How to Deal with Bashers: 11 Tips to Turn Haters into Supporters
Someone publicly tears your work apart. Commenters pile on. Forum threads pop up devoted to bashing you. What do you do — hide, fight back, or turn the whole thing into a win?
I’ve been there. Here are the 11 strategies I used to convert hostile bashers into actual supporters — and what Gary Vaynerchuk did when his own site got hacked and redirected to a porn site.
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Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
How I Got Bashed
I wrote a blog post titled The Government should pay entrepreneurs a very low salary to save the economy. I wasn’t saying this plan is 100% correct, but it seemed logical to me, so I wanted to put it out there to see what people think about it.
At least I had some support from a Stanford Researcher and an Ex Venture Capitalist and BCG Consultant.
After a while, this professor from Belmont University named Jeff Cornwall wrote a blog post about how terrible and out of my mind I was. Shortly after, a lot of his readers started mass commenting on my blog and his blog saying they are “disgusted” and that I’m promoting socialism.
(Note: I am not suggesting the government fund those who are unproductive. I am suggesting the government make it possible for more people to create jobs and enhance a form of capitalism.)
What do you do when that happens?
11 Tips to Turn Bashers into Supporters
- Thank them for their time and effort. This immediately disarms hostility. They came expecting a fight — not gratitude. In Octalysis terms, you’re activating Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness by making them feel seen and respected.
- Apologize for things that you clearly did wrong or by mistake. Owning your mistakes builds trust faster than defending every point.
- Address every single one of them. Don’t cherry-pick the easy critics. Respond to everyone. When people feel individually acknowledged, they shift from mob mentality to one-on-one conversation.
- Be polite. Politeness is a force multiplier. Onlookers watching a calm, gracious response next to an unhinged attack will always side with you.
- Ask them to specify what they’re bashing about. Most will just throw vague insults without clarifying why they’re insulting. When you ask for specifics, the empty attacks collapse on their own.
- For those who actually explain, clarify all the misunderstandings or misconceptions. Most online conflict comes from people reacting to what they think you said, not what you actually said.
- Address your fundamental differences, but don’t be a jerk about it. You don’t have to agree on everything. Acknowledging that reasonable people can disagree shows maturity.
- NEVER become emotional. The moment you get angry, you’ve lost. Your emotional reaction becomes the story instead of your actual point.
- Stay cheerful. Cheerfulness in the face of hostility is deeply confusing to trolls. It breaks the script they’re running in their heads.
- Thank them at the end and encourage more constructive criticism. Bookend the interaction with respect. It reframes the entire exchange.
- Don’t be shady. No deleting comments, no shadow-banning, no passive-aggressive edits. Transparency wins long-term credibility.
How This Played Out for Me
I have seen forum threads that were pretty much devoted to bashing me anonymously. I used these exact tips and dealt with the “trolls” straight on.
After 2 long replies addressing every single person, I ended up with only supporters in the forum. The bashers almost felt embarrassed to say more, since my second response had already addressed every point from their first reply attempt.
This is really about understanding human motivation. People bash because they feel unheard (Core Drive 5), because they want to feel important (Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment), or because they genuinely believe you’re wrong and want to protect others (Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling). When you address the motivation behind the bashing — not just the words — you disarm the conflict at its root.
Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crisis Management Masterclass
Gary Vaynerchuk also had a crisis where his website Cork’d got hacked and redirected to a porn site. TechCrunch covered it, which amplified the damage.
Instead of hiding, Vaynerchuk immediately posted a video and detailed comment right on the TechCrunch article, admitted partial fault for not maintaining the site properly, and explained exactly what he was doing to fix it. The response earned him more respect than the hack cost him.
Same principle: transparency, accountability, and speed. He managed it in a way that actually gained him more followers.
The Bottom Line
Your reputation is one of your biggest assets. It’s your job to guard it with your life.
But guarding it doesn’t mean avoiding criticism. It means handling criticism so well that even your critics end up respecting you. That’s the real lifestyle gamification win — turning a negative experience into lasting social capital.
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework: Complete Gamification Framework
- Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness
- 4 Steps to Master Lifestyle Gamification
- Using the 8 Core Drives to Make Seriously Fun Lifestyle Changes
- Want a Real Life? Be an Entrepreneur