The Rules of Being a Hater
10 Lessons for Substack and Beyond
Hating is misunderstood. When Eric Adams said, “All my haters become my waiters when I sit down at the table of success”—well, first of all, incredible quote that I still use on at least a weekly basis. I’m gonna miss that guy. But by my lights he makes an attributive mistake, confusing noble act of hating with the pedestrian sin of envy. When I say I’m a hater, what I mean is that I want more for the world I inhabit, that tedious and uninspired work sting my eyes and insult my sensibilities when I gaze upon them. False haters, on the other hand, only find personal axes to grind, mistaking their vendettas and insecurities for critical incision. These people are not haters but morons.
Anyway, here are 10 lessons for being a hater. Feel free to hate on them in the comments or elsewhere on the internet:
Haters are allergic to ego. Hating should never begin as a personal thing, but animus can be a reason for accelerating the rate of hating.
Nice Person Addendum: The bar for hating on someone who is an asshole or a phony or a phony asshole is much lower than someone who is normal.
To hate is to have high standards held tightly. A hater knows that “letting people enjoy things” only leads to a culture bereft of quality and insight. A hater does not give credit to someone for “trying something” if the “something” is bad. Hating is an act of informed, incisive criticism. Much is expected of haters, they need to explain why they hate something.
Haters want more for people. There is nothing that sharpens a hater’s teeth than the whetstone of wasted potential.
Hating is not trolling. Trolls have no philosophical or epistemological underpinnings, they’re just there to annoy people. Haters are on an endless pursuit of aesthetic and spiritual beauty and are repulsed when they see something grotesque being worshipped.
Haters are not cruel. They point to the shortcomings of what they observe and no further. Their cuts stop short of bone.
Haters know that quality is subjective—but also know there are limits to subjectivity. Some shit just sucks, no matter how many people like it.
Haters know there’s a huge gulf between something they don’t like and something that’s bad.
Haters say it with their chest, and don’t hide behind anonymity or pseudonyms. To say something is bad is a public pleasure for the hater. They do not fear transparency or directness.
Haters are suspicious of consensus. To see a group nodding their heads in agreement is to trigger something deep inside a hater, a rumbling from the deep.
Haters know that it’s just a matter before the bell tolls for them, and they are prepared for that reckoning.
I love this because it justifies my cranky behavior -- but also I genuinely believe in what you say about being a hater. You're right that it comes from a place of expecting more and wanting people to reach their artistic and aesthetic potential. I'm finding myself being driven a bit mad rn on this platform, because I'm a natural hater and the algorithm keeps feeding me wildly celebrated pieces and lit criticism that is just... not good? And it isn't even just aesthetically bad (though they are that too); the pieces are really lazy in thought, kind of cruel, written from a place of perpetual aggrievement. My impulse is to put these pieces on blast and be a loud and vocal critic of them, but also that's precisely what these writers want: they want engagement, they want dumb internet feuds that will drive traffic. Also, they're trying to occupy my brain and attention.
I'm trying to be a bit more disciplined with my Haterdom. And maybe sometimes being a hater is just depriving a bad thing of attention. It's been said before by others, but I think it is often more brutal to simply ignore a bad piece of art. Like, these pieces that I'm reading are so awful that they don't deserve oxygen, they don't deserve my attention. I could spend my whole life pointing out bad writing on Substack (and elsewhere!). I'm trying to be a more productive and self-aware hater, lol.
This feels like the secret rules to enter the Player Haters Ball tbqh