We’re so often told to be nice, to try to meet everyone with kindness even when they aren’t kind to us. But sometimes… being a “hater” is the right answer. “Say, Drake” Superstar Kendrick Lamar has been running a masterclass on the power of strategic hate, culminating in his showstopping performance headlining this year’s Superbowl Halftime. And his success, and the collective enjoyment of it, is a sign of a larger shift of people no longer being willing to play nice with people who wish to do harm to us and our communities. So let’s take a closer look at what we can learn from Kenrick and other world class strategic haters. “I wanna perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue.”
Before we take a look at why the modern narrative around being a “hater” has started shifting, let’s first quickly unpack why, while we might still be annoyed by obnoxious haters, we’re often drawn to strategic haters. On screen, many of the biggest and best haters aren’t necessarily people we’re supposed to like, and can often be found popping up to offer a quick barb to knock someone else down a peg. “We’re calling Kerry a taxi to the subway so that she can go home to her little apartment.” Sometimes this feels justified, and other times less so – but the biggest thing that draws us to these kinds of characters is their apparent freedom to buck the societal cage of niceties. While we’re all often raised to be afraid of speaking our mind too directly, of pushing back against anyone too much, these characters seem totally unrestrained by this convention. One of film and tv’s most iconic haters, for example, is Dynasty’s Alexis Carrington-Dexter-Rowan-Colby née Morell. The ex-wife of oil tycoon Blake, she burst onto the scene at the top of the show’s second season and didn’t take her foot off of everyone else’s necks for the rest of the show’s run. “Are you insane?” “Oh no, I’m perfectly sane. So take your junk, and your blonde tramp, and get out of my house.” She was scheming and often straight up evil, but her willingness to always put herself first and ability to have a good comeback any time someone else tried to tear her down was what made her so fun to watch. “This vendetta, as you call it, is the most important thing in my life at the moment.” “Your totally empty life.” “What else do you suggest I do with my energy, charity work?”
The music industry, too, is filled with those unafraid to bring the heat when they’ve been slighted, whether it’s taking aim at their ex, a specific person “You’re wack, you’re twisted, your girl’s a hoe, you broke, kid ain’t yours and everybody know. Your old man says you’re stupid, you be like ‘Soooo?’”, or a whole coast. Music has always been a way to release one’s innermost feelings, even (or even especially) the darker ones – so it’s no surprise that songs are often used as a vehicle for hitting out at someone who hurt them. And then we, as the audience, also get to feel a kind of catharsis as we sing along.
Whether it’s on screen or in song, our occasional embrace of being a hater stems from some very real problems we all have to contend with…
While generally being dubbed a ‘hater’ has been a pretty cut and dry negative thing, in recent years people have begun to reassess that notion. Obviously being nice to people generally is a good thing, and finding ways to let slights go and move on can help keep you from getting trapped in negative cycles. And, of course, there are people who take being a hater to dangerous extremes, overreacting to imagined slights or just being miserable because the world isn’t exactly how they think it should be.
But for many of us, the allure of the strategic hater comes from the fact, in our everyday lives, the requirement of ‘niceness’ is often pushed past any reasonable expectation into an assumption that we should just always sit idly by and deal with whatever kind of mistreatment or unkindness comes our way with grace. And, in tandem with that, any push back against this on our part is often seen not as strong or self-assured, but impolite or mean. “Do you think I relish the fact that I have to act like Mary Sunshine 24/7 to be considered a lady?” This can lead to some of the people who are most put upon and mistreated being the least able to speak up or fight back because when they do it’s framed as being ‘difficult’ or ‘rude’. Take Isis in Bring It On – all of her and her teammates’ work is stolen by others who use their inferior version to cheat their way to success. But when she points it out, she’s seen as the aggressive and ‘rude’ one who is trying to ruin everyone else’s good time. “‘Brr it’s cold in here, I said there must be some toros in the atmosphere’? I know you don’t think a white girl made that sh*t up.”
Shrugging off any critique or push back as just ‘hate’, and anyone who voices issues with anything as just being a ‘hater’ can be used as a way to try to dismiss any negative feelings or consequences, no matter how real and destructive they may be. And not only that – it also allows the perpetrator to imply that the reaction is misplaced or even an overreaction, and frame the so-called ‘hater’ as the one causing the real problem. And so, in a world that is telling us that we just have to live with worse and worse treatment and circumstances, and with the imposition of worse and worse people in every avenue of society, it’s no surprise that more and more people are beginning to decide that sometimes, being a hater is the right choice. “Tryin’ to strike a chord, and it’s probably” “a minorrrrr!”
