A quick but slippery story today about dealing with trolls and haters:
Back in 1978, the TV show Taxi went on the air. It had an ensemble cast of past and future stars: Tony Danza (who became one of the biggest TV leading men of the 80s)… Christopher Lloyd (who became Doc in the Back to the Future movies)… Danny DeVito (who became the Penguin, among other things).
Oh, and then there was also Andy Kaufman.
Kaufman was famous already. And he would become more famous still, thanks to his kooky and anti-humor characters on Saturday Night Live and David Letterman.
Anyways, it was a few months in, and the cast of Taxi was gelling. They liked working with each other. They felt they were on to something big — the ratings were good.
But there was a problem:
Tony Danza really didn’t like Andy Kaufman.
“I was a team player,” Danza said. “And this guy is meditating in his car. He’s eating seaweed. He doesn’t come to rehearsal. But when we have a gag reel, he doesn’t make any mistakes. That galls you too.”
Danza decided to do something drastic to provoke Kaufman. He wanted to make it clear to Kaufman that his better-than-you attitude wouldn’t fly.
“I’m not proud of this,” Danza said. “But I took a fire extinguisher. It was a water fire extinguisher, not chemical. And I shot him with it, figuring he would get mad.”
But no.
Andy Kaufman just stood there.
Danza emptied the fire extinguisher.
But Andy Kaufman just kept standing there, blinking and looking harmless as usual, focusing his baby-sphinx gaze on Tony Danza.
“I was so frustrated,” Danza said. “Because he didn’t do anything.”
Frustrated? Sounds like a win for Andy Kaufman. And get this:
Fire extinguisher now spent, Danza apologized. And over the coming hours and days, he decided to take a second look at Kaufman.
At the time, Kaufman was doing a show on Sunset Boulevard. Danza decided to go.
“The show was the craziest show I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I started to think, holy mackerel, this is something really different.”
The two performers went for milk and cookies after the show (no joke). And over time, Danza ended up considering Kaufman a pretty close friend, and an amazing performer.
And in case you’re wondering:
I am not saying that you should allow yourself to get hosed down to win over trolls.
But I am saying that remaining emotionally detached in the face of various haters can be transformative. To you and to them both.
In the short term, once your troll or hater empties out his provocation hose and still finds you unfazed… well, it’s a win for you.
And who knows? In rare cases, maybe the troll will even become converted, and decide to give you a second, less hateful look.
But easier said than done, right? Because, like me, perhaps you find it hard to stay emotionally detached.
In that case, you might want to take a page from the book of Andy Kaufman:
Invent a character and play him in real life.
It doesn’t have to be a completely different character, either. It can be somebody who looks like you… lives your life… shares your experiences… but is still different enough where it counts.
Maybe you can’t picture what I mean. So I’ll let Andy Kaufman illustrate.
Below, you can find his most bizarre, moving, and provocative appearance on television. Try to decide where reality ends and the character begins.
But before you go watch that, I want to say something serious. I have an email newsletter. I put so much work into it. But almost nobody is signing up. It breaks my heart. I know this sounds cliche… but would you sign up to it, please?