I Write Professionally, Here's Why I Never Respond to Criticism
It’s not discourse. It’s not your obligation. It’s… just something you shouldn’t step in.
Bring on the haters!
I’ve been writing “professionally” (and I mean that using the loosest definition) for decades. And for the last seven years, I’ve been writing seriously for a couple national pubs like Inc and Built In, and my own public homes like Medium, and more recently, Substack, and LinkedIn.
My own writing homes are spaces where everyone is welcome all the time and the comment sections are always open. As such, I’ve amassed over 150K followers across pubs, resulting in over a million reads a month.
I get some heat. I never engage. And neither should you.
So let me be the last, if not the first, to tell you that you should never, ever respond to criticism of your writing.
Here’s what you do instead.
The Writer’s Rules Of Engagement
This is the second post I’ve done exclusively on the topic of writing. In the first one, I talked about building a large and growing audience, and I offhand mentioned, as one of the audience-building tips, to talk with your audience.
Engage with them. All of them. They read your thoughts. You read theirs. That’s how it works.
Unless you heartily disagree with whatever point they’re making, at least clap or like their comment. Even if you do disagree somewhat, it’s fine. In 2026, when you’re responding to comments on your own post, this is taken as, “I read what you took the time to say.”
But you do have to read every comment before you engage with it. People still slip things into the middle of comments like, “You know, say what you will about Hitler…”
Yeah, just don’t clap on that one.
You Get To Decide If The Criticism Is Warranted
Acknowledging the response goes for every comment, every email, every message, and you should encourage that feedback. But you should also respond to comments and emails and messages too, as often as you can, every time it makes sense.
However, within that same engagement tip, I also said, “Never respond to unwarranted criticism. It’s just dumb. Just let it go.” A lot of people focused on that bit, and their reaction was a little like, “Wait, you can do that?”
Because oddly enough, criticism feels like the feedback we should respond to more than any other kind.
Don’t.
In this post, I want to assure you that you not only can ignore unwarranted criticism, but you must.
Now, the word “unwarranted” before “criticism” does a lot of heavy lifting, which is why I’m only using it here, as opposed to the rest of the post. I’m not here to get into semantics about “someone’s truth.” Truth is truth. If you’re writing about politics or whatever, good luck, you’re getting what you asked for. But regardless, and even if you’re spilling hot garbage onto the internet, it’s your post, you get to decide what’s warranted and what isn’t.
As long as you’re honest (truth is truth), the rest is easy. When you decide that the criticism isn’t warranted, here’s what you do.
You just move on.
Here’s why.
It’s Just Stupid
Nothing is ever gained by striking back when you’re provoked in a comments section. I opened this post by calling out my haters, but the truth – the truth – is that I don’t care about my haters.
And do you know why? Because no one cares about my haters.
If they don’t like what you wrote, let them say so and then just let them get back to their lives.
Because…
You Come Off Looking Bad
In your mind, the commenter is a terrible, awful person who didn’t even bother to read your post, let alone understand it, and they’re just looking to pick on someone anonymously or at least from far away.
Yeah. Probably. But that’s not what everyone else will see.
They’ll see a writer who doesn’t have conviction in their own ideas and points. Someone who is thin-skinned and easily upset.
Look. I don’t ever see a comment on one of my posts calling me a douchebag and think that other people are going to see that comment and think to themselves, “Huh. I guess Joe Procopio is a real douchebag.”
This is because it never happens.
But you know what does happen?
That Awful Feeling
If you have empathy, especially empathy for your readers, you will not come away from that engagement feeling good about yourself. I don’t care how clever the cut was. Sooner or later, you’re going to feel bad about it. You’ll at least be thinking about it long after it happened, far longer than if you had just skipped over it.
Don’t do this to yourself.
It’s like being a tough guy. Any real tough guy will tell you that they never come away from a fight feeling good about it. The ones who do are – again – the weak ones who only pick fights they can win. Or hide behind anonymity from far away.
They Might Be Having The Worst Day Of Their Lives
And guess what? At some point after that commenter left that critical comment about you, deep down, they’re going to feel like shit for doing it. And it’s probably another helping of shit on top of a heaping pile of shit that is their day. Or their week. Or their life.
You weren’t expecting this, right? I got way deeper than you thought I’d go.
I have never been having a good day and thought to myself, “I feel great! I’m gonna go complain about something!”
Give them loads of benefit of the doubt.
Here’s What To Do Instead
Your readers support you. Without them, there’s no you. Even the douchebags.
Now of course, there’s a line, and if they cross the line, delete and report it. By the way, I don’t think there is anyone quicker or more prolific than me at reporting spam comments on Medium. Go ahead. Get yourself banned.
But otherwise, if I read a comment and my response is going to be an argument, I almost always choose not to engage, unless the argument coming at me is smart and relevant and I can be smart and relevant back. And it’s the internet so even that goes haywire sometimes.
Your goal is to add to the conversation, like “yes and” in improv, but with opinions instead of jokes.
Speaking of jokes, the only time I even approach retaliation is if I can be very, very… very funny. That is rare. Maybe like once in 100 or 200 times. And I still wait and come back later and make sure my response is so damn obviously funny that my own saint of a mother would be like, “worth it.”
Otherwise, here’s what you do. You immediately disregard it, put it out of your mind, move on, and if you want, watch it fall to the bottom of the “most relevant” sorting. You’ll have forgotten about it before it gets there.
When I was running my startup, ExitEvent, which had a content element to it, there was a commenter who hit me multiple times on multiple posts, asking me something stupid which was a trap question anyway, so I didn’t engage. After like five or six times, he asked the same question again, followed by “You can’t keep ignoring me, Joe. I’m not going anywhere.”
Ironically enough, that happened to be the last comment he ever made on my posts.
Wow. That sounds like I had him disappeared, which, admittedly, was an option, but nah, he just gave up. They always give up.
And that’s what’s important here. Don’t let criticism make you give up, or make you hesitate saying what you have to say. People are gonna people. Just move on and write your next big thing.
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