[Serious] How can a person "rejection-proof" their life?

To extrapolate:

People often say that one should not worry about what others think of them, but life simply doesn’t work that way. What other people think of you really does matter; point-in-fact, it can be everything depending on what field you go into.

Like say, for example, you’re a business owner and you’re recorded arguing with an angry Karen of a customer, the video’s posted online, and the internet sides with the Karen. Then, people boycott your business and you’re left without a livelihood.

Or perhaps you say something crass and get cancelled. Or simply anger or inconvenience someone with a lot of influence.

Or, even more horrifyingly, say you were assaulted and you came forward, and were ostracized and shunned by your community as a result.

How could one set up their life such that it would be impossible for people like that to rob one of their livelihood? How could one make it impossible for others to shun or ostracize them?

How could a business owner set up their business so that other people couldn’t simply shut it down on a whim in such a manner?

EDIT: I’ll just “be myself” since that’s what the majority of people in the thread want and repeat what I said to another individual:

Honestly, the way everybody is acting is really, really shameful. I am a person who made a thread and gave it a [Serious] tag because I wanted serious, literal answers to a serious problem that, given my chosen career path, will affect me at some point in my life and could potentially ruin it without good info to prepare for such a crisis beforehand. But all I’m getting is denial, mockery, condescension, lies, put-downs.

And it’s rooted in this desire to either pretend the problem is not real because you’re all secretly afraid it’ll affect you yourselves, or it’s because you know it’s real but you view it as a positive because ostracization and shunning people is an emotional cudgel you wield to silence people you don’t agree with on the internet, and answering the question honestly would require framing such actions as a negative and that would make you question the morality of your actions. And that’s not only sick, that’s just cowardly. If you believe cancelling people is morally A-O good, then at least have the temerity to threaten me with a “Don’t speak your mind and mask up” response like at least a few people were honest enough to do.

But don’t insult my intelligence by thinking you can lie to my face and pretend that something I’ve been personally watching happen to other people for over a decade is not, in fact, happening.

Now I came here for a serious answer to a serious problem that affects everyone. If you can’t participate in good faith and offer meaningful strategies to avoid or fix such problems and want to either misconstrue it as an emotional issue – much as you’ll do with what I’m saying here after the majority of you demanded I just be myself and not worry about the consequences – or outright deny it’s a real problem when it’s been real for over a decade, just don’t participate in the thread. Just go elsewhere.

Okay, I just acted like myself. Everyone happy?

luthis,

This is a good example of how to deal with someone trying to bait you:

www.youtube.com/shorts/fQvBL1R5nNs

AttackBunny,

There’s a huge difference between not giving a shit what others think of you, and being a massive asshole. Being an asshole is chewing Karen out and getting caught on camera. Not giving a fuck is politely telling Karen that hers and your goals don’t align, and you don’t think you can do business with each other, and then moving on.

BUT, even if you do everything right, you can still get screwed, both in business, and personally.

Do your best to be a good person, treat everyone kindly, and live your best life. That’s the best you can do.

vd1n,

It’s human nature to do what you said. Just keep being human. Bring back to others what they deserve.

Smokeydope,
@Smokeydope@lemmy.world avatar

What you want is something you can’t have. Stop worrying about things that don’t immediately affect you and take a fucking chance in life. You will fail. You will make mistakes and judge yourself for it. People may judge you for things beyond your control like appearance and personality quirks. Fuck em. There’s only a hand full of people who know and care for you well enough that their opinion matters, the rest of em just see a shadow on the wall. Most people don’t care about you, they care about comparing themselves to their mental image of you. Who cares what they think. Do you have like severe anxiety of something because this is hardcore catastrophizing. 99% of your fears are baseless. You aren’t the center of anyone else’s world, nobody thinks about you that much. Sorry to burst your bubble but the sooner you realize this the sooner you can start to chill a little on the worrying.

darthfabulous42069,

Who cares what they think.

I do, because those people are either my employers or my customer base, and I need their money to survive.

