The Mean Girls (& Guys) of the Horseworld

😡The Mean Girls (& Guys)😤

I believe the true nature of people comes out when they are drunk….and when they are hiding behind a keyboard.

One of the most toxic behaviors people can do is scroll on social media commenting on others posts criticizing them, giving unsolicited advice, and even worse - making fun of them.

Oh they can try and justify this - I am only trying to help, I care about the horses and if I don’t say something they will never learn, they are doing it wrong, I need to tell them how to do it right 😇!

I see it all too often. Someone posts a video or picture of them doing their own thing and here comes a self-righteous person. Stitching their video making fun of them or commenting criticizing them and telling them how it SHOULD be done.

No one, at anytime, anywhere ever changed their behavior, learned or was receptive to someone making fun of them or telling them what to do when they didn’t ask for it.

Even worse, the person “giving” the advice could be anyone. Usually they have zero credibility and no business telling anyone what to do. This is far more often the case.

The people with the knowledge and credibility to give advice have no time to sit on social media scrolling to comment and give people freely of their time.

We had a slew of them in our circle for a bit and in hindsight I should have immediately severed the relationship the moment I spotted this behavior. One I saw commenting on the post of a person handling a stallion. They criticized how they were leading the stallion. Then lied in the comments saying they had experience working with stallions. Mind you, they only had been around horses for about a year and NEVER handled stallions. Another would obsess over watching videos and criticizing other mustang trainers they didn’t like. Was even part of an entire secret Discord group of self claimed “ethical” trainers who criticized anyone and everyone they thought didn’t train like them.

These are the mean girls and guys.

There is no kindness, genuineness or integrity in this behavior.

I saw someone I knew to be in their 60s, runs a “rescue”, who habitually is unable to successfully train their horses, come on social media criticizing a young trainer’s post. The trainer was sharing her experience with something she learned and was trying to be helpful by showing others. On her own page. Then comes along what we call in nursing, a nurse ratchet to come eat the young. To bully and tell this young trainer how she isn’t doing it right, how SHE knows better and made a video on how to do it the “right way”. Completely unsolicited and the self righteous person with zero true tangible credibility to give anyone advice. Bullying a young trainer. This could and often does, completely destroy the confidence of a budding young person. Oftentimes they give up posting out of fear and their own insecurities because they are so new and if someone older is criticizing them, well, it must be true.

That’s some mean girl shit. It’s gross.

Mean girls (and guys) are bullies. Self-righteous people are bullies.

One of the biggest lessons I learned (and apparently needed to learn multiple times) is once I spot this toxic behavior, it’s time to sever that relationship. In my ignorance and arrogance I thought I could educate, share my perspective plus what I learned and it would help those who do this. I was woefully wrong.

On my journey of learning these lessons the universe is wanting me to learn, I did a deep dive into figuring out why people do this. Understanding the why has been a powerful way for me to heal, move past and let go.

The gist is they are extremely insecure. Some are quite narcissistic which in turn is also based in severe insecurity and self hate (ironically). It is due to low self-esteem or even past experiences where they felt unheard. They have a deep fear of being wrong and admitting their mistakes. They try and use this criticism to make themselves feel better. They often need to “win” in an argument and tend to be extremely black and white in their beliefs ignoring nuance. They struggle to see different perspectives and feel their way is the ONLY way and they know best because the alternative is terrifying to them. Being wrong is terrifying to them.

We can’t help them, you can’t help them. They don’t WANT to be better or different. They are the ones who are right after all.

So what can we do?

When scrolling and we see someone stitching, making fun of someone, etc., don’t engage. Scroll or block. If the group you are in on FB has multiple posts on their way is the ONLY way, criticizes others, promotes one perspective and has very black and white thinking - RED FLAG. If a creators entire platform is criitizing others with the guise of “helping” horses by doing this - RED FLAG. Also, watch for bullying of posters in groups that the admins allow. Bullying is never ok.

If I have one commenting on our posts like this, I delete and/or block. If someone in my circle does this behavior, we are done, the first time. It is that toxic. That was a really hard and painful lesson for me to learn.

Don’t feed the monster of the mean girls (and guys)

Let’s encourage, cheer, support and give advice only when asked.