I think people were always mean online. But not everyone.

At one point, I was too. It didn’t last long because I had compassion and empathy and it just wasn’t that fun.

Then I easily reacted to vitriol and was easy to manipulate.

These days, I get mean replies or DMs and I just go “huh, okay” and then continue about my day. Stoicism. It may not do anything, but hey, I feel less bad about hate mail.