If we lived in a perfect world where everyone had their own 40 acres and a mule and didn’t have to depend on other people to survive, I’d believe you. But we don’t, and as a member of society I am dependent on these people to live.

And most people are aware of this, and don’t really want to give a meaningful answer to my question because that would mean losing the power they wield over me, so the only meaningful response is to dismiss the reality of the situation or wrongly frame it as an emotional issue when it is anything but. My fear over it is extremely justified. People, including rich and powerful celebrities, have lost everything over this.

Take Sinead O’Connor, for example, who was cancelled in the 90’s for opposing the Catholic Church and trying to expose their sex abuse scandal. And she died, her reputation having never really been repaired, in the U.S. at least.

It matters. It’s real. And it’s a very, very valid concern. What other people think doesn’t just matter, it means everything if one wants to live.

Smokeydope,
@Smokeydope@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t agree at all. Unless you are a smelly unwashed hobo with plastic bags for clothes or an absolute batshit insane sociopathic asshole thats a blarant menace to society nobody is going to care if you are a little ugly or not wearing a dress or if you have a shitty opinion about something. this mindset of yours will 100% turn you neurotic if you aren’t already. Worrying at the level you are doing is simply not mentally healthy. May you find some inner peace my fellow human being.

darthfabulous42069, (edited )

Okay. You win the argument. I hope that makes you feel better, and more importantly not angry at or inconvenienced by me in any way.

pinkdrunkenelephants,

🤣🤣🤣 Leave it to some .world alt-right dipshit to purposefully misconstrue what OP was asking and then beat around a strawman like it’s his second wife.

Oh, and then your ass wants to assert power over OP with talk like:

What you want is something you can’t have.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the sooner you realize this the sooner you can start to chill a little on the worrying.

As if corporations don’t extensively engage in astroturfing, upvote manufacturing, hiring PR firms and running smear campaigns of their own against anyone who tries to challenge them. As if corporations don’t do what OP is asking for information how to do all the fucking time and you’re just taking advantage of someone upset and panicking so you can feel like you have power over someone.

Who cares what they think

Literally everyone else including OP.

Do you have like severe anxiety of something because this is hardcore catastrophizing. 99% of your fears are baseless.

Holy shit, you said almost the exact same thing as the other .world redneck cow-fucker I spanked up above. Are you one person harassing OP with alt accounts? Because that’s sure as fuck what it looks like.

You .worlders are vile, disgusting bigots and you deserve to be DDoSed non-stop. I hope whoever’s doing it breaks into and wipes your stupid-ass instance completely so you are forced to grow the fuck up and stop abusing other people.

birdcat, (edited )
@birdcat@lemmy.ml avatar

I generally recommend never using social media under your real name. And every business communication (where you need to use your real name) should only consist of bland and necessary stuff. A business, whether as big as Disney or just you, offering a thing from a website or food truck, simply does not need (and imo should not have and not pretend as if it had) values and political views.

The podcast blocked and reported often revolves around your question (or more around the drama after it happened), sometimes they also interview people who had it happened to them, or wrote books about .

I cannot remember a specific episode now, there are so many. In one, a family-owned(?) bakery lost everything cuz they were falsely accused of racism.

Probably the most interesting and famous case that underlines that simply being a “genuinely good person” is not enough, is the one of Justine Sacco; the woman who tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” and then lost her job etc., almost got her whole life destroyed (she fine today).

While it may not be hilarious to everyone and kinda on the tasteless side, shitposting and making jokes should not destroy your life, so never do it under your real name!

darthfabulous42069,

Thank you for being the one person taking me seriously here.

birdcat, (edited )
@birdcat@lemmy.ml avatar

😊glad I could provide some balance to some of the weird answers you got here.

I tried to find the bakery episode, cuz it’s really crazy, but could not find it. But what I found is that it has more than just a happy ending ($36M payment, jesus fuck, I wanna get it happening to me in the US too!) 🤯

luthis,

Now that was fucking hilarious. I couldn’t believe she would put something like that online! She did kinda ask for that shitstorm to head her way so I don’t feel bad laughing at her. Didn’t deserve to lose her job though.

