When I first got into voiceover, one of the things that I noticed was that people were NICE. Like WAAAAAAAAY nicer than in the on-camera world.
Overall, people were helpful. Kind. Giving. More collaborative and less competitive.
Hello, fellow voice actor, welcome to the fold! Here’s your complimentary coffee, and we even spelled your name right!
But lately, I’ve been noticing a lot more snark creeping up in the online forums and in my conversations with others about the industry.
Call it a symptom of pandemic overwhelm. All of us are at our breaking point.
Especially with written comments (email, texting, comment sections), it can be super hard to tell what someone meant, if they were trying to be sarcastic, or if they just mistyped something.
Exceptions: If you’re going to go being misogynistic, homophobic, racist, or maybe try to defend yourself after ripping off half the voiceover community, then you rightly deserve the consequences of your actions.
Excepting those circumstances, I’m going to plead with everyone to just STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD.
Take a second before typing.
I had to do this myself the other day. I was about to comment on a post by a Facebook friend who is more Facebook than friend, and I reconsidered. I decided my voice really wouldn’t add anything to that discussion and might kick up a hornets nest I really didn’t want to be a part of.
I REALLY hate being part of internet arguments. It’s such a waste of time!
When you’re about to engage in an argument of any kind online. Or argue that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Or say something about how much you hate someone’s performance in a specific ad, etc…
Before posting/commenting, consider these three things:
Could this person have good intentions and I’m just misunderstanding them?
If they really ARE being hateful, is it worth my time and energy to clap back?
If I’m posting something that is my opinion, is that opinion extremely hurtful to someone else?
Don’t be rude!
It’s a lot harder to assume ill intent when we’ve met someone in real life. Or even over a Zoom.
If J.D. Kaye typed something in response to one of my posts, and I misunderstood it, I’d NEVER in a million years believe he meant to hurt my feelings.
And if I commented on one of Brad Newman’s posts and I phrased something weird, I don’t think he’d ever think I meant to be hurtful. (He’d DESTROY me in a rap battle, AND he could just shut down my website, so I like to stay on his good side anyway)
At my last serving job in Minneapolis, my one manager’s big thing was that you were to assume everyone’s best intentions, and if something went awry, you talked it out starting from that point of view. Like “I’m sure you weren’t TRYING to be rude, but when you said X, it really hurt my feelings.”
Any non-asshole would reply “Oh! I’m SO sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
So, if you say that, and they get defensive and blame you, or say “Yeah, no, I meant to be an asshole when I said X” then you know who to not work with.
We are very quick to assume everyone’s an asshole these days. Some people are.
But it helps to start by assuming they’re actually not.
And even if they DO turn out to be assholes, don’t give them your energy!
Trolls feed off the energy you give them. Positive or negative. Remove the energy source, and they will go elsewhere to find it.
Remind yourself how many awesome, lovely people are in this industry and instead, use that energy to give them some love!
