Sprinkle of Ginger

How to cope when people hate you

by Ella on April 20, 2010

Let us turn now to the analysis of hateration. (How great is that word? I believe it was made popular via this brilliant Mary J. Blige song.)

Sometimes I’ll visit one of my videos on YouTube and be met with feedback like this:

This is so gay.
not funny at all.
you’ll never make it please just give up.
your a dumb bitch and you are not funny.

Back when I was new to the whole putting stuff online thing, comments like this would have given me that full-body flush of mortification that one tends to get when reading unexpectedly negative feedback about oneself. But now that I’ve been publishing writing and videos on the ‘net for several years, I find that I’m no longer affected by such rancour — aside from being perturbed that “that’s so gay” is still in vogue as a generic pejorative. Comments like this are so hyperbolic and patently ridiculous that it’s impossible to take them personally. Sometimes I’m even impressed by the creativity on display. An anonymous commenter once told me that he hoped I would die while having an abortion. The specificity of that request was strangely amusing.

Most times it’s not worth replying to hateful internet comments, but if you’re feeling a bit cheeky and can’t resist a comeback, here’s the best strategy: humour and compassion. For real. It works every time. I tend to go for something like this:

YouTube comments

But my friend Anthony Carboni, who hosts the Revision3 show Bytejacker, always has the best responses:

Why is it important to keep your replies low-key and funny? Because in almost all cases, people don’t actually hate you. They hate their own, often misconceived idea of you, or what you represent, or the way that you somehow remind them of a failing or inadequacy or missed opportunity.

Think about the times when you’ve mouthed off about a celebrity or claimed you hated someone you’ve never met. We’ve all done it. Unless you are some kind of anomalous do-gooder with the constitution of a Care Bear, it’s likely you’ve snarked about someone’s appearance, behaviour or life’s work. But was it really about that particular person? Or was there something about them that made you uncomfortable because it was symptomatic of a greater ill?

I understand what’s behind the online hateration, especially when it comes from The Youth. I remember what it was like to feel frustrated and disempowered. I remember wishing that I could speak up and that people would listen and understand. A lot of people feel that way. And the internet is there, with its anonymity cloak and text input box, inviting you to unleash vitriol on the nearest convenient target. So of course people will take out their frustrations on people who don’t deserve it.

I won’t lie — there are times when I read comments and feel crappy. Sometimes I’ll be teetering on the edge of a bad mood, and a few choice words will sent me hurtling into the chasm of self-doubt. But the comments that hurt are always the ones that seize upon some pre-existing point of insecurity and lay it bare for the world to see. I don’t really care if someone tells me that my face looks like a smashed crab, or that I should get Botox injections in my jaw (which was a comment on a recent Rocketboom video!), but comments about weight and lack of intellect do occasionally sting. That’s because I’ve had complexes about those issues in the past. But now I just think about the person behind the comment, and how it’s a shame that they’re so unhappy with their own life that they feel the need to throw a virtual rock at someone else. If only I could send them all a copy of the Robot Unicorn Attack board game.

Rules of engagement with haters

Never write an angry reply. It’s not worth the energy. Save that passion for creating more cool stuff to put online.

Respond with humour and compassion. It gives them nowhere to go and makes you look like the level-headed, roll-with-it person you are. They’ll just come across as more of a tool.

Wanting to be liked and accepted is a fundamental human desire, but don’t rely on external validation from anonymous internerds to bolster your self-esteem. That’s what friends and family are for!

Know that you can’t please everyone. Nor should you try to. Do what you think is smart, or funny, or affecting. Do not dilute your ideas because you are afraid of how they will be received.

{ 38 comments }

And now for something completely different

by Ella on March 25, 2010

Pic by tochis

I recently finished reading Atonement, which put me in the mood to do a bit of the ol’ creative writing. So I challenged myself to write a little vignette-type thing without thinking too much or going back to fix and tweak and obsess. (I recommend this, incidentally. You will surprise yourself with what you write.)

