Below is a guest post that we promised one of our blog readers we would publish. It is a warning about one of the nastier bullies we’ve seen online, Mahala R. Burlingame.
Edit: For our story on Mahala getting banned from Goodreads, click here.
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We’ve often wondered why bullies do what they do. And as many have commented over the years, most believe it is done as a form of sadistic pleasure. Yet it isn’t often that those who engage in this behavior will actually to it.
What separates Mahala from the other bullies we’ve covered is how open she is about the sincere joy she gets from bullying authors. Miss Burlingame is a woman who, much like a yellow jacket, attacks without provocation, sometimes seemingly at random. She is a woman who will attack authors simply for posting an opinion she disagrees with or writing a Tweet she did not like.
And why? Well, much like the name of her blog, Spare Ammo, which claims in its title that it “targets the self-published author,” Mahala enjoys what she does. Whereas other bullies create nonsense lies to cover their actions, Mahala relishes in it, creating articles about authors telling them to “kiss their wish goodbye” (of becoming a successful author).
The message Mahala sends out is very simple: if you disagree with me, your dreams, your hopes, and your careers are done for.
Recently, an author had her life shattered after sharing a half-page essay regarding her own personal views on reviewing and books. This article was posted to her blog. It was impersonal, named no one, and spoke merely on the general subject of reviewing.
Post after post, the author was bullied until she was forced to take down her entire blog and write an apology to Mahala on behalf of sharing an opposing viewpoint that Mahala did not like. Mahala then refused to accept the apology (which she was not even entitled to in the first place).
Yes, you are reading this correctly. After bullying an author into deleting her entire blog and apologizing for her having an opinion, Mahala still had not had enough, finding that the apology she did not deserve was not good enough for her.
Eventually the bullying became so cruel that even her cohorts became weary of it.
But still she did not stop. After a month-long campaign to carpet bomb this young author’s books, insult her, and defame her for pure amusement, the author had to be hospitalized from the mental anguish that had been inflicted on her. Did Mahala stop then? No. She enjoyed this young woman’s suffering, bragging about it and even going so far as to ridicule the fact that she had fallen ill.
When an author tried to intervene and help his fellow indie writer, Mahala launched an attack on him, as well, threatening to give out the phone number to the author’s family.
Sadly, this is a recurring pattern for Miss Burlingame, who will attack…pretty much any author for any reason, such as another author who wrote a humorous Twitter post:
Or an entirely different author for writing a book she doesn’t like:
Or yet another author for wanting the bullying to stop:
We ask that you avoid Mahala at all costs, as her bullying is not limited just to destroying your careers, but your character as well. Please be careful and vigilant.
