There’s a standard response for leftist figures when they’re called out by the general public. Whether they’re being lambasted for their hypocrisy as Taylor Lorenz just was or their wrongdoing is being highlighted and subsequently getting handed a very verbal smackdown, the response is usually the same.

They don’t apologize, mea culpa, or attempt to right their wrongs, they immediately rush to make themselves victims. They always say the exact same thing; “I’m being harassed and I’m getting death threats.”

Let me be clear before I continue. Harassment and death threats aren’t okay and you’ll even find me telling my audience from time to time that anyone I zero in on should not be targeted by my community for hate. That said, I’m pretty tired of watching public figures like the blue checks on Twitter, activists, and even politicians use “harassment” as a way to dodge answering for their misdeeds.

For instance, WaPo’s Lorenz painted herself as a victim with “PTSD” over the harassment she would receive for being a journalist. As Jim Thompson previously reported, Lorenz ruined the lives of the daughters of Pam Geller for no other reason than they were the daughters of Pam Geller. Lorenz also used her position to ruin the life of TikTok agent Arianda Jacob who currently has an ongoing defamation lawsuit against Lorenz.

Yet despite all of this, Lorenz tearfully proclaimed that she was the victim of harassment and death threats in an interview. Not two weeks later she would be knocking on the door of the LoTT owner’s family member.

Speaking of WaPo, when Elon Musk commented about the clear “inappropriate” action by Twitter’s Vijaya Gadde to suspend the New York Post after they released the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop a week before the election, the Post released this article, not highlighting Gadde’s clear abuse of her power to censor, but the fact that Musk’s comments were sending harassment Gadde’s way.

Elon Musk on Tuesday used his powerful Twitter account to bolster right-wing users who sharply criticized two company executives, exposing them to the online masses who joined in the attacks.https://t.co/o8AgMlM9Fs

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 27, 2022

Even our supposed “medical experts” aren’t immune from it. Dr. Anthony Fauci used the “I’m being harassed” move when Rand Paul effectively had him pinned in a corner for all the shady things the doctor had been doing.

The question is, are they being harassed?

I’m sure they’re getting some very nasty tweets, emails, and messages online but should we consider this harassment?

The thing about being a public figure is that you’re going to become a focal point for people’s ire at some point, especially if you work in the political realm. While not nearly as popular as Steven Crowder or Ben Shapiro, I’m still a public figure who gets his fair share of nasty emails and messages from people who don’t like what I have to say. Going through my open Twitter DM’s you’ll find a smorgasbord of angry leftists (and way more Taylor Swift fans than you might think) who send me messages that range from the obscene to hardly readable.

I’m sure if you look at the messages Crowder gets you’ll probably see a lot of the same.

But who cares? Sticks and stones can break your bones but the mute button is right-freaking-there. If you don’t like what people are saying to you or you’re being deluged with useless angry messages then Twitter has a function that allows you to silence the hate. Moreover, while I definitely recommend reporting any threats of physical harm, getting a threat from a Twitter account with an anonymous avatar and a handful of followers (if any) is the same as getting a threat from a three-year-old with a plastic gun. The angrier they sound the funnier it is and the less likely anything is going to happen to you.

If you give someone anonymity and an internet connection, a lot of people are going to amuse themselves by being mean and overly antagonistic. It’s kind of an immutable law of the internet at this point.

My point here is that hate is more than ignorable online and I sincerely doubt that this is what many of these blue-check leftists are referring to as “harassment.” The harassment they’re receiving is just their own wrongdoing being highlighted for them and everyone to see. Them being called out and having their reputations severely maimed over it is what it seems they’re referring to as “harassment.”

But if you goof that big, whether it’s doxxing private members of our society because they’re good at making your side look bad or hiding your deals with a lab in China, then expect to get lambasted by the public, take your licks, apologize, and do better next time. Trying to hide behind the woe-is-me claim that you’re being harassed doesn’t make people’s legitimate criticisms of you invalid, it only makes you look like a sociopath.

This isn’t to mention that it makes the actual harassment suffered by people seem all the less important.

If you’re a public figure and you’re getting actual nonsensical hate then accept that this is part of the territory, grow the hell up, and shrug it off, but don’t think for a second that you can just walk away from legitimate criticism. That is what it is no matter what label you slap on it.