As a PR pro, we used to tell people to get ahead of various online controversies by making statements that refute them. It turns out this is the absolute worst way to respond to criticism or correct errors of any kind. Social media has made this worse. When you respond, it kick-starts issues again.
24/7 news cycles NEED constant statements and counter statements. Every. Single. Tweet. And. Post. Can then become a “story.” And every response to every post another “story”! It’s a banger of a winner for engagement. But what it actually does? IT WIDELY PROMOTES THE ++ORIGINAL++ STATEMENT.
If someone says, “Kameron Hurley eats babies” you get three tweets and some reddit posts about Kameron Hurley eating babies. So I say “I don’t eat babies!” Then there’s another round “so and so says Kameron eats babies but KAMERON says she doesn’t!” Cue more people weighing in about my baby eating.
Now fresh circle of folks is like, “why are we talking about Kameron eating babies?” and they go back to OG statement. And while many will dismiss this as absurd, they will feel need to post about this absurdity, and folks wonder why they’re doing it and look it up and IT LEADS BACK TO OG STATEMENT.
“But Kameron, what do I do if people say I eat babies?” You shut up and go about your day. In a few days, or a week, tops, the whole thing goes away as people are pulled into some other drama. Who’s talking about Gaiman anymore? (!!And that was real babies!!) (Cue round of folks looking this up).
“Ok, but I can’t shut up. I am incapable of that. What do I do?” Here, we take lesson from our father of propaganda, Edward Bernays (who wrote PROPAGANDA! Easy title to remember eh?? Branding!!). His example was tycoon faced with rumors he was pulling biz out of town where 80% of folks worked there.
He could have said “Of course I’m not pulling my biz out of town X!” But this would lead people to wonder WHY he was making this statement. Leading back to OG rumor. Merely PRINTING his statement would lead to MORE papers running OG statement, because they had to explain WHY HE WAS SAYING THIS.
So instead! He had a l’il festival in the town to celebrate all they’d accomplished over last x years. Food, carnival rides, happy kids, and he makes a speech about how he appreciates everyone and all they have done and this town is great, and we look forward to a hundred more years or whatever here.
NOW when this story is reported, it’s a story ABOUT the EVENT and his speech and future of the company are part of that. And while there was stil a one line about “despite rumors to contrary” his ACTION did more to dissuade rumors than any statement of refutation ever could. HE drove the narrative.
So if I HAD to respond to “Kameron Hurley eats babies” (spoilers: I would not) the BEST thing I could do was to, say, spend a week on Instagram posting food pictures and sharing recipes of what I DO eat. And NOT in a “jokey” way like “ha ha it’s not a baby!” Jokes and irony are DEAD on the internet.
Then story becomes “look at Kameron Hurley’s amazing tofu tikka masala recipe!” And next week another author is accused of eating babies and vehemently states not only do they NOT eat babies, but they don’t even LIKE babies! And the Internet is flooded with “Author X doesn’t like babies!!” stories.
The best thing I ever did when swarmed on the Internet was – leave the internet for the weekend. The pace of the news cycle is so hysterical that the whole mob had moved on in 3-5 days. And that was Internet of 10 years ago!! It’s even more frenetic now. See how pros play news cycle. It’s a grift.
We are buried in shit. There’s more shit all the time. In grand scale of things, no one will care or remember that someone on reddit said you ate babies. I had morality clause in my contracts adjusted to use the word “credible” for this reason (I hate them and they shouldn’t exist but here we are).
(I even used “Kameron Hurley eats babies” statement as example of why morality clauses are stupid in negotiation; anyone can say anything about you on the internet. They are escape hatch for publishers. Make enough money and no one will ever use them – we know there are writers these don’t apply to)
In conclusion: drive the news about yourself and your work. Don’t react to “get ahead” of randos. Story becomes your reaction, and reacting only serves to further spread the original message. It’s opposite of my advice in 2016’s Geek Feminist Revolution. Because we live in a different world now.
They can’t monetize you if you don’t play.
