The Hater Manifesto.

Despite youthful socioeconomic challenges I was determined to be an early adopter of computers and the internet. I wrote my first line of code at seven on a used RadioShack "computer".  I've been online for a long, long time.  That's afforded me some perspective regarding Online Persona's.  Generally I think there's room on the planet for everyone and as long as you're not hurting anybody (well...nonconsentually anyway) go on and do your thing.  There's one particular sub-culture that I really don't care for and I think the world would be better off without though: Haters. 

Haters suckle at the sour teat of failure with greedy mouths and jagged teeth.  They love it.  It gives their lives meaning to spew their bile and laugh at your missteps without having to go out on a limb themselves.  Take a risk, try something different, go away from the norm and there’s no shortage of people out there who would love nothing more than to spit on you and your efforts. 

Haters are like seagulls: there's more than the world needs, they squak constantly, they fly in and shit on everything, and you really wish you had a high capacity firearm every time a group of them spends too much time in your personal space.  There's so many in fact that people seem to have just become either immune or tolerant of them and their behavior.  I guess it's similar to capitalization, using there/they're/their correctly, or you know - actually reading. At some point you just have to stop caring or you'll waste all your energy on people who don't deserve it. 

If you rewind the clock back a bit to my dad's generation, it was a lot harder to be a Hater.  The reason is simple: no easy way existed to desceminate the Hate so you had to do it face to face.   It's a lot harder to tell someone in person you don't like something unless you can back it up with actual experience or expertise which your average Hater just doesn't have.  Today it's just too easy. 

It's been my personal experience that making things for cars attracts a ton of Haters.  They younger or less financially viable ones don't get why you would make something yourself when you can just get cheap parts off eBay.  The rich Haters don't get why you wouldn't just pay $800 to get a carbon fiber hood from Japan.  The smart Haters just want to spew all sorts of seemingly technical knowledge without actually giving you any advice on how that's remotely applicable to what you're doing. 

Given some of my upcoming projects I'm going to be blazing deep into territory where epic failure is an ever present reality.  If you're a Hater there will be plenty of cannon fodder.  I've got a limited amount of energy that I could either ply into my projects or spend dealing with answering the Haters.  I decided recently that I've spent too much energy already trying to explain things to people that may or may not have been Haters in the hopes that there might be an actual intelligent human being underneath that just didn't understand what I was trying to accomplish or why. 

I'm done with that. 

You're either going to take the time to write respectful questions in coherent and complete sentences based on the application of rational thought or as far as I'm concerned you didn't ask a question at all.   You're either going to tell me why you disagree with something and back it up with facts and citations or you don't exist.  If you can't do any of that then do the world a favor before you post a comment:  stop, take a deep breath, step away from the computer, and STFU.  I don’t care what you think.  I’m doing my thing whether you like it or not. I’m not doing this for you.

I do what I do and write about it because I know there are other people out there like me but they just don't know it yet.  Maybe they were too afraid to make a mistake or just didn't know how to get started but there's some real creativity buried just below the surface.  Maybe they'll discover a flair once they've picked up a paintbrush and wetted out some chop mat.  Maybe it's at the point when they grab a needle and thread and sew up some leather.  Regardless of what gets them going I want to help give them the courage to try.  I'm doing this for them and I'm doing it for me.  Everybody else can die in a fire.