I have had some time to reflect on the past few days. Wow. Just wow.
My post about being ridiculed on Reddit went viral. I was featured on The Daily Dot, News Limited, Mamamia, Yahoo, HLNTV (I did that phone interview at 5.45 am Friday morning)!, CNN Espanol, Fox and The Daily Mail, plus a few other international media outlets. Charlie Pickering mentioned me on The Project too – I was fangirling!! I met Charlie briefly when I was in The Project audience, and again at the Yooralla Media Awards last month. I love what The Project does to cover disability and diversity issues, and was chuffed to be mentioned.
The reach of these articles through social media shares and the support generated has been wonderful. People have told me that through me telling my story, they have become more confident in being proud about their own appearances.
These are the things I’ve learnt since Thursday:
It pays to stand up for yourself online. It helped me stay strong and have a voice, and it made people take notice.
The nasties only know me through a picture and a few hundred words I’ve written. If they’re going to judge me on that alone, then they need to get out more.
Kind people outweigh the hateful people by 1 million. I’ve received thousands of wonderful messages from all over the world in many languages, and only five pieces of hate mail. (I haven’t had a chance to reply to every email and tweet received yet, but I will try to soon. Thank you.)
Tall poppy syndrome exists. It’s been best to get someone else to moderate my emails to avoid seeing messages telling me to kill myself for looking so ugly. My boy said he’ll hack these comments so I don’t have to.
That Daily Mail doesn’t take no for an answer. They used my story, photos and video without permission. But, unexpectedly, the support generated from The Daily Mail has been amazing.
Educating people through heartfelt words is better than getting angry. So many more people now know about ichthyosis and think differently about judging people on their appearance alone.
Being ‘Internet famous’ is weird. I had over 80,000 hits in two days. Can I retreat for a while?
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I feel like my ordinary self though. There’s nothing glamourous about being Internet famous.
Nothing beats the love received from the people I love.
Thank you for all of your support. ♥
For those visiting my blog fresh from the media, visit these pages to see how I live with ichthyosis, resources, and that I live a great life:
What is ichthyosis?
Ichthyosis and appearance diversity resources
Ichthyosis awareness month 2013
About me
You are brilliant. I loved how you have handled this. Those comments are mindless, you have done some of those bods a huge favour. Hope they can 'take home' the message. Love Geena, and you have her beautiful eyes and smile! Love that you are in love, been following your romance. Xx
I love when something good comes out of a negative situation.
Well handled, Carly. Enjoy a relaxing Christmas with your family. 🙂
This story popped up on my Yahoo homepage the other day. I saw your picture first and said Oh it's Carly, then I read through. Like Kek said above, well handled. 🙂
Regular reader and just saw your story on the Optus homepage. Quite extraordinary what you can achieve with your honest strength and authentic voice. Well done.
Louise
Thanks for sharing your story and keep on smiling, the world needs more like you. Cheers to a blessed 2014. xoxo. #BLM
I love when our testimony can help others! Congrats on reaching so many!
You rock!
You my dear are #WINNING.
Its so refreshing to hear the kind outweigh the mean!
Have a wonderful Christmas gorgeous
Here's something negative, but not what you expect. There's more to Carly than ichthyosis – but not much more. Take that away and she is one of the most simple-minded and boring people you are ever likely to meet, she is prone to weird obsession (Darren Hayes, Bob Evans) and talks almost exclusively about ichthyosis, because it's all she has going for her, she is literally one-dimensional. If she didn't have that, and you met her, you would just keep on walking, she is the cardboard of people. She whores herself to the media, but she is in fact incredibly dull and incredibly boring. I know her personally, I know what I'm talking about. This has just given her the fuel she needs to crap on about it for the rest of her life!!! A crusade nobody asked for.
Dear Sandy
Thanks for taking the time out of your day to share on this blog particularly given you can't apparently see the point of it.
Louise
Hi Sandy!
Looks like I should be watching more quiz shows so I've got more than singers and ichthyosis to talk about. Thanks for the advice 🙂
And I wonder, would you be so brave to say these things to my face?
Have a great day!
Go you! GO GO GO!
Merry Christmas, Carly. It's been lovely getting to know you more this year. x
There is more to carly then her ichthyosis, she is a wonderful person and very brave to be getting through the bad comments. I hope they all stop as as her boyfriend i've had to read and moderate all comments to ensure she doesn't read any bad ones. Can people stop sending bad comments, they are starting to get to her.