Here is aforementioned vignette-type thing, just for something different.

—–

He sits opposite me, right ankle resting on left knee, sketchbook on his leg. We have our own quaint little cabin for 12 whole hours. Prague to Zagreb. The middle leg of our journey.

This train is a time capsule. Our leather seats are worn and faded, the luggage racks battered. An hour ago a man with a trolley delivered us two bowls of beef goulash, unbidden, on a trolley. We mopped it all up with torn rolls of bread as Hungarian fields whipped past our window.

He keeps drawing me in his sketchbook. Trying to define me with exploratory strokes from a stubby pencil. It’s hard, he says. Especially the eyes. There are three portraits so far — in the first two my eyes are closed, and in the third my gaze is unfocused, distant, directed toward the blurred fields of sunflowers that stretch to the horizon. I tried to look at him while he sketched me but it was too much. I had to smile and give a self-effacing laugh and turn away.

As he draws I’ve been reading a book: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. There’s a character in it who loses the ability to speak, so he gets “YES” and “NO” tattooed on his palms and holds up the appropriate hand to answer questions. Sometimes I wish I could do that. I wish that when I was burdened with a terrible secret, people close to me would somehow know exactly what questions to ask, and all I would have to do is raise a hand silently.

What will happen when we arrive? Too much has gone unsaid. All this beauty and art and pastoral calmness around me and I’m still unsettled. I feel things only in short, sharp bursts. The rest is muted by worry. Maddening, intangible worry. I try to push the thoughts away but more crowd in — the same ones, really, just phrased in different ways. A growing uncertainty spurred on by a thousand self-denigrations seizes my throat and keeps me silent. Soon I will have to speak. To talk about the messiness and the fears and the failings and explain why I feel broken. In my head I sift through language, trying to pick the perfect words; to assemble them into the sentence that will do the least damage.

It’s so beautiful outside. A cloudless sky; golden light. Two hours ago we threw open the windows and a breeze streamed into the stifled cabin. It felt like purification. I rested my head on the window frame and closed my eyes as the wind blew my unbrushed hair wildly about my face. He stood behind me, chin resting on my head. I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell he was smiling.

I have a fantasy where I tell him all of my worries. I confess the ways in which I feel unworthy of his love. Piece by piece I lift away every gram of guilt and shame and fear that pushes me toward the ground. When I’m finished, I stand taller. I breathe slower. There is a pause that holds a million possibilities, and then he moves toward me and touches my face and looks into my eyes and says “Hey. I’m not going anywhere. Come here.” I sink into his arms, exhausted, grateful, and he holds me tightly as the cacophony of voices in my head lowers to a whisper.

For now, though, we play games. We draw faces on our fingers and make our hands talk to one another. We sing made-up songs and recite monologues from Hamlet and talk about what we’ll do when we reach the sea. We’re so close now. I want to feel the salt water on my skin.

{ 9 comments }

The pizza story

by Ella on March 23, 2010

Pic by Amarand Agasi

When I was about 10 my sister and I hosted a sleepover and, in a moment of uncharacteristic audaciousness, ordered a pizza to the home of a schoolmate we found mutually disagreeable. Being relatively obedient children, it was the most mischievous stunt we could think of. But, unaccustomed to such degeneracy, we made a crucial error: I wrote of our plans on a slip of paper — names, pizza toppings, everything — and my mother found it the next morning.

As the older sister, I was hauled into an interrogation chair to account for the evidence. I froze. I lied. I came up with elaborate excuses involving rehearsing a play whose plotline revolved around ordering a pizza to a fictional character’s hypothetical house. But I couldn’t sustain such nonsense for long.

My mother decided that the best way to punish a daughter who cannot stand confrontation would be to force her to telephone Pizza Hut and apologise. I could not think of a worse fate. I begged to be let off the hook. I offered to wash dishes for as many weeks as it would take to forget this whole thing ever happened. But she remained resolute. I had to make that call.

