The Unique Experience of Getting Pummeled by Strangers

So last week I had the bucket list experience of being published by The Cut, as I told you guys. What I couldn’t tell you at the time because it hadn’t happened yet is just how much of a getting-sucked-under-by-a-wave-when-you-just-wanted-a-casual-day-at-the-beach experience it was.

Look, I wrote the piece knowing the comments would be harsh. I’ve read pretty much every Cut story ever published so I know how vicious the commenters are.

When I first started writing for big publications, I actually read the comments about me, of all self-horrible things. The first time was when I had a Modern Love published in the Times. Naive to the vitriol that accompanies achieving something a lot of people want, I was shocked by the cruelty of the commenters. The comment I remember best was an accusation that I had to be sleeping with someone at the Times because there’s no other way they would publish something so terrible.

It was the spring of 2007. I was enjoying a weekend in Idyllwild with a friend when the piece (and its comments) were published and let’s just say that the word enjoying evaporated from the trip instantaneously. I feel sad for the girl who didn’t know that a true act of self-love would have been to step away from the computer.

When the Wall Street Journal covered the re-release of Party Girl a few years ago, I knew better—and though I heard from some friends that the comments were harsh, I remained blissfully ignorant by simply keeping my figurative head in the sand.

I thought I could get away with the same thing with this Cut piece.

What I hadn’t bargained for was the “collaboration” post. When I received the invitation on Instagram to collaborate with The Cut on a post, it was almost surreal. I really had been published in the publication I worshipped! Obviously I accepted it.

What this meant is that whenever I went to Instagram to respond to the DMs suddenly flooding my inbox (most of them utterly lovely), I couldn’t help but see, on the left notifications side, comments like 55? EW!! and This woman should have never become a mother and This is the most blatant display of selfishness I’ve ever read—even for the Cut, which is saying something!1

I had the urge to respond to the the 55?-EW!! comment that I actually had the audacity to turn 56 in between submitting the article and its publication. Luckily, I had the self-control not to wade into the swamp.

Then there were the well-meaning people who posted stories that tagged me with comments like, “Stop picking on annabdavid—I’ll be her friend!” There were also many who wrote to tell me how sorry they felt for me that I was so friendless and that they couldn’t believe how mean people were being to me.

Almost all of these people were strangers and if anyone reading this was one of them, I truly do appreciate the sentiment. But the piece was a humorous yet honest take on the challenges of finding my way in an uncharted-for-me world of motherhood. It talked about all my non-mom friends and how much I love my life as much as it focused on the struggles. The reality is that I have, and have almost always had, a lot of friends. Writing an essay about wanting more implies that there’s a lack of people around but I’m someone who always just wants more more more.

Luckily, many brilliant writers reached out to tell me how much they loved the piece. And when I was sitting with a friend who insisted on going to my Instagram to tell me the nice things people were saying on the post, she pointed out that every single rave was written by someone with a blue checkmark and every single takedown was written by someone without one.

This isn’t to say that the words of non-verified people matter less, just that the verified folks have probably arrived at a place in life where they don’t feel the need to take anyone else down.

I know how solipsistic all of this sounds and that there are real issues in the world and that spending so much time thinking about myself is a recipe for misery. At the same time, it was a big deal in my world. And it’s ironic that what I wrote in last week’s post—that the last thing I wanted was for people to think of me as a sad old friendless person—is exactly what happened.

It’s also ironic that I recently wrote about Belle Burden and Caro Claire Burke going through this with their mega-successful books. Since writing that, I’ve seen even more takedowns of Yesteryear and the equally brilliant Lost Lambs. As usual, they weren’t takedowns of the books so much as takedowns of the authors. The “theme” if you can call it that always seems to be that these authors are bad writers—something that’s impossible to argue with when taste is so subjective. As Jay-Z once rapped, “Everybody can tell you how to do it, they never did it.”

I think it comes down to what a friend said to me the other day—that there’s no type more hated on the internet than a woman, except for a woman who’s over 40 and writing about motherhood. It’s like people don’t realize that they, too are going to age and that they all had mothers! It’s safe to say that when I wrote that it’s a very specific form of powerlessness to have strangers publicly misconstrue your meaning, I didn’t realize how soon I was going to experience it myself.

While surrendering to that powerlessness wasn’t fun, the pile-on-and-pity party lasted no more than a week and my story will stay up forever (or as long as The Cut stays around, which I hope is forever).

There’s luxury in writing for a small group. And there’s luxury in writing for a large one and getting so much attention, even when that attention gives you whiplash. In the end, I feel lucky that I’m able to experience both.