The Internet has devalued hatred. Where overwhelming public criticism used to shatter people and make them re-evaluate their decisions in life, now everyone just expects it. The trolls, the bullies, the teenagers and the attention-starved have ruined their only weapon, spreading loathing so liberally across so many comment sections that it's all become white noise. Today, anyone creating for the Internet (me included) is so callused to spiteful criticism that it's no more effective at making us alter our forward momentum than a swarm of cluster flies.

There's a reason we only give you a finite number of down votes.

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More importantly, the hate has become indistinguishable from fame. As long as people are paying attention to your YouTube videos, to your tweets or to your blog posts, then each one can be considered a success, like a child basking in the negative and violent attention of bullies, because at least they are acknowledging his existence by cramming his head into a toilet. That's not all bad, by the way. It's hard for perpetually angry people to hurt anyone when the Internet starts craving their criticism, but we're also finally seeing the consequences from the other end; we're realizing how dangerous people can become when they are starved for hate. The most egregious example is the new music video "It's Thanksgiving," where creator Patrice Wilson sacrificed a young girl to the Internet in order to perpetuate his own renown.