I asked Athena if I could publish this in a post because I wanted to draw attention to this conversation on our post, Strange News.  I want to bring up this subject because I think Athena makes a very good point at the end of the conversation about celebrities and abuse.

Our post was about Jonathon Gunson’s article, Why Every Author Must Be On Goodreads In 2013.  In it, we pointed out how odd it was that Jonathon Gunson didn’t even have an account on GR and that he was deleting comments left by people who wanted to warn authors about the dangers of the site.  Then, a site visitor named Ruby left this comment:

He says in the article that Goodreads is better for fiction, which is likely why he has not listed his non-fiction works. Many authors are very busy and perhaps he just hasn’t had the time to update everything. As for why he deleted the comments, perhaps he’s trying to teach professional authors what goodreads is about. The bad stuf doesn’t apply to them because they are not getting on goodreads looking for trouble. I’ve been on goodreads for a year now and I have never had a problem with an author or a reviewer-mainly because I don’t go looking for trouble.

To which I responded:

Ruby, if you’re an author who is going to write a promotional article for GR like this, you better have your books and your account set up on GR or else you just look stupid, in my not-so-humble opinion.  The reason he deleted the comments is clear.  GR paid him to do this.  The comments warning authors about the dangers of having an account on the site are valid.  We’ve given several examples of authors who weren’t looking for trouble but trouble found them anyway as it often does on GR because the troublemakers go looking for authors to attack.  You’ve been lucky, but just because you haven’t been targeted so far, doesn’t mean you won’t be put on some shitlist in the future.  So good luck!

Then Ruby said:

Well, if I did end up on a shitlist, (Which I wouldn’t, because I don’t reply to or acknowledge bad reviews) I wouldn’t make a huge deal of it and make it worse by replying to these bullies. I’d simply let it go, because that is what separates professionals from children who fight online. When you look at this issue as a whole it’s really all about professionalism. When you write a book, you have to expect that it might take off and you could potentially become famous. Famous people get picked on and it’s all about how you handle it. Sure, the authors mentioned on this site are not exactly “famous” but like I said, as someone who puts themselves in the public eye, you have to be ready for cruel comments and attacks that don’t seem fair. Movie stars get the same treatment, but no one is crying, “bully” on the media that does this to them.

Athena responded to her with this and I thought this was well said:

Hi Ruby.  A couple things here.  You’re assuming that authors are only put on BBA lists because they respond to bad reviews.  This is a wrong assumption.  We’ve seen and given examples of targeted authors who were not looking for trouble and who were not even responding to reviews at all and yet they were labeled BBA by the bullies.  One author we know of, for example, was targeted just because he posted a question about free books.  Another one was targeted because she simply left a comment on another author’s blog, an author who happened to be targeted by the bullies at the time.  You see, there is so rhyme or reason to the bullies’ behaviour.  These people don’t seem to operate using logic or common sense.  They behave much like a pack of ravenous wolves, targeting whichever author they happen to come across.

You say that if you were ever targeted and labeled BBA, you wouldn’t respond and that’s good!  That’s exactly what we counsel targeted authors to do on our Do’s and Don’t’s page:

https://stopthegrbullies.com/learn-more/dos-and-donts-for-victims/

The only time we ever counsel an author to act and seek an attorney is when the bullies cross the line into criminal behaviour and we’ve seen them do that.

Now as for the public’s treatment of famous people, we don’t follow your line of thinking.  First of all, you’re assuming that all authors on GR are famous and they’re not.  Many of them, mostly unknown authors, come to GR for that reason – just so they can get their names and their books some exposure.

Secondly, even if an author is famous, that doesn’t mean that they should automatically be a target for abuse and that they are required just to sit back and take it.  Yes, many famous people are picked on, targeted, and abused by the media.  Does the simple fact that this happens make it right?  No.  And when we follow this line of thinking, where do we draw the line?  Johnny mentioned Charles Manson when he addressed Kat’s similar argument.  Should Charles Manson have been freed from his crime of conspiring to kill Sharon Tate simply because she was a famous actress and thus deserved to be stalked and killed?  You know, because famous people are just “picked on” all the time and they just need to learn how to take it?

Lastly, when you say that famous people don’t respond to public bullying, you’re wrong there, too.  There have been many lawsuits filed because of the kind of abuse you’re referring to.  A few names come to mind: Jennifer Aniston, Tom Cruise, Prince William and Kate, et cetera, et cetera.

I think Athena is right.  We have to remember that celebrities are people, too, no matter how callous or rich or carefree they may seem to us.  They are still human and have the same feelings, desires, faults, etc. that we do.  Sometimes I wonder if all the public attention, abuse, and pressure of being famous is what pushes celebrities over the edge so that they try to find solace in drugs and alcohol.  It’s a shame because if there is anything that can destroy someone’s life, it’s those two things.