Flame Off

The Cajun Boy at Gawker describes a bloggy truth:

After a while, writing on the internet thickens your skin to the point where you're easily able to easily differentiate between valid criticism and hateful venom-spewing. At some point, the hateful venom-spewing fails to even faze you any longer, while the valid criticisms are accepted and processed rationally and learned from.

Felix Salmon agrees. Me too. It's a bit of a shock at first, but once you get into the water, it feels bearable after a while. My silent mantra to myself whenever I read some particularly nasty missive or blogpost: it doesn't matter what they say about you as long as it isn't true. If it is true, then learn from it.