How to Get People to Hate You (You Want To, Trust Us!)

In business, as in life, not everyone is going to like you. In fact, the more you put yourself out into the public eye, the more likely it is that people will hate you. They’ll talk smack about you, spread rumours, try to turn customers away from you – and most of the time they’ll do so without ever having met you.

Sound like a nightmare to you? Then you need to toughen up. Because not only is it going to happen, it can also be hugely beneficial to you. That is the power of polarization.

I Just Want Everyone to Like Me!

Sure,  you can try to make everyone like you. But it’s a waste of energy – it’s never going to work. That’s because (and this is the big secret) people hating you isn’t about you. It’s about them.

Look at the way people hate on Kim Kardashian. Most of them have never met her, and never will. In all likelihood if they did meet her they’d find her to be a nice person and they wouldn’t remember why they hated her in the first place.

That’s because what they hate is her persona. They hate what she represents to them. I personally have no problem with her (I think she’s stunningly beautiful, but I have no particular opinion about her personality/character/life decisions). But to some, she represents the bastardization of celebrity, the epitome of Gen Y fame chasing, or just the downfall of society in general. That’s a lot to put on one woman’s shoulders!

People sure hate her. Just look at the furor over her recent Vogue cover with Kanye West. But wait… hold on a second… she’s on the cover of Vogue? The world’s most famous and prestigious fashion magazine? How did that happen?

It’s for exactly the same reason – because she polarizes. People talk about her, they argue about her, they comment and retweet and reblog all day, every day.

And, for every hater she has, she also has a fan.

How Your Haters Make Your Fans More Rabid

Think about something you love – a band, a TV show, a celebrity. Now, think about how you feel when someone says they hate that thing/person. You want to defend it/them, right? You want to stop and say “hold on, I love that band! Did you even listen to their last album? It was a masterpiece! Go and listen to the album! Here, I’ll burn you a copy!”

We love to defend what we love. We want people to agree with us. An extreme form of this can be seen in religious crusades. You’ll experience a more basic form if you’re in the public eye and you have fans of some sort. (Of course, there’s a caveat here: you need to have earned your fans!)

If someone disses you on Facebook, your fans will defend you. The nastier the hater, the more rabidly your fans will come to your defence.

There’s an element of psychology here – when your fans defend you against an outsider, there’s a bonding that occurs. It amplifies their positive feelings towards you. And that can only be a good thing for your business.

Being Hated Isn’t Easy

Even for the very-thick skinned, being hated can be trying. No one’s pretending it’s going to be easy – what I can tell you is it’s going to happen, no matter how unerringly nice you try to be.

People might be jealous of your success or disagree with your worldview, they might be angered by the way you speak or even just find your face annoying. Just the act of being yourself and living your life is enough to activate people emotionally.

What will you do when it happens? You have two choices: let it wear you down and destroy you emotionally, or remember the positive outcomes that occur with it and use those haters to propel your status and your business.

It’s up to you.