She dictated a script for me. All I had to do was read it, she said. “What are they going to do, come through the phone and kill you?” Over a decade later I still invoke that wonderful quote whenever I have to make an unpleasant call.

With shaking hands I dialled 481-1111, the centralised number for Pizza Hut’s Sydney-area delivery service. A child of about 15 answered. I looked at my script.

“Hello. My name is Ella Morton. Last night I called from this number and ordered a pizza. It was a prank, and I would like to know how much I can pay Pizza Hut.”

There was a pause. I could hear the adolescent thinking. Then, the sound of typing.

“That pizza was paid for. I guess whoever got it ate it.”

“Oh. So I don’t need to pay anything?”

“Nah.”

“Okay. Well. Thank you. Goodbye!”

I hung up. The warm feeling of relief flooded my veins. I looked at my mother. She gave me a wry smile and an approving nod.

I learned something pretty major that day: when you’ve messed up, you need to fess up and confront it, and the sooner the better. It’s terrifying and it’s uncomfortable, but the sense of peace that follows makes it all worth it. And the whole experience is rarely as bad as you imagined it would be.

Just a little something to remember for those of us who spend way too much psychological energy worrying about outcomes that probably won’t happen.

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Introversion and extroversion

by Ella on February 16, 2010

Today I got a comment on this very blog from a guy called Jim asking whether I was an introvert or an extrovert. He cited characteristics that would fit into both categories and offered to conduct a “thousand-question-strong Voigt-Kampff test“.

I’m going to politely decline the polygraph, Jim, but I thought the broader topic of extroversion and introversion was rather interesting, and decided to reply via video. Here is some talk about personality, authenticity, social personas and an unnerving encounter at a dinner party. Oh, and Rolf Harris pops up during a gratuitous divergence near the end.

(By the way, I now upload videos to YouTube pretty regularly, so if you fancy seeing each one as soon as the ones and zeroes have whizzed up the tubes, please subscribe to my channel. Cheers!)

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A year in pictures

by Ella on February 3, 2010

Good gracious. I have been living in this mad place for an entire year. How did that happen?

In an attempt to come to terms with this swift passage of time, I am accounting for my whereabouts with a little pictorial recap. Here are some of the standout moments of the last 12 months.

Right before I left Sydney I had some Moo business cards printed up and delivered to my New York address. I remember looking at the template, fingers hovering over my keyboard, and having no idea how to label myself. “Producer” seemed too behind-the-scenesy. “Actor” seemed to promise something I wasn’t sure I could deliver. “Presenter” or “host” also felt a bit weird. I was okay with “Writer”, but it was a bit vague. In the end I went with “Writer, producer and host”. These days I would nix the Producer label, even though I produce some of my Rocketboom shoots. It’s been replaced with “actor”. Finally!

I heard recently that the things you enjoy doing when you are eight years old are the things you should be doing for the rest of your life. When I was that age I adored writing silly stories and staging impromptu plays and musicals for my family. Now that’s reflected on my business card. Awesome.

After spending a month or so sleeping on the floor of my mother’s studio apartment, I moved into a share house I found on Craigslist. It was located in Park Slope, a lovely but frequently mocked suburb of Brooklyn.

This was my bedroom. It measured about five feet by eight feet, and had two doors — in order to access the rest of the house I either had to walk through another girl’s bedroom or out into the hall and in through the front door of the apartment. I lived here for three months. My current bedroom is about three times bigger, and I don’t have to put shoes on or take keys with me when I go to the bathroom. Movin’ on up!

Though it was cramped and often smelled of stale cigarettes, the Park Slope apartment had a stellar redeeming feature: rooftop access. This was our view on a hot summer night. Gorgeous.

That’s Gillian Anderson behind me. In order to establish the significance of this moment, let me take you back to 1996. Two notable things happened to me that year: our family bought its first modem — 33.6kbps, baby — and I became obsessed with The X-Files. The first begat the second; stumbling around within the Netscape-encased pages of this new and disarming “internet”, I happened upon an email discussion list called “Smart Young X-Philes”, or SYX for short.