GarbageShoot,

The internet isn’t real life. Even if you get owned in a video (a very rare occurrence, especially if you are polite and reserved), it’s unlikely to put you out of your livelihood. You might, might, have a rough patch, but tomorrow social media will move on to a new controversy and you can work on improving things rather than just weathering the storm.

People say “cancel culture runs the world” but those are people who live on the internet or Fox News and get that feeling from a) being told so by media figures who benefit from such a message as part of their ideological brand and b) being continuously shown fringe cases with extremely high-profile characters, often with those media figures telling you that “you could be next” even though you don’t have a 10-figure contract with Nike to lose in the first place.

HR exists so a company can insulate itself from legal threats from its employees. If you work for a company, study that company’s policy and follow it. If they fire you or otherwise fuck you over, you can retaliate so long as you actually did follow company policy and they are punishing you for something outside of those bounds.

BassTurd,

I generally don’t care what people think about me. They’re are obvious exceptions like my employer. If you have shitty views that affect others negatively, like being a homophobe, transphobe, or a hard right conservative, then you’re going to justifiably get shit on and hated on. You can choose to not care what people think, but in the real world there are consequences. If you live a life of inclusion and empathy, then most of the work is done towards not caring what others think. Basically, don’t be an asshole, and if you are, keep to yourself and don’t run a business. Good people don’t get “canceled”.

darthfabulous42069,

Good people don’t get “canceled”.

I’m sorry but that’s just naive.

BassTurd,

The people that cancel good people are shitbags. I should say, good people don’t get canceled often. It’s the cunts with fucked up views that generally do. Don’t be a cunt, and you’re not likely to suffer consequences.

blightbow, (edited )
@blightbow@kbin.social avatar

The people that cancel good people are shitbags.

Relativity remains a factor. One mob's shitbag is another mob's hero. One mob's wish for freedom of thought is another mob's moral depravity.

Cancelling is just an added nuance on gossip and dogpiling, and those have been around since we've been knocking rocks together. It happens whenever a person publicly acknowledges an opinion that angers a tribe enough to single someone out. It doesn't matter whether that person is a long-time resident or a passing visitor. The more it goes against their social values, the more popular it becomes in the gossip, and the more people share it with each other as the story takes on a life of its own. Details get changed. Maybe it started with a lie or misconception to begin with and grew from there. None of that matters when people start shunning you in public or knocking on your door with torches in hand.

The only added nuance of cancelling over traditional gossip is the pervasiveness of the internet, and the distance at which people can socially band together to shun you. Most importantly, gossip has never required someone to be a good or bad person. It just needs someone to be the target of a rumor (truthful or otherwise) that pisses a lot of people off.

520,

Don't.

If you're worried about being cancelled, the only thing you have to worry about is not being a cunt to people.

Decent people don't get cancelled just because some Karen had a bad day, at most they'll get some fairly minor Twitter bullshit that dies out fairly quickly, or there will be some unhinged motherfucker in your inbox that no one wants to back (feel free to call the cops on those).

What truly damns the people that get cancelled are their own actions, not some Karen with an overinflated sense of self importance. Their attempts to cancel people usually backfire because they think they have a cult of personality behind them, when what they really have are a bunch of people just getting entertained.

If you say something that gets misconstrued, explain yourself politely, understanding how this mixup could have happened. Those that are reasonable will back off, and those that still keep going just look unreasonable and not someone you'd want to back.

darthfabulous42069,

What happens when those that still keep going make up the vast majority of the population, including your customer base and/or employers?

What happens when people just lie and make shit up about you, and the population refuses to listen to the truth because the lie resonates with their political beliefs?

520,

What happens when those that still keep going make up the vast majority of the population, including your customer base and/or employers?

They won't. Most people don't have time for that shit.

What happens when people just lie and make shit up about you, and the population refuses to listen to the truth because the lie resonates with their political beliefs?

