Dear Kee:
First off I’d like to say that I’m a big fan of your column. Now that I’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way let me explain my situation to you. I’m a Junior here at Alcorn and we recently had our Spring Break which was much needed I might add. I work hard all year and I really do deserve to let my hair down and have a good time every now and again. My friends and I visited Miami and it was ‘LIT’. Everything was initially going fine until I began to post pictures of my ‘vacay’ on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. The responses I got were less than flattering. I began seeing comments like, “She thinks she’s something” and “She is so ‘bougie'”. Granted these are people that I didn’t know or have a casual relationship with at school. A lot of people automatically assume the worst of me and they don’t even know me. I must admit the comments did hurt my feelings to a certain extent. Kee what should I do in this situation? I know I can’t respond to each comment individually but how can I make these people understand that I’m not who they think I am or should I just ignore the negativity and continue living my best life.
Concerned
Dear Concerned:
Thank you very much for your generous statement. It is nice to be appreciated. As far as your situation goes, I see this sort of thing all of the time. To be honest, I can sometimes be one of those haters on social media as well, but mind you I never comment on a post. When I do view these posts, I would say I feel a bit jealous and that’s exactly what your situation is. Everybody is not always fortunate enough to go out of town and have these experiences that you have. So they have to find some sort of way to bring you down. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with letting your hair down at times, however always remember that you are a lady and should respect yourself at all times, PERIOD! Remember that you are in college and people are always watching how you conduct yourself in the public eye. If you don’t respect yourself, nobody else will. Also, try not to entertain the negativity because people want you to step out of character and that will give them an additional reason to hate on you. You only have one life and it’s your choice on how you live it. No one can define who you are, but you.