What to do when everyone doesn’t love you on the internet

Dear fellow artist and interested internet person, I am here to coin a new phrase. 

Allow me to introduce the HUUIG aka the Hitherto-Unknown, Unfriendly Internet Gentleman. Not to be confused with a New Fan Of Your Work (NFOYW), this esteemed surfer of the internet superhighway is usually brand new to you, choosing to show up in your life for the very first time sounding something like this:

The reviews are in!
Thanks for that, HUUIG¹…

We all know that when we share ourselves on the internet: in words, photos, daubs on a page or, in my case, music and video, we’re opening a can of worms and inviting them to crawl all over us and our painfully exposed vulnerabilities.

Some of these “worms”² are delighted to hear from us, thrilled to stumble across meaningful work that speaks to them, speaks for them, heals them, brightens their day or, at the very least, provides respite from yet another fucking Temu³ ad.

I regret calling these people “worms”, even though it’s a clever metaphor, because they are the ones who keep the wheels turning. I wouldn’t have a job without them. They might be YOU. Thank you!

You’re a name, not a worm-ber.

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Receiving positive messages about your work is life-affirming and galvanising.

“My work will find its audience”, you tell yourself with relief, while still trying to figure out exactly how many vertical clips and text-based social media posts will make you feel you’ve done enough to send your offering into the world with the best possible chance⁴.

Unfortunately, alongside enjoying interactions with these kind, generous and encouraging patrons of the arts, we are forced to bear witness to a whole bunch of nonsense from people who I’m far less sorry to refer to as worms (though this is very much still a metaphor). Rude, rude worms.

Because, you see, what you made doesn’t suit them exactly. The snare sound you carefully chose for your song⁵ that you wrote and recorded yourself in your attic home studio during yet another pandemic lockdown isn’t the one they would have chosen had they had the wherewithal to make that exact song, so you are wrong, friend, and they are not going to let it go!

Or, obviously, you’re a “tattooed slut” because…you have tattoos and are a woman sharing your wholesome, bike-riding music video with the world?⁶

Um.

In this case, I am the lowest of the low because I used the word “motherfucker” twice. Fucking hell. The absolute cheek!

In a song about escaping from a potentially murderous ex-boyfriend, written to share my experience in a bid to put words to other peoples’ perhaps-hidden experiences of the same or worse, written because that’s the song that wanted to be written that day and it turned into a bona fide banger⁷, I both swore and showed (justified) anger.

It’s just the truth. So fucking sue me!

In 88 songs spread over seven albums and some stand-alone singles I have sworn a total of 8 times. I stand by every single fuck, fucking, shit and motherfucker. I chose to put those words in those songs because that’s where they had to go.

Oh, and because artists can and should do whatever the hell they want in their work⁸, because that’s what art is. Please remember this above all other things.

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To answer an inevitable question: yes, of course I read the comments. I want to see what impact my work has on other humans. Also, I work alone. Who else is meant to read them⁹?

It’s annoying, because I share things on the internet in search of actual human connection. I’m not hunting digital applause, requesting smoke be blown up my arse¹⁰ or hankering for a viral moment. Please PLEASE no.

It’s a shame that when I see a Facebook notification I automatically cringe, assuming it’s going to be something awful, because that’s the platform where I usually get the bad stuff¹¹.

However, in my experience, these people usually only pop out of the woodwormwork when prompted by:


– an album release: I always get a shitty email from a HUUIG¹² on album release day, either to tell me I suck or that I stole an idea off them –

OR

– a paid ad (how very dare you try to get your heartfelt, handcrafted work into the hands of the people! What are you, someone who needs to eat?!!!)

OR, probably

– great success and massively increased exposure. I have no experience of this.

Because I am a very lucky person, last week I got not one but TWO freebies. 

Part 2:

Oh, how I laughed and laughed. 5 years ago I can’t honestly say I’d have been amused at this exchange, but I like to think I’ve grown up a lot in that time. Quoting God/Jesus/etc back at him was not in any way a childish thing to do.

There was a time when an email or comment from someone criticising me and/or what I had dared to share would make me furious: not because they didn’t like me, but because they thought it was okay to go out of their way to interrupt my day to tell me. I would take time to reply, incredibly politely, letting them know I’m a real life human being – not a team of people or robots – and reminding them that not everything in the world is made for them. I wanted them to rethink their approach and stop bothering people who are just trying their best in the world.

But, strangely, after making all that effort to get my attention, none of them ever wrote back. And I thought they wanted to be friends!

I stopped doing this when I decided to spend that energy on the people who love what I do.

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In 2025, with a new single coming out every month up to the release of my new album “House Of Stories” in April, I definitely don’t have time for this shit¹³.

Here’s my current thinking on neggy comments from HUUIGs¹⁴. I hope it helps.