I don’t quite know why this list appealed to me so much — though I had watched The X-Files a few times, I was hardly a rabid devotee. But perhaps seeking a respite from the real world, riddled as it was with pubertal awkwardness, I signed up for SYX, and over the next few years developed a deep and abiding love for the show. I loved Scully in particular. She was all fire and moxie and smarts, and I wanted to be like her. I memorized her birthdate and middle name. Once, in 8th grade Design and Technology class, we had to make a sort of Chia Pet thing using dirt, seeds, a stocking and stick-on googly eyes. I named mine Eugene Victor Tooms, after the immortal, human-liver-eating mutant that was the subject of a season one episode. When we did Kris Kringle gift wish lists, I asked for an X-Files diary. I stole a gold cross necklace from my sister — Scully wore one constantly and it featured in several alien-conspiracy-related plot points — and wore it in my year 9 school photo. And then, when I was 16, I made an X-Files-influenced decision that has lingered to this day: I dyed my hair red.

As you can see, unsuspecting Ms. Anderson has played a significant role in my life. So when I had the chance to meet her at a film premiere in September, I kind of freaked out. Initially I was content to merely be in her presence, but a friend convinced me to go up to her and shake her hand. I had nothing to say and she must have thought I was a tool, but it was certainly a highlight. Here’s a vlog about the experience.

That’s Zeb and I waiting to go into the studio for a taping of The Colbert Report. I love Colbert. I dig it when he dances, his smile makes me feel tingly, and I die when he and Jon Stewart are busting out some schtick and they end up cracking each other up. So naturally, I pounced on tickets to see his show live. Twice, in the space of three months. The fact that I have published that last sentence may get me banned for life, as you are only allowed to attend once every six months. I am a bad person. But if loving Colbert is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

This time I asked him a question during his pre-show audience Q&A sesh. (It was a stupid question about Twitter — I just wanted an excuse to talk to him. He smiled and made fun of my accent and I pretty much died of glee.)

The trip to Sesame Street was, without doubt, my favourite day of the year. Whenever I watch the show now I always think of wandering through Hooper’s Store, sitting on the stoop and climbing into Oscar’s trash can to shoot the intro to our Rocketboom interview with Elmo.

Back in September I went to Chicago to interview 2,946 winter Olympic athletes for Rocketboom. (Okay, it was actually 11, but it was in the span of 24 hours!) An hour after landing in the city, I was crossing a main street with about twenty other people at a pedestrian crossing. A car slowly turned into the intersection, heading towards us. A man walking in front of me held up his hand to indicate that the driver should stop. The car sped up. The driver intentionally ran the man over and kept going. It was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen. Everyone was in shock.

The man was physically okay, as the car was travelling at a low speed, but the deliberateness of the driver is something that will stick with me for a long time. It was incredibly unnerving — as though everything I knew about humanity was suddenly rendered invalid.

So, yeah. That was my welcome to Chicago. After that I did my interviews, drank champagne with the US Olympic bobsled team and saw a hilarious improv show at Second City.

In December I launched The Elegant Guide. Putting the series online was scary — when you write by yourself, you never quite know if other people will find it funny. It’s a gamble. But if you try to play it too safe, you just end up with something that’s boring and cliche. I addressed this issue by writing scenes where I threaten a child with a hammer, whine drunkenly from the bottom of a stairwell and use a sexy voice to tell someone they have prostate cancer. To my great relief, my inbox hasn’t been deluged with missives telling me how much I suck.

Lesson: do what you want to do. Make the stuff you want to make. Some people will like it, some won’t. But you’ll feel mega accomplished and energised for another project. Then another. And then, the world!

