On Being Overrated

There will always be haters. Whether it’s someone criticizing your startup, commenting negatively on your writing, or simply not liking you for whatever reason, there will always be haters. In the last few years I’ve put both myself and our company out there in the community and online, and inevitably not everyone will love us both. 

I’m fine with that. In fact one of my favourite quotes is from investor Dave McClure, who says “you can’t iterate around indifference.” I’d rather you hate me than you’re indifferent about me, because at least I’m evoking some sort of emotion or reaction. If you hate my article at least you read it. If you criticize Sprouter at least you’ve been on the site, and hopefully I can address your criticism and turn you into a fan.

I write a regular technology column for one of the biggest blogs in Toronto, BlogTO, and I’m used to their snarky commenters. It doesn’t matter if you had your piece looked over by fact checkers, journalism professors and followed the Canadian Press Style Guide to a T – they would still find something to criticize. I often don’t even read the comments, knowing they’ll just rile me up (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve typed out an angry response and deleted it – kill them with kindness, that’s my motto). Yesterday I had a good laugh though when someone commented “Erin Bury is overrated” on my most recent article. I immediately posted the comment on Twitter and added how hilarious I thought it was.

Lots of people responded on Twitter to say that I shouldn’t worry, that being overrated means you have to be ‘rated’ so it’s better than being underrated. My friends and my mom jumped to my defense on Facebook (I didn’t post about the comment, merely posted the article), so I’m pleased to know my mom has my back. So here’s what I have to say to my lovely Twitter followers and Facebook friends: I’m not worried. I think it’s hilarious. And as I said before, at least that person read my article and it elicited a reaction.

And what makes you overrated anyway? I’d love to know. Maybe I can reach out to this “tactipyu” and see if they can enlighten me. Until then, I’ll wear my overrated status as a badge of honour, and I’ll wait for the next BlogTO commenter to boil my blood. They told me in journalism school I’d need thick skin to be a writer – and it gets thicker every day.