Then these people were never going to help you anyway. Normal people don't just up and believe anything they are told by some rando. They may however use it as pretext for discriminatory behaviour that was, realistically, going to happen anyway.

darthfabulous42069,

Normal people don’t just up and believe anything they are told by some rando.

Uh… MAGA? Trump? Alex Jones? Hello?

520,

These people weren't randos to their audiences. They spent quite a bit of time building their audiences and engendering trust before launching their attacks on democracy and sandy hook victims respectively.

argv_minus_one,

If you’re worried about being cancelled, the only thing you have to worry about is not being a cunt to people.

If only it were that easy.

520,

It...is?

Think about every cancelling attempt that didn't fall flat on its ass. It isn't as simple as some Karen lighting someone up on Twitter or FB.

argv_minus_one,

Think about every innocent black person who was imprisoned and enslaved. They weren’t cunts to anyone; all it took to ruin their lives is some rich jerks not liking their skin color.

520,

...that's your comparison to getting cancelled? The slave trade?

Methinks you should sit down and actually think about the differences there.

argv_minus_one,

My point is that it’s not enough to not be a cunt to people. They can and will hurt you in all manner of ways for all manner of reasons, many of which you can’t reasonably anticipate or control.

520,

Okay, but you're ignoring the scope of OP's question, which is specifically how to avoid getting cancelled or otherwise socially rejected.

It is true that even acting as a good person, there are ways to get someone cancelled. However, not acting like a cunt reduces these methods to false allegations of rape or child abuse, something your average Karen isn't going to be able to pull off without getting charged themselves for malicious false reporting. Whereas acting like a cunt widens the possibilities significantly for a) an opening and b) for it to stick.

argv_minus_one,

Okay, but you’re ignoring the scope of OP’s question, which is specifically how to avoid getting cancelled or otherwise socially rejected.

Does that not qualify as “hurt[ing] you”?

However, not acting like a cunt reduces these methods to false allegations of rape or child abuse, something your average Karen isn’t going to be able to pull off

You kidding? “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” The whole reason false accusations are so scary is because they’re easy to make, yet difficult if not impossible to disprove, and in the court of public opinion, the burden of proof is always on the accused.

without getting charged themselves for malicious false reporting.

Only if it’s reported to the police. If it’s posted on social media instead, the only thing the accuser has to worry about is being sued for defamation, and that’s only an issue if the victim is rich enough.

danhakimi,
@danhakimi@kbin.social avatar

How can a person "rejection-proof" their life?

Stop living it.

How could one set up their life such that it would be impossible for people like that to rob one of their livelihood? How could one make it impossible for others to shun or ostracize them?

You could probably go into the woods and live alone for a while. Pollution would reach you eventually, but as long as you're good at hunting, butchering, and cooking meat, you could last until your garden starts producing. If you have money now, you probably want to spend it on a cabin and a whole lot of non-perishable food and a wood-burning stove and as much buy-it-for-life cookwear as you can get. Your mattress will eventually break, but oh well.

If this answer sounds ridiculous, I want you to take that to heart. Your question is just as ridiculous. If you're going to be a part of society, society might reject you. Just be as decent a person as you can be and hope people appreciate you.

darthfabulous42069,

I wonder if it’s even possible to do that legally in the U.S. anymore.

richieadler,

Probably not. That’s why I’ll never be there, not even for a visit. It’s a dreadful place.

danhakimi,
@danhakimi@kbin.social avatar

This is not legal advice and I am not your attorney.

I doubt anybody would prosecute you, but on a practical level...

I mean, you need to find a place to do it, and... I don't think any states have homestead acts in 2023, so you'd probably need to buy some kind of land somewhere. Maybe you could manage in Texas, but I doubt it. You could also attempt to petition your state to give you some kind of interest in some unincorporated land... But you can't do it in a national park, and even if you could find land nobody owns, you'd want to own it yourself to prevent others from building society over the land.

You couldn't hunt endangered species, and you'd need to own your weapons and hunt according to whatever law the state has... many require you to get a license to hunt... You don't necessarily need a gun to hunt, and you don't necessarily need to hunt after your garden starts working... Same with any potential environmental regulation, if you're chopping down trees or something, some states might require you to plant new ones...

