Sunday Essays #9: Keyboard Warriors at the Gate

managing the inevitable in the digital landscape

“I ran to the comments section.”

How many times have we seen that?

There are the usual culprits on IG or TikTok that induce entire libraries of comments, such as a thirst trap from someone who just…isn’t in thirst trapping shape, or a couple that is navigating a looksmatch delta +/- ~5 points.

These are spectacles.

Most are bait- they know what they’re doing.

Comments = engagement, and if you’ve got engagement in the modern social media landscape, you’re winning.

(It even gets you paid on X)

But what if you don’t want the commentary?

Well, I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice.

Luckily, we can navigate this.

The Perfect Storm

I’ve written quite a bit about how terminally online we all are these days (I’m no exception).

The digital continues to replace the IRL, and it grows stronger by the day.

Thus, everyone who wants to be a critic, can be.

Everybody with thumbs and a keyboard (or just speech-to-text) can toss in their unwarranted $0.02.

Couple that with the rise of personal branding and the importance of having a digital footprint in Current Year, and you’ve got a veritable perfect storm: the performer, and their legion of critics.

We’re Not Gonna Moral Grandstand Today

Turning this into a Man in the Arena style hype up, “us vs. them” type deal isn’t the goal today.

Would that stance be absolutely, irrefutably correct?

Of course it would.

That being said, nobody wants to tap into 1,200 words of a guy belaboring an obvious point, and I think we touched on it with enough grace last time out in last week's Sunday Essay

Firsthand Experience

What I will say is this- I’ve felt the absurdity of the comment section and DM’s firsthand on this personal brand journey.

Substack, for starters, is public.

Anybody can read it, and my name and face is attached to it.

As a writer, that’s exciting.

It’s part of the gamble of exposing your raw digital underbelly.

That being said, you do get the odd email or strange comment.

I just got one yesterday in a subscriber chat because a fellow Substacker was irate I enjoyed the writing of Day (I should make more of an effort to shoutout those that inspire me on this platform…he does, and also RÒWE REPORT is fantastic and due to really blow up, IMO).

Observational energy beats confrontational energy, always.

However, Substack in this lens is small potatoes.

It’s when your name and face are out there on camera that the fun really starts.

TikTok Live

You want to really place your finger on the pulse of “commentary culture”?

Go Live on TikTok.

I was heavy into that game last year- met some great people, fellow writers, grew my audience.

Genuinely one of the most rewarding experiences and experiments of this creator journey.

That being said, TikTok Live is the belly of the beast.

You’re on screen yapping, and anybody and everybody who wants to tap in and comment, can.

Moderation?

lol.

You can appoint your own if you like, but even then they have to wade through the BS and inconsistent cadence to try and scrape out the nonsense.

For every intelligent question, though-provoking topic, and kind word or two, there was also some absurdity from the other end of the spectrum:

-Insults on your personal appearance

-Mocking on anything and everything

-Overtly sexual commentary for no reason

-Unflattering celebrity lookalike comparisons

(J.D. Vance??? really??? I don’t see it)

It was an immediate crash course in learning the modern digital landscape, but it pales in comparison to getting a taste of virality.

The Direct Correlation of Views and Unhinged Remarks

You want to have real fun with the crazies and nutty commenters?

Go viral.

That’s the megadose.

Back in 2024, Elevator Charles and I did hundreds of thousands of views on an Elevated Thoughts episode where he and I discussed mental health and the current state of how we treat it in our world.

Here it is ( the influx of views was on the X post of the episode, not YouTube):

The TL;DR of the points I made were basically that we should avoid over-labeling ourselves, seeking out good therapy and trying to solve your issues is admirable, agency will be your best friend when trying to dig out of these holes, and that elective suicide being legalized is a slippery slope.

Pretty cogent and frankly…middle ground!

And all this coming from a mental health advocate with his own admitted struggles.

Still, that wasn’t enough.

While there were plenty of positive reviews and words of encouragement (it did do over a million ultimately, if I’m not mistaken), there were also some crazy things said to the contrary:

-“Look at these two idiots”

-“Podcast equipment should be cheaper”

-Every four letter word you can imagine, etc.

-Death threats in my own inbox!!

It was honestly amusing, but also a little sad.

Taking a step back from it all (and a deep breath or two), I was able to sort out this phenomenon.

When you take emotions out of the equation, it makes sense.

I Know Why the Caged Hater Comments

Think of the world we live in post-2020, or even post-2016.

Otherwise lovely people who have let extreme ideology or political identity eat them alive, and run (or should I add a vowel and say ruin) their personal affairs.

Black and white thinking, media bias, taking sides on everything from experimental medical injections to Super Bowl Halftime Shows and nuking their private lives in the process.

Tribal thinking, identity politics, radical viewpoints… I don’t want to re-use the “Perfect Storm” analogy twice in one piece, but hell, it’s applicable here too.

Couple these societal realities with the fact that a larger percentage of our population than we care to admit has aged out of but not grown out of mean girl/schoolyard bully energy, and boom.

You get unhinged commentary on the internet, that grows in accordance with the expansion of the digital realms and the growth of social media platforms.

Plainly put?

It isn’t going anywhere.

Managing the Static

There’s really nothing to do, per se.

You just have to accept this as a modern reality.

Bemusement and using feedback as information will keep you on track, emotionality and stooping down levels will keep you stuck.

If I ever find myself a little jammed up, I like to refer to this priceless Twitter interaction from former UFC fighter Paul Felder:

In its essence, commenting culture basically forces the creator to run a cost-benefit analysis of sorts:

Is what I dream of and stand to gain from publishing and posting on the internet greater than the effects of dealing with the crazy BS that comes with it?

Most will say yes.

(For those that don’t, there’s no shame in knowing your limitations.)

As for those staying on the path, just remember that the noise is just, well, noise.

Not worth getting riled up over, rather just an (annoying) mainstay in a world that becomes more digital and changes at warp speed daily.

So, yes.

The Keyboard Warriors are at the gate.

They’re ready to nitpick, insult, denigrate, ragequit, spiral, whatever.

But they’re stuck there.

Sky’s the limit for the creator class.

I’ll take that trade any day of the week.

(Left my comments on this post wide open, as usual 💀)

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Love!

-John Abbate

3.22.2026