Everyone is plotting someone’s downfall, but no one wants to be called a hater.
I’m a hater who owns the title anytime, anywhere.
When my friends pursue a new venture not suited to them, I am there to shelter them from embarrassment preemptively. When a mediocre restaurant has a competitor, I will promote their rival to see if they can handle the competition. Both are skillful hater moves that serve the betterment of society.
To clarify further, skillful hatred is rational hatred. If you’re attempting to justify your hatred of something unjustifiable, I probably hate you, and The Reveille opinion section is the last place you should be. Rational hatred requires refined timing. One cannot constantly hate and call it reasonable. Skillful hatred is the hatred society attempts to breed out of us while they should be teaching the craft of hating instead.
We have all heard the phrase, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Words that aren’t nice need to be said sometimes. If a business produces an average product, it should adapt or get replaced by a better company. Unfortunately, consumers cannot be relied on to make sure this happens. People get into a rhythm, and the standards become mid.
Locally, look no further than the LSU men’s basketball Head Coach Will Wade. As an extraordinary recruiter and hype-man, his impact on the basketball program is tangible. His coaching flaws are also apparent when the team faces a challenge.
Wade got off to a 12-0 start before falling to Auburn in the SEC opener this 2021-2022 season. Since then, the team has become average, losing to far inferior teams, injury considerations included. I saw and admittedly plotted on Wade’s imminent downfall while we were still undefeated.
LSU fans rewarded a coach whose team made its deepest tournament run when he was suspended for the post-season. The person who started calling him “The General” is why these talented squads have never won any postseason hardware. Fans not only settled for a mid-season merchant, a coach who only shows up before trophies are on the line, but they started calling themselves the “Wade Brigade” with foam hats, costumes and goat masks to boot.
So lost in the hype, people forgot that haters are the biggest motivators. After two different three-game losing streaks, Twitter was littered with Wade hate—hate that came far too late. Enough haters during the undefeated streak would have kept the team and a mediocre coach on their toes.
Nearly everyone has haters, but those haters separate the average from the greats.
“Rise above the hate,” wrestler John Cena said. Without hate, what is there to rise above? While I was a wise day-one Joe Burrow fan, he would not have had the best college football season ever without the 2018 29-0 home loss to Alabama and the ensuing slander.
I am a hater and I do my best to punish mediocrity when necessary and give the greats constant motivation. I get hated on—quite frequently, I must admit—and use it to soar to new heights.
I am an adamant founding fathers hater, but Ben Franklin was not lying when he said, “Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.”
Gideon Fortune is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from New York, NY, and entertainment editor for The Reveille.