stuff I make time to do. But for these people who are convinced I "have no life," my choice of output (or maybe the content itself) is something to laugh at. So, what is it, if you don't make anything or don't share anything, it means your life is dedicated to the proper things in the proper quantities? If nothing you do leaves a paper trail, you're living the only acceptable authentic life? Exactly what am I expected to feel pressure to justify here?

I mean, if we're going to judge each other entirely on what pieces of us we share with the online world, I guess I can conclude every one of them is a boring troll who does nothing all day but sneer at people who are actually doing something. So what is it? Me making things or taking time to organize information is ~lame~ or something? You're uncool if you try? You can't deserve respect if you demonstrate authentic engagement instead of leaning back and laughing at everyone who tries?

I did too much, I tried too hard, I put too much into it. That's what I've heard people say about some of my sites and spaces. I am supposed to do less. I am supposed to care less. I am not supposed to take things seriously.

Did it ever occur to them that maybe my interaction online is about attracting people *I* might like?

I couldn't care less if someone doesn't like my shit! Is there some reason that you have to TELL ME ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU WISH I DIDN'T MAKE IT? If you don't like it, what in the world are you doing looking at it? If you don't want to see it and don't find it interesting, GUESS WHAT?? IT ISN'T FOR YOU?

DID THAT EVER OCCUR TO YOU?

For people who claim my content is self-centered, they sure do focus a lot on how content creators should modify their online behavior to suit their personal tastes, huh?

The fake pity they offer and the judgments they make on my apparent lifestyle are also really unattractive. It's laughable that they pretend to see evidence that my life is sad. Especially since they are going out of their way to send me messages designed to make me feel crappy about my content. They reach out, on purpose, to judge me and shame me, and then they expect me to believe they have proved something? I mean, this is actually really confusing. It's the kind of thing people do if they're threatened by someone, jealous of someone, or unsatisfied with their own lives. If you can look at someone who's clearly enjoying her life and "see" despair and desperation, and contact her with the intent of shaming her out of public spaces, then you don't have to worry that you yourself might be the one with the empty life. Contacting someone you don't know just to tell them they're doing life wrong sounds like the kind of thing someone only does if they're personally angry about something or very insecure.

I have never once in my life considered contacting someone with an interest I don't share and telling them their interest is boring and useless and doesn't deserve attention.

I have never once in my life found someone online happily engaged in a bunch of stuff I don't care about and took the time to send them a message about how I don't like it.

I have, however, found people interesting when they share the inner workings of their thoughts, or when they publish information about themselves or their past that I find funny or interesting, or when they seem like an open book who's ready to welcome another person into their life with reasonable honesty and disclosure.

I'm making the stuff I make for people like me or people who appreciate something I do. I have no interest in saying and doing less because some jackasses on the Internet don't want to look at it and consider my display of the content to reflect poorly on me as a person. 

Now, if someone disagrees with something I've said, I'm happy to receive their feedback and have a discussion--like if they don't like my assessment of a book, or they want to argue about social issues where I've declared a position. I'm not the kind of person who thinks creating online content is about publishing whatever you want and expecting to never hear anyone say they don't like it. That's not what's going on here. What's going on is I'm getting people saying the content isn't interesting or relevant to them and therefore I shouldn't have created it, and that the quantity and content of the material justifies abusing me personally. 

What they SHOULD do when they encounter content they're not into is say "Okay, this isn't for me . . . so I WON'T LOOK AT IT, problem solved." They're not disagreeing with me; they're expressing apathy. It's peculiar to contact a stranger out of nowhere to harass them about what they choose to create if your position is that you "don't care." If you don't care, what are you doing in my inbox? 

Ignore me, like I ignore literally every subject out there that I'm not into, including most other people.

It really is that simple.