Name: Abigail Joyann's review of Conversations with People Who Hate Me by Dylan Marron
Item: Conversations with People Who Hate Me
Rating: 3
Author: Abigail Joyann

Dylan Marron

From the host of the award-winning, critically acclaimed podcast Conversations with People Who Hate Me comes a thought-provoking, witty, and inspirational exploration of difficult conversations and how to navigate them. Dylan Marron—digital creator and producer—has racked up millions of views and worldwide support for his work promoting social justice. From his acclaimed Every Single Word video series highlighting the lack of diversity in Hollywood to his web series Sitting in Bathrooms with Trans People, Marron has explored some of today’s biggest hot topic issues. Yet, according to some strangers on the internet, Marron is a moron, a beta male, or, according to one commenter, a talentless hack. Rather than running from this online vitriol, Marron began a social experiment in which he invited his detractors to chat on the phone—and those conversations revealed surprising and thought-provoking insights. Now, Marron retraces his journey through a project that connects adversarial strangers in a time of unprecedented division. After years of production and dozens of phone calls, he shares what he’s learned about having difficult conversations and how having them can help close the ever-growing distance between us. Charmingly candid and earnest, Conversations with People Who Hate Me will be a guide to anyone partaking in difficult conversations, and a permission slip for those who dare to believe that connection can be possible even in these dark times.

12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers

Conversations with People Who Hate Me

Genesis (@whisperingchapters)

Abigail Joyann

3.5 stars

  Thank you Atria Books for this ARC! ♥︎

"Hate" is a strong word and as a society, we tend to use it widely for a differing severity of conversing. When in actuality, the definition of "hate" is the intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury or extreme dislike or disgust. (Merriam Webster)

As far as the internet goes, not every disagreeing or even threatening comment is derived from hate. Yes, there is a broad range and many can be, but an expanse usually derives from frustration, confusion, misunderstanding, or simply a bad day. Marron takes a chance by diving deep into his HATE FOLDER,—a digitized folder filled with screenshots of comments left from his "haters" or rather disagreers, to find those of which he can engage in a conversational piece delving into many deemed political topics.

This book is refreshing in a way. It's a beautiful work that makes you think about things in ways you never thought you could think about things. A fact that we are all human behind the screens of the ever-so-popular social media. Empathy is a big factor among the many, and just having a conversation rather than deflecting within debates, can do more justice than speaking out to those already agreeing on your part.

Christina Pappas

My phone's photo album is currently dominated by screenshots of pages from this book: there was so much here I wanted to save to re-engage with later! As I read, I itched to have a hard copy and a pencil in my hand - there was so much it was sparking for me, so many questions and reactions and !!!!s. 

Given the above, it should go without saying that this book is a powerful thought-starter. I was fascinated by Marron's evolution - from conceiving of online debate as a game you win or lose, to starting to cope with virtual hate slung his way by imagining touchingly human narratives about his 'trolls', to questioning whether 'trolls' is maybe not the right term at all, to wondering whether he's been going about things the wrong way. I particularly loved this summation: "My videos alone were never going to sufficiently evangelize progressive ideas ... Was I simply enjoying the reverberations of virality in my own little echo chamber, thinking that. was slaying Goliath when I was simply cosplaying battle reenactments with my fellow self-identified Davids?" (Yes, this book is also, at times, laugh-out-loud funny.) 

From there, the real excitement begins: he starts to engage - civilly, curiously, sans any persuasive agenda - with individuals he plucks from his 'HATE FOLDER' (which, spoiler alert, he rethinks the name of down the line) and invites to connect. These stories - wow - I was on the edge of my seat. And this isn't Chicken Soup for the Soul; not all of them go well - in fact, some of them go really badly, and not just for him but for other folks he invites into the conversations once he decides to take more of a mediator role. (One, in particular, was a punch to the gut.) Through it all, Marron keeps questioning his own assumptions, acknowledging his mistakes, and trying to do better. 

My favorite part, if I had to choose: his careful consideration about whether engaging and empathizing with people who believe things that are deeply harmful is implicitly validating or endorsing those beliefs. I've been wrestling with this myself, and it's often prevented me from engaging in conversations that, maybe, could have been worthwhile. I loved his analogy: people are the trees, ideologies are the forest, and it's crucial to not lose sight of either. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who senses that polarization is a race to the bottom, but isn't quite sure what to do about it. I will be thinking about this book for a very long time.

Casper

Disclaimer: I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn’t possibly fit everything I need to say into this review. Check out Casper in the Rye for the full discussion.

WOOOW. This book really challenged me.

For those who don’t know, Conversations with People Who Hate Me started as a podcast by Dylan Marron. In his book, he discusses the journey behind the making of this podcast, which connects people who have essentially had hateful discourse with each other on the internet. Marron connects someone who received a hateful comment with the person who sent the hateful comment and they each explain things from their perspective.

If you haven’t listened to the podcast, fear not! I had never heard of it before reading this book. Each chapter in this book explores a new lesson to be learned about how to have productive conversations around divisive issues. The book is set along the backdrop of Trump’s presidency, leading up to the 2016 election and ending in 2020 with the writing of this book.

While Marron clearly leans a certain way politically, he’s nothing short of respectful and diligent in his empathy for those who have opposing viewpoints. He balances a very delicate line between showing empathy and not endorsing the ideas that some of the guests are bringing to the table like homophobia, racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc.

I think everyone can benefit from reading this book. It covers so many of the important communication tools that we all need right now in order to have those difficult conversations with people during a time when we’re so divided. There were times while reading this that I felt angry, frustrated, and disappointed. What’s the point of trying to have a reasonable conversation with someone who is so knee deep in a hateful belief system?

But my takeaway from this was completely different. A lot of Marron’s guests do begin to second guess the way they were raised, the way they think about certain situations or groups of people. It’s more than a worthy venture if you can have good faith discussion between people who have opposing views. It gives them a chance to humanize each other and hopefully they carry that forward in their future interactions.

Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
Conversations with People Who Hate Me by Dylan Marron

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Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &Conversations with People Who Hate Me by Dylan Marron

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Join the club

Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
Conversations with People Who Hate Me by Dylan Marron