My good friend Eric Brown of Kornhaber Brown called me up one day and asked if I had any ideas for a short film. He needed to shoot something for a Masters project, and it had to be done within the next week. I suggested a few vague concepts and images. We met up a few days later and threw a rough script together. He refined it, we shot it the next day, and three days after that, The Only Living Boy in New York appeared on YouTube. A short film written, shot and edited in under a week. Not too damn bad! Of course, the talent and easygoing nature of Bob Geile and Anthony Carboni was a significant factor. But it goes to show that you don’t have to slave over something for months. Just git ‘er done.

(That pic is a screengrab from the film, by the way. So credit Bob for the composition.)

————–

The last year has been amazing. Getting to know my family again after being apart for eight years; having the opportunity to meet amazing people in my correspondent job at Rocketboom; doing improv classes and acting classes and running around this mad city in the middle of the night…it’s been grander than I ever expected.

If you are contemplating something big and scary — a move across the world, say, or launching your own website or starting your own business — I think you should do it. Really. Don’t wait for anyone to grant you permission. Make the decision and don’t look back. Choose to be positive, surround yourself with creative, intelligent, encouraging people, and go for broke. There will be times when you wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into, but the satisfaction that comes with charting your own course makes it all worth it.

Finally, in the words of the delightful Conan O’Brien: “Please don’t be cynical. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

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Fans and followers: The internet and self-obsession

by Ella on January 24, 2010

LiveJournal-era camwhoring, circa 2002

The internet and I have a very complex relationship. Look, I adore the ol’ World Wide Web. It’s been a part of my life since I was 13, with innumerable positive effects. But at the same time, I resent it for the social and psychological shifts that it’s provoked, both in myself and in the other People Of Earth. Chiefly, I feel weird about the the fact that it’s turning us into such self-involved, attention-craving, minutiae-chronicling screen-slaves.

In the real world, I feel uncomfortable engaging in self-promotional activity. I read stories about how actors and singers and writers made their way to the top by busting down doors and getting in people’s faces and asserting themselves and think, no way. There’s absolutely no way I’d have the moxie to do that.

On the internet, though, self-promotion is less confrontational. You’re not engaging with anyone face-to-face. No-one can see you, so it doesn’t feel as uncomfortable or intrusive. Gradually, you become more at ease with talking about yourself. Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t you? Why shouldn’t you tell people where you are and who you’re with? Why not post a photo of yourself that you just took five seconds ago? And if that’s okay, surely the next logical step is to sign up for Daily Booth, where you can sit in front of your laptop every day, pose for pics, then upload the cutest one so that your followers can tell you that they’re sooo jealous of your prettiness. Oh, sweet, crowdsourced validation. That’s what we all want in the end, innit?

Here’s why I’ve been thinking about this lately. A few months back I interviewed Cookie Monster for Rocketboom. In a fortuitous combination of luck, timing and pop-cultural relevance, the resulting video became very popular on YouTube, garnering over a million views in a matter of weeks. In the wake of this, a nice young man created a group on Facebook called “Fans of Ella Morton“.

Surprised and rather delighted by the emergence of the group, I posted a link to it on my Facebook profile, appending a mildly self-deprecating comment. Not five minutes later, my phone rang. It was my mother. The conversation went something like this:

“Hi mum!”
“Ella, take that down.”
“What?”
“That thing on your Facebook. You need to take it down right now.”
“The fan group thing? Why?”
“Because it makes you look really bad. You look like you’re full of yourself. People won’t like it at all.”
“Really? But I didn’t create that group –”
“It doesn’t matter, it still makes you look like you’re showing off. Trust me, you need to take it down, NOW.”
“But my friends will know I’m being ironic.”
“No — in America it’s normal to be pushy and self-promotional, but people in Australia will hate it.”
“Oh. Okay. I guess I’ll take it down.”
“Good. I have to go, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye.”

(I hung up the phone and died of embarrassment, only to be mysteriously reanimated for the express purpose of suffering further indignities.)

