The term "hater," which was originally popularised by hip-hop artists, is a word that contains broad connotations. Why? Well, there are a variety of haters. They don't all wear the same colours, nor do they practice the same creed. Haters, like every other living thing on the planet, have a penchant for evolution. As time has passed, as avenues for this group of people to vent their negativity has expanded, haters have splintered into a series of individual fractions (sub-species if you like) in which they practice their philosphy. In this post, I will highlight and elaborate on three hater sub-species.
1. THE SPORTS FAN HATER
The sports fan hater is one of the most common sub-species of haters that dwell on the internet. This hater loves his team with religious fanaticism - he will defend his team with astounding myopia, regardless of the subject. However, what makes the sports fan hater effective isn't the defence of his team - it his ability to bounce from article to article, forum to forum and video to video, regurgitating the same old diatribe against his intended target(s), usually in the form of a rival sports team or player. Sometimes these haters have a large list of teams they spew their invective towards, but the best, most efficient haters, focus on a small, exclusive list in which they relentlessly hammer.
Most sports fan haters just come out with bullshit one-hit-liners. To them, facts are inconsequential - opinions are concrete. They drift from one comment section to another, leaving statements like: "Haha, it's not LeBron - its LeChoke!" "Fergie didn't win all those titles himself - the refs did it for him." "Good to see the whores at City pimping their souls for money." "Liverpool fans complaining about the opposition cheating when they have Luis Suarez on their team is the height of irony." "Celtics thinking they'll win the Eastern Conference . . . yeah and I'm gonna marry Mila Kunis."
For the most part, sports fan haters, particularly the most persistent ones that recycle the same rhetoric, are amusing. Their bullshit makes them endearing - in a stupid kind of way.
2. THE RACIAL HATER
Nothing is a better aid to racists than the promise of anonymity, which is one of the core elements of the internet. The topic of racism in the 21st Century is something of a paradox. While mankind has taken drastic steps to eradicate the scourge of bigotry (being branded and proved as "racist" in the modern day can have very detrimental effects on one's life) in the last one hundred years, the invention of the internet has also given shelter to many that wish they were living in the 1800s. Racism hasn't been eradicated - it simply went in hiding, and its shelter comes in the form of endless cushions on the internet which provide this breed of haters a chance to vent their diatribe (which they would never do face to face) without facing the consequences.
If there is one element of racism that angers me to the point of explosion, it is the rampant generalisation that brands the people in the victimised group under the same brush. A few days ago the Mexican and Canadian baseball teams were involved in a mass brawl. On the YouTube video, these were the comments that were common: "What do you expect from fucking wetbacks?" "Fucking Mexicans." "Is anyone surprised to see that spics are nothing more than animals?" "Filthy illegals."
So because of a handful of Mexican/Latino athletes that threw a few punches, people decide to use them as representative and reflective of the nature of all Mexican/ Latino people. Yes . . . seriously. I remember reading an article based on several studies on racist people. It claimed that racism is linked with low IQ, and after reading the many anti-Mexican/Latino comments in the aftermath of the brawl, I'm not inclined to disagree with that article.
3. CLASSISM HATER
The classism hater (AKA elitist) is the kind who, in the most basic terms, can be described as a Grinch. This elitist, who thinks that nothing and nobody is worthy of His Eminence, will lament everything from modern television to how they just don't make coffee like they used to. The objective of this breed of haters is to highlight the decay that is swallowing modern society. As a testament to the species he belongs to, he will result to each and every avenue, regardless of its method, to hammer his point home. He will target music, films, pop culture . . . everything in contemporary society. He will drift back to a time when it wasn't all so crap - when social interaction from humans was once respectable.
The irony of the classism hater is that he seemingly has no concept of evolution. He doesn't realise that things HAVE TO change. If they didn't, then his favourite films and music of the past would not have been produced. His hobbies of once upon a time (now obsolete) evolved from a father and grandfather of tried, tested, and perhaps failed experiments. One of the distinctive traits of a hater is myopia - to be unable to ponder an argument from the other side of fence. And in this, the classism hater, who prides himself in reveling in a previous culture that is much superior to the contemporary culture, exhibits in shameless abundance.
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