CHAPTER 23

Put On a Smiley Face

Stay positive.

If you were to ask me to sum up everything I’ve learned since I was first contacted by Angela almost seven years ago, that’s what I’d say. Embrace who you really are, both online and off; improve yourself if you don’t like what you see. Try to remain optimistic. And learn how to create a good thing out of whatever life throws at you.

I know, I know, I’m not the first person to say any of this. But I think it bears repeating, ad nauseam, thanks to the state of the world we are currently living in.

We live in an online society of “likes.” Social media culture is all about wanting to be loved. We want our Instagrams to be liked, our tweets to be retweeted, our comments to be reposted. Our public lives are our most intimate work of art, and we want only positive reviews of the curated self-portrait that we depict there, all day, every day.

It’s an extremely unrealistic hope.

People have been weird and crazy and negative and afraid for a long time—think about the Salem Witch Trials or the Spanish Inquisition—but social media has really generated an epidemic of unhappiness. The outcome of living a life in public, on social media, is that we are not only battling our own loneliness and discontent but making ourselves susceptible to other lonely and discontent people who take their emotions out on us and try to bring us down for daring to reveal ourselves. Unhappy people who will look at that meticulously curated life and give it a bad review. Whether we like it or not, when we live our lives online we have to be prepared to cope with all this cynicism.

Try being informed instead of just opinionated.

—Anonymous

So what can you do about it?

We all have to be careful about allowing negativity to enter our minds, in any dosage. It affects us. Sure, it’s good to be exposed to a diversity of opinions. But it’s a waste of time to seriously consider the negative feelings of someone who means nothing to you—someone who is not important in your life and who in all likelihood you will never meet. You should never let that person dictate how you feel.

Because here’s the thing about negativity: It in no way helps you. Every moment you spend being negative or angry has zero value. No product or achievement or success comes from negativity. It just wastes your time and gets in your way.

When the documentary Catfish came out, in 2010, most of the attention it received was incredibly supportive and wonderful. But not long after the movie’s release, the negative fallout began. Certain online reviews called Rel, Henry, and me “rich, spoiled New York City kids” and accused us of exploiting my catfish, Angela, and her family. (That couldn’t have been farther from the truth.) Posters on online bulletin boards called us liars and claimed that we’d faked the movie. Across the Internet, people were downright mean.

It tore me apart. These strangers were calling me exploitative and dishonest. But I’d never had a more real experience in my life. I lived it. I knew it was true. It was crazy to me that they didn’t believe me. I let it get to me. Instead of feeling great about having helped make this fascinating and successful documentary, I began to feel depressed.

Finally, Andrew Jarecki—our producer, and a great documentary filmmaker himself (if you haven’t seen Capturing the Friedmans, you should)—said something that really woke me up. As he read through the bad reviews, his response was, “This is great for us. Because if everyone liked something, it would be boring.”

In other words, he spun the negativity into something positive: If Rel, Henry, and I were getting people enamored and excited—but also riled up and upset—it meant we’d done something right. When you succeed creatively, Jarecki continued, you will always run into people who will spin your success against you because they are dealing with their own issues.

Rel, Henry, and I had caught lightning in a bottle. We had busted our butts making a movie out of a true life experience that was incredibly unusual. But we ran into a lot of luck—luck not only that I had the experience but also that my brother was a filmmaker who happened to start filming what was going on. Luck that my catfish agreed to be in the movie. Luck that we hooked up with amazing producers who helped us get our film into Sundance. A million things had to happen to make the movie, all of which were hard to believe.

I realized that a lot of the film’s critics, aspiring to artistic achievements of their own, saw our luck and success and were annoyed. They didn’t want to believe our film, because by believing in what we’d done, they had to question their inability to achieve their own dreams. And that pissed them off, so they chose to tear us down instead.

Understanding this, I had a revelation: I knew what had happened to me. I was there. So as weird and frustrating and difficult as it was that these people online didn’t believe me—who cared? These haters were making up their minds to feel a certain way because of who they were, not who I was. If they had the ambition to actually find out the truth, they could have—but they didn’t want to. There was nothing I could do about that.

So I let it go. I decided that these strangers weren’t worth worrying about. Instead, I accepted the simple truth that I couldn’t control what other people thought. All I could do was try not to let it get to me, and channel that hate into something more productive.

After the Catfish backlash, I decided to use my experience as motivation to think about how I could use my platform to peacefully spread positivity. For the first time, I started really considering everything I posted on the Internet and how it could be perceived. I identified the morals and ideals that I wanted to be associated with and made sure that everything I said or posted was furthering those messages. I resisted the urge to post things that were snarky or even just mindlessly funny; I didn’t want to be a curator of entertainment. I wanted to be someone who stood for real content and value.

The surprising thing that I discovered? People felt that positivity and returned it. By channeling my frustration into something more fruitful, I not only helped other people feel better, but also ultimately I felt better about myself.

When I was younger, I used to notice only the negative things around me. Stupid, silly things: people who walked too slowly, bad drivers, red lights. Anger became an outlet for my emotional energy—something I could identify and understand, as opposed to the murky feelings of negative self-doubt that I dealt with every day. And as a result, I ended up spending a lot of time and energy being angry, missing out on and ignoring things that were great and would have made me happy.

That’s why, lately, I’ve been trying to change my perspective. It’s the battle I’m actively fighting: Rather than noticing something I don’t like or getting upset about a nasty comment I read, I now try to acknowledge the negativity and look elsewhere for something that does make me happy. I remind myself how much good there is in the world, how nice someone was to me today, how lucky I am. Even simple things, like great weather or the fact that I ate a meal and have a full belly, can help boost my mood.

I’ve noticed that doing this has an immediate effect on me. When you work hard at noticing positivity and good fortune, your brain and heart feel better. And when you start to feel better and think better, you perform better. Everything improves.

So I’ll say it one last time: Stay positive.

You’ve heard that line a million times before, I know. It makes you want to roll your eyes. It’s not that easy, you think. You have physical issues, pain and sickness; emotional stress; problems with friends and family. There are haters everywhere you turn, giving you negative feedback, saying nasty things. And in the middle of all that you need to make money, find love, build a life. It’s hard enough just to survive, let alone be upbeat about it.

And yet, everything good in life ties back to the idea of positivity. If you’re struggling with something—a relationship problem, a work crisis, friendship drama—take a moment to recognize how you feel, assess what you want, and then approach the problem using a positive thought process. If you do, you’ll be far likelier to resolve the situation than if you march in pissed off and pessimistic.

It’s easy to get discouraged or bogged down. But keep your focus on the positive and on what you truly stand for, and know that what you’re doing is what you’re supposed to be doing.