they make comments

My friend Mikey is a brilliant writer, one of the kindest humans I’ve ever known, the Lord of Chili, the voice of Scooter, and just an amazing person. My life is better because he is in it, and I want teleporters right now so I can see him every day, since we live in different states.

Mikey also has MS, which is a real bitch of a thing to have. He never complains about it, and doesn’t even talk about it unless I bring it up, but it’s something he deals with.

Yesterday, Mikey made the mistake of looking at some YouTube comments, and got to feel the full-throated cruelty of the Internet Dickwagon Society. Some of these really brave and clever individuals attacked Mikey for having MS, and were just completely horrible human beings. I sincerely hope that they’re just clueless teenagers who haven’t fully developed their empathy yet, and don’t fully understand how cruel and hurtful they were. I hope that, someday, they will grow up and realize how cruel and hurtful they were, and make an effort to apologize and make amends.

So yesterday, when Mikey was getting attacked and hurt by strangers who would, in all likelihood never speak out loud the words they typed on their keyboards, a bunch of us who love him rallied to his side, and supported him. People like Felicia Day, Veronica Belmont, Max Temkin, Anthony Carboni and I reminded Mikey how much we love him, how incredible he is, and how worthless the Internet Hate Machine actually is.

But it was our friend Joel Watson who put into a few simple words the very best way to consider the value of Internet Dickwagons who are shitty to creative people online:

@mikeyface you make games and comics and books. They make comments.

— Joel Watson (@hijinksensue) May 3, 2013

For those of you who can’t see the embed above:

This is an important thing to keep in mind, for all creative people in the universe: the very act of creating is courageous. Making art requires empathy and a willingness to be vulnerable and naked before the world. Doing these things on the Internet means you’re exposing yourself to the very best and the very worst our species has to offer. Just remember, when someone is being a terrible monstrous awful cruel human being: you made a thing, and they made a comment.

I know you’ll end up reading this, Mikey: I love you. Team Wheaton loves you. You’re amazing, and since I’m cooler than those Internet Dickwagons, you have to listen to me and not them.