Sometimes, after being pushed too far, one feels like they can’t do anything other than either give up or fight back. While there’s in the past been a push to go for a ‘when they go low, we go high’ vibe, as we’ve seen play out, that doesn’t often actually achieve anything (except more stress and/or pain for you…) So, instead, some people choose to go in the other direction – to great success! “Wop wop wop wop wop”
The beef between rap icon Kendrick Lamar and former child actor Drake reached its denouement at this year’s Superbowl Halftime show. Kenrick was the first ever rapper to perform the event solo, and he did not pull any punches. But the key thing about his performance – and which has in fact been a throughline of the entire situation – is his ability to put his hate to work to larger ends. While, yes, he most certainly had a crowd of 70 thousand plus millions more at home singing along about Drake’s personal failures, character flaws, and concerning proclivities, he was also making a larger statement about our time and the historical issues that led up to it. “40 acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music.” Though some seem to have somehow missed it, the show was very clearly about more than just one beef. “The revolution about to be televised, picked the right time and the wrong guy.” Through artistry, the performance touched on the way black men have been used to build up America, blamed for it being split, and told that they just need to play along if they want any chance at success. “Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play the game?” In the performance, Kendrick’s hate towards these issues, and the institutions that uphold them, is just as vibrant and fiery as it is towards Drake. This follows from Not Like Us as a song itself – which definitely laser focuses on dragging Drake, but also zooms out to take a wider look at the systemic issues that Drake represents, but that people were willing to ignore because he was making people a lot of money. “The settlers were using town folk to make them richer, fast forward to 2024 you’ve got the same agenda”
Some still hold on to the old school idea that ‘hate’ is just too far, a thing that is not done by polite society – but when we’re up against such huge obstacles and mega creeps, it’s fair to say that it’s time to leave politeness behind. Being a ‘hater’ in the functional way can be a way – sometimes the only way – to point out these kinds of structural and deeply embedded issues and actually be heard. The issue of Drake’s apparent interest in young women, for example, was a topic of conversation for years before Not Like Us dropped, but most people were just willing to ignore or overlook it. Now, with millions of people around the globe talking about it, it’s much more difficult to ignore. (Though, of course, awareness doesn’t always lead to solutions – but it is a start!) And, regardless of how kindly you might try to put things, people will often just call you a hater for any critique regardless, so you might as well go for it!
After being told to make ourselves smaller, and quieter, and meeker for so long, with the assurance that this was the way to solve our problems and beat the people who wished to do us harm, it’s no surprise with how everything has been going in recent years that people are tired of that narrative.[“I just wanna start this sh*t off by saying f*ck y’all!” Of course, this doesn’t mean we all need to become haters exclusively – looking for common ground and trying to work with people that are willing to try to work with you will always be an important part of community building and finding our way forward as a society. But when people only have sights on trying to tear us down and using their own wealth or privilege to shield themselves? “They actin’ bad but somebody gotta do it, Got my foot up on the gas, somebody gotta do it”
The most important steps to being a functional hater are:
Specificity: you can’t waste your energy being mad at everyone and everything all of the time. You have to figure out what or who the biggest problem really is and find a way to really zoom in and shine a light on that.
Larger connection: Kendrick has been able to take down Drake while also effectively using him as a vehicle to open up conversations around larger issues like predatory men and industry culture vultures. Most things that inspire hate within us are usually part of a larger web then they may initially seem – that’s why they engender such intense feelings within us. So it’s important to take a step back and get the full picture, so that you can hate more effectively and efficiently.
Keep pushing: calls to give up and ‘be the bigger person’ are always levied at the person wronged, as a way to try to stop the conflict by forcing them to just take whatever happens to them for fear of being labeled a ‘problem’ themselves. But, when you have a legitimate grievance and the other party keeps attacking you, there’s nothing wrong with continuing to keep that same energy. “Sorry I didn’t hear you b*tch, what?”
Of course, there’s always room to realize that a fight just isn’t even worth it, or to find common ground and call a truce. “You can be my wingman anytime.” But when push comes to shove, we’ve all got to start fighting back against the creeps and bad people – and if that makes us haters, then… so be it! “turn this tv off, turn this tv off”