When someone makes up crap about you
I recently purchased this vintage photo from an antique shop in Wisconsin. There was a period in the early 1900s, when people got their photos taken sitting in crescent moons. This young lady is now sitting on my desk. It’s fascinating to me. I feel like there’s a story in this.
Something I’ve thought of recently is how when people go way out of their way to make up things about you in order to make people mad at you, it’s actually a compliment. No, the person talking trash about you isn’t trying to pay you a compliment. But it’s a compliment in the sense that there was nothing true about your behavior to warrant the destruction of your reputation. This sort of behind-the-back trash talk is called a “smear campaign.”
Smear campaign: “A smear campaign, also referred to as a smear tactic or simply a smear, is an effort to damage or call into question someone’s reputation, by propounding negative propaganda” (Wikipedia). Or as Cambridge Dictionary succinctly puts it, “a planned attempt to harm the reputation of a person or company by telling lies about them” (Cambridge).
Often times the ones lying about you are really just trying to paint themselves in a positive light, but instead of just being a good person and letting that speak for itself, they feel the need to tear others down. The idea is that they are so much better than this horrible person over here — that person being you.
It does not feel good when people go behind your back and make up unsavory details and stories about you, and sometimes that behavior can wreck your relationships with people. But it’s a little silver lining that there was nothing truthful about you that they could share that would naturally hurt your reputation. That means you must be a pretty decent human being, if people have to make up crap to hurt your reputation.
The takeaway? Feel good about yourself when a person has to make up dirt on you, because the dirt doesn’t exist. You’re doing good.
Be good to each other,
Nat ✌️
This post is made free by community member Janet Logan.
