The real "hater" definition

What is a hater?

I am always fascinated by the answers I get to this question. It is not that the answers are surprising. Actually, they are the expected answers.

“A Hater is someone that doesn’t want you to succeed.”
“A hater is someone that is always trying to sabotage you.”
“A hater is somebody who is always jealous of what you have.”
“A hater is someone who wants to be you.”

What I find fascinating about these answers is that they are not true. Or not entirely true. While I’m sure that there is some segment of contemporary culture that uses the word hater with the meanings listed above,  the definitions above would only account for a small percentage of the use of the word Hater in our everyday culture.

Think about the times that we use the word hater.  In most cases it has nothing to do with jealousy, or hindering someone else. I was once called a hater by a student for explaining to him that not having the most expensive shoes ( he had Nike’s instead of Jordan’s on) in high school was only a fraction of his life and should not bring him down. I was in no position to be jealous of the student ( I’ve been through high school already, and though it may have been fun, I certainly am not jealous of those still in it), and I also wasn’t trying to hold him back or stop him from succeeding. And the idea that telling him about shoes is sabotaging him, in my mind is  just crazy (although I know some of you fashion people think it is sabotage).

In truth what he was saying, and what most people are saying when they call someone a hater is that I had a perspective that was different than the one he was holding. I was dissenting from his currently held view. This is what today’s culture really thinks a hater is. Not someone who is trying to bring down or sabotage you, but someone who dissents from your current view.  A Hater is:

A person who holds a position, opinion, view, or perspective that is different from the position, opinion, view, or perspective that you currently hold.

This is the real definition of a hater in our culture, and this definition has major implications for the way that we live, function, and behave as individuals and as a culture.

For more on this Check out my book
Be A Hater: A Polemic on the Hater Mindset being released January 15,2018