At Reason, Nancy Rommelmann gives a handy guide to what you need to know when a social media witch-smeller points at you and the masses start baying for your blood:
I am a pro-choice, aqua-haired, middle-aged liberal living in Portland, Oregon. I probably disagree with Nicholas Sandmann on every major issue. But we have something in common. In the last month we have both endured what is fast becoming an American ritual: our 15 minutes of hate.
Sandmann’s crime was a smirk while wearing a MAGA hat. Mine was a YouTube series I launched in December with another journalist in which we discussed the excesses of the #MeToo movement. This and the show’s name, #MeNeither, inspired an ex-employee of my husband’s coffee company to send an email to staff, characterizing the series as “vile, dangerous and extremely misguided” and adding that it “throws into question the safety of Ristretto Roasters as a workplace.”
She also sent an email to the media.
Within days, a quarter of the Ristretto staff quit and the company lost major accounts. I was repeatedly called a c*nt and was challenged to at least one fist fight. My husband was told to leave his wife or lose his business.
As someone who covers this stuff, I thought I knew how rough it might be to get dragged in public. It’s different when it’s tearing up your life.
If you do not think this can happen to you, you have not been paying attention. Here’s a guide for how to survive it…