It’s a tough call, this self-promotion thing. When does it become obnoxious? For many people, self-promotion is a professional necessity. I am a freelance writer, actor and host, which means I need to display and promote my work in order to keep getting hired. The easiest way to do this is online. And if I have a lot of fans and followers — I don’t really like those terms, but whatevs — that increases my value to potential employers and collaborators. I certainly have to prove that people want to watch me if I’m to stand a chance at succeeding in ultra-competitive New York. And, hell, I want people to watch The Elegant Guide, because I worked hard on it and I’m happy with how it turned out.

Here’s my big question: have we always been self-obsessed, show-offy types, or is the internet normalising and exacerbating such behaviour? We’ve become so accustomed to broadcasting our lives — assuming that everyone is hanging on our every Tweet and nonchalantly posed, self-taken photo — that it suddenly seems normal to think of people as “fans” and “followers”. Everyone can be a microcelebrity.

Man. There are so many issues at work here. Part of it might be cultural, too. In Australia we have a little something called Tall Poppy Syndrome. It’s the culturally enshrined conviction that it’s embarrassing for someone to be vocal about their accomplishments. Any time someone gets a bit boasty or displays unchecked pride, a bunch of their friends will swiftly tell them to get back in their box, mate. Oz-grown celebrities frequently experience backlashes if they start looking too happy with their successes.

What are your thoughts on this stuff? I’d love to hear ‘em. It’s a complicated issue, and I still don’t know how I feel about it all. In fact, part of the reason I don’t update this blog more frequently is that I am reluctant to post about my life and what I do from day to day. It would just feel a bit silly and self-indulgent. But I guess that’s what blogs are for. Oh internet, you make fools of us all.

{ 19 comments }

Five videos that’ll put a smile on your dial

by Ella on January 15, 2010

Lately I’ve been amassing a collection of online videos that are guaranteed to make a bad day better. Here are a few for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to share your own favourites in the comments!

Benedick and Beatrice getting tricked in Much Ado About Nothing
This wondrous film was released in 1993. It’s the sunniest, liveliest, most gorgeous Shakespeare adaptation I’ve seen. Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh — who were married at the time — are the perfect Beatrice and Benedick, and this is the best scene in the movie. Even if you’re not into Shakespeare (Why? Why are you not into Shakespeare?!) you should watch this.

Lea Salonga auditioning for Miss Saigon
It’s 1989, and the producers of Les Miserables, best musical everrrr, are looking for an actress for their new musical, Miss Saigon. 17-year-old Lea Salonga walks into the room. They teach her the audition song. She opens her mouth and sings. Angel wings and unicorns and tiny delicate wisps of gold leaf flutter into the air and everyone dies from the beauty of it all. Or something very close to that, anyhow.

Conan O’Brien on Inside the Actor’s Studio
Poor Coco is having a rough time at the moment. His show is being taken away from him after only seven months, due to circumstances beyond his control. This interview with seasoned thesp interrogator James Lipton shows just how naturally funny he is. Sigh.

Between Two Ferns: Jon Hamm
Zach Galiafanakis. Whatta guy. His wilfully awkward web series, Between Two Ferns, is a brilliant antidote to the celebrity butt-kissing that goes on during your standard TV talk show. Zach is unimpressed by his guests’ accomplishments, occasionally antagonising them to the point of physical combat. This installment, featuring Jon “Don Draper and the guy Liz Lemon called a cartoon pilot” Hamm, is my favourite.

Josh Lawson on Thank God You’re Here
Thank God You’re Here is Australia’s contribution to the improv-on-TV landscape. People who appear on the show walk through a door into a particular situation — say, a picnic in the 1920s or a police raid — and have to convincingly bluff their way through the scene alongside professional improvisers. It’s consistently giggleworthy, and the shining star is Josh Lawson. Here he is making stuff up with admirable ease in a submarine scene.

That’s five, but as a sneaky plug I’m going to append the latest Elegant Guide, just because it was so fun to shoot, and the young actress whose mouth I taped shut with gaffa tape was such a trooper.