It’s unrealistic to think that everyone who comes across your stuff online is going to love it and gush at you about it, and honestly wouldn’t that be WEIRD? I would have a hard time trusting myself or anyone else without some sort of resistance.

We set ourselves up for avoidable stress and upset if we don’t account for, say, 5-10% of all comments we receive online being irritating or downright rude.

Personally, when I dislike something I just keep on scrolling or, ideally, turn my stupid phone off and do what I’d planned to be doing which is usually making stuff¹⁵. Others are not so strong.

Others don’t have the lives they want, or are in a sad or bad mood, or just broke up with someone, or have been poisoned by social media into binary thinking so if they don’t like something they go straight to HATE and simply have to tell you all about it. Some people are autistic, and come across in a far more blunt way than they intend. Some people have severe mental health issues and I genuinely hope they have the help they need.

Unfortunately, every comment and message looks basically the same in our homogenised online world. There’s no way of knowing what situation the sender is in, mentally or physically. And that’s good, because I don’t need to know you’re on the loo writing me a message, whether it’s a nice one or a nasty one. But it’s also bad, because if you could tell the difference between someone being nasty to you because they’re a hateful person and someone writing unkind things because they really need some help, you could choose to respond in different ways, or not at all.

I want to live in a world where the segment of people who are just plain hateful keyboard warrior arsehole pricks is a very small segment. A tiny segment of tiny pricks. Except they’re not tiny are they, they’re HUUIG¹⁶!

I want to believe that most people are decent, and would be, if not gushingly enthusiastic of my work, reasonably supportive of my general right to make and share it without receiving neggy messages sent direct to my eyeballs.

However, I spent 5 years working as a part-time comment moderator for The Guardian UK website, and grew skeptical of the value of online comments on most platforms. Not yours, of course, and not here. You’re great!

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I’m not telling you any of this to justify myself to Bob my latest HUUIG¹⁷. I’m telling you this to remind you that YOU don’t have to justify yourself to Bob any HUUIG¹⁸ (or, fine, HUUIP¹⁹ – though in my experience they’re always G’s) who decides to send a comment death ray your way.

You’re here, and we need you and your work. So, somehow, you have to find a way to laugh it off, to file it in the metaphorical bin (hide/delete comments, mute/block people), and/or to use it as material for a piece of writing that might hopefully help someone else find a way to laugh it off, file it in the metaphorical bin, or use it as material for a piece of…

Yes. We can do this! We can follow our creative energy, turn lemons into lemonade and transform attacks on our disrespectful vulgar crude filthy foul mouth into something beautiful.

That’s exactly what I did with my new single “Emotional Tourist” aka the “motherfucker” song, and OH THE IRONY of receiving a list of the things someone doesn’t like about me:

“Disrespectful vulgar crude filthy foul mouth” – HUUIG²⁰

“I’m sick of hearing I’m too fat, I’m too boring, I’m too this, I’m too that” – Emotional Tourist

Are you trying to get me to write a song about you, Bob? I’m busy.

Love,
Laura xxx

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1. This is a horrible metaphor already. I’m sorry.
   
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2. Fuck Temu. (They steal peoples’ designs and sell them for cheap, in case you’re unaware.)
   
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3. I recommend Seth’s Social Media Escape Club as an antidote to these crazy-making thoughts, while admitting I succumb to them often. I make next-to-zero vertical clips because this line of thinking makes me seize up entirely and get six hours behind on my already ambitious task list for the day, and it’s always better to put any energy I can muster into writing pieces like this, emailing my lovely subscribers or doing almost anything else. 
   
   Fancy a walk?
   
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4. This song.
   
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5. No “sluts” were tattooed in the making of this video.
   
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6. As agreed upon by at least 30 internet strangers. I don’t make the rules.
   
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7. With obvious caveats!
   
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8. Tim. Tim has to read them. That’s what modern-day husbands are for.
   
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9. Etymologists: where does this phrase come from? Casually spoken it feels okay but it just feels very wrong written down.
   
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10. This is not a challenge.
    
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11. Hitherto-Unknown, Unfriendly Internet Gentleman.
    
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12. Says the woman writing an essay about it. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANNNNN
    
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13. Hitherto-Unknown, Unfriendly Internet Gentleman. You’ll remember this forever now.
    
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14. Yesterday I was weak, and I commented on a company’s Instagram reel about how they should have hired a person to do the voiceover instead of shitty AI. I’m not perfect, but I am right.
    
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15. Hitherto-Unknown, Unfriendly Internet Gentleman. I thought we’d been over this?
    
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16. Hitherto-Unknown, Unfriendly Internet Gentleman. HUUIG!
    
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17. You already know this.
    
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18. Hitherto-Unknown, Unfriendly Internet Personage.
    
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19. Come on, now. ↩︎