And theoretically, all your hunting + farming could amount to income, but probably nowhere near enough to actually incur tax liability, and no tax agency is ever going to enforce that against you.

Dirt_Owl,
@Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net avatar

When has anyone ever sided with a ‘Karen’ for anything? Lmao

vd1n,

Idk but when I was kid my sister made a Reject-Proof fort.

ReallyKinda, (edited )

if you try you’ll push yourself into a bad mental space that many therapists make their livelihood off of! I am a big people pleaser so have had issues with over-valuing the opinions of others. One important thing I did to combat this tendency was to come up with a reasonable set of principles for myself so that I didn’t feel like I always had to take what others might think on board (because I’d given myself a reference). Another thing that helped was eliminating anxiety around things I was quite certain one shouldn’t be judged for (in the sense that some things just shouldn’t reflect on your character).

Being worried about having your job taken away and similar is a bit different. I think the things you do to prevent risking this include not voicing “hot takes” except with people you trust and who understand you, avoiding internet arguing, keeping your boundaries up at work, etc. I think most people have a pretty good sense of what ideas might be wildly unpopular in their locale.

As a slight side note, things like tenure (in the US) and anonymous review processes in academia were put in place precisely to ensure that people weren’t blackballed for theorizing things that were unpopular or that would potentially step on the toes of some politician who was threatened by your research. Many things that are popularly supported have and will continue to be wrong, so you need a certain self assurance to fall back on. Preferably your self assurance is supported by logic and reason and not dogmatism—but this entails a fair amount of hard work and study and reflection—you can’t just rely on intuition.

ElBarto,

Become a hermit and don’t interact with people.

People are always going going to give you their opinions, but the best thing about opinions is that they hold no weight in reality, we give these opinions the weight to impact us.

Now, most of those people who were cancled over nothing or what would be minor in comparison to others, they have regained most of what they lost, look at Louis C K, he got cancled, but he’s now back doing what he was doing before.

You’ll never be able to avoid rejection or criticism unless you block yourself off from the world or only surround yourself people who think identical to you, but where’s the fun in that?

blightbow, (edited )
@blightbow@kbin.social avatar

It means you aren't suited to run a public facing business. There's nothing wrong with that, but speaking as someone with a lot of social anxiety baggage there are things I'm equipped to do well and things that I'm not. I shouldn't let that stop me from opening a business if I really want to, but if I simply don't want to deal with the social rejection elements I have to accept that I'm better off letting someone else run that side of a business.

As for the non-business elements of your question, all you can really do is conduct yourself in a way that you don't believe you'll find yourself regretting later. If you say something in a public place, especially online, consider it part of the public record. It can and will come back to bite you later. Assume your [morally positive family member here] is always watching.

birdcat,
@birdcat@lemmy.ml avatar

Assume your [morally positive family member here] is always watching.

You mean big brother, right? Had me literally laughing tears for over a minute 🤣🤣🤣

blightbow,
@blightbow@kbin.social avatar

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ceiling+cat&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images

rynzcycle,

Like many imaginary worries (something that could, but hasn't happened) the answer to how do I avoid this 100% isn't just, "you can't" but rather, "you shouldn't".

Imagine the similar question, "how do I make sure that there is zero chance of being harmed in a terror attack?" While the consequences are dire, the chances are very low, and the costs of avoiding it completely are far to high.

And this scales with the level of risk and consequences:

  • do wear a seatbelt, don't avoid all vehicles
  • do check travel safety warnings, don't avoid all travel
  • do stay off social media while on booze and ambian, don't lock yourself in a windowless cabin with no electricity

Ultimately, it's (getting cancelled, rejected en mass, etc.) a new and very visable fear in the 21st century, but like a long list of worries, spending time trying to solve something that hasn't and likely won't happen, is a waste of our limited years here. Be a good(ish) person, live your life and IF rejection happens, do your best to deal with it as it comes.

darthfabulous42069,

🤔

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