One might ask, what is a ‘hater’? I have concluded that a hater ke moloi (witch). Like many things, witchcraft has “evolved”; a witch isn’t only someone who flies on a broomstick at night smearing concoctions on people while they sleep. There are daylight witches too! Moloi is someone with negative intentions, thoughts and deeds. The plural is baloi; haters. These are people who badmouth, belittle; some gossip about, lie, or are jealous of; humiliate and or are disrespectful towards others. I assume it is safe to say they have “issues” and unravel them on others. Haters aren’t always strangers. Some friends, relatives, and colleagues can be haters too. So yes, haters are varied and boy, aren’t there a lot of them out there! One thing haters have in common is jealousy, envy, malice and bitterness that manifests in self-defeating destructive ways.
Haters tend to have a low self esteem or low self worth. Since they don’t know how to deal with it, they take it out on other people and develop a ‘shady’ negative attitude. Instead of rendering constructive criticism or advice, haters will say negative humiliating or hurtful things. Haters can be nice too. The very same person smiling to your face can turn around and think ill of you, badmouth you to someone else or sabotage you. Some haters tend to pick on people who are doing well in any aspect of their lives and try to pull them down with malicious rumors, comments, actions or playing on their weaknesses; often seething inside. O itse go bela? (At boiling point) Haters rarely ever achieve anything because they are too busy ‘hating’ to concentrate on things that entertain, enhance or help them progress. It becomes an obsession to dislike someone that you will find someone saying, ‘Eish, ga ke rate semangmang waitse. O a ntena.’(I don’t like such and such a person, they irritate me) The question is, ‘So what’?
The amusing thing about this ‘hating’ business is that it’s more prevalent among black people. In one of his songs, my favourite Motswako artist Mo’molemi laments that black people always try to pull other black people down. I totally agree with him; hating seems to be a ‘black people’s disease’. If someone is doing well, there’ll always be someone (usually shady!) trying to put them down and discredit them in some way. Black American hip hop/pop stars also often go on about haters in their lyrical content and even the very young Willow Smith, chants something along the lines of ‘haters gon’ hate…’ in her popular song, ‘Whip my hair’. Nowadays everyone seems to have a hater. Even a hobo on the streets may believe that he has a hater. Yeah, we all know those common lines, Ba ntlhoile/lefufa(they hate/envy me), ba ntoile(they’ve bewitched me), semangmang ke ene a ntirileng(it’s so and so’s fault) etc.
In the same breath we can get so preoccupied with thinking that we have haters that we mistakenly ignore constructive criticism. Not all criticism is meant with intent to destroy or demean, so it’s important to develop emotional intelligence that will ensure that we separate healthy critics from shameless haters. Sometimes we can use information we get from other people to improve aspects of ourselves and lives. As much as there are haters, there are people who are wrong, and that must be pointed out, so, it’s not always hating.
Don’t get it twisted ‘hating’ is just a new word but it’s been around for long. Before I wrapped my head around this hater thing that is now ‘trending’, I just couldn’t understand what everyone was on about! When I finally understood I realized that, ‘Owai! ba raya baloi.’ . The only difference is that new-age haters prowl the streets in up to date threads, pressing sophisticated phones and throwing around mindless banter. How about spreading some love for a change. Yeah, shame the darn devil. Down with the “hating” and “haters”; Love is stronger; love is life!
