My 40 minute apology video got 12k views and 800 death threats

Last month a clip of me saying something dumb at a local bar in Columbus got clipped out of context and posted everywhere. The full context showed I was joking with a friend, but the damage was done. I posted a 40 minute apology video explaining what actually happened and my tone of voice. It got 12k views and the comments were about 800 people calling me a liar and saying I deserved to lose my job. I did lose a freelance gig over it, but I also got a bunch of DMs from people who watched the whole thing and said they got it. Has anyone else dealt with the full context just not mattering to the mob? What did you do after the dust settled?

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jakeperry12d ago

That line about "the full context just not mattering to the mob" hits hard because I went through almost the same thing two years ago. What helped me was to stop trying to win over the people who had already made up their minds and put that energy into the DMs from folks who actually watched the whole thing. I saved every single one of those messages in a folder and read them on the bad days, sounds dumb but it kept me from losing my mind. I also stopped checking the comment sections on anything related to it, cold turkey, because there is no reply you can write that flips 800 angry people. The dust settled for me after about 6 weeks when the algorithm moved on to the next thing, and the freelance work came back slower but it came back. The people who matter will watch the full 40 minutes, everyone else was never really listening anyway.

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