How To Make Money Off Stupid People

(This post is brought to you by “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell“. I saw the film, it’s hilarious, and I want you to go and enjoy it when it hits theaters on September 25th.)

Do you know who Heather B. Armstrong is? I was only vaguely aware of her until recently, and then I read the following gem on her about page and fell in blog-love:

“I am a Stay at Home Mom (SAHM) or a Shit Ass Ho Motherfucker. I do both equally well.”

But, that’s not the only reason I fell in blog-love with Dooce. You see, Heather has resolved a blogging conundrum that has been in existence since, well, the Internet began: How can you benefit from other people’s stupidity?

Maddox, who predates pretty much everyone online when it comes to managing hate mail, has a popular section on his website where he reprints his hate mail and rips on the letter’s author.

I wish I could do this, but I’m pretty sure every corporate partner we have for #AMHF would run in the other direction if I started ripping on idiots more frequently.

Next year, maybe.

The thing is, Maddox (in his case, intentionally) is not making any money off his hate mail and many, many websites have copied this approach. I think you should copy Dooce’s approach instead.
Why Not Make Money Off Of Stupid People?

Think about it. If you’re like me, you just delete the stupid comments and emails (unless they’re really, really good). There’s nothing better than the feeling you get when deleting something an idiot took a lot of time to create. That’s minutes, hours off their life and barely a second off yours.

But … why not re-post the emails on your blog, slap advertising around it, and insert affiliate links into the email where appropriate?

They took the time to create and share content with you, so why not share it with the world and cash in? You don’t have to comment back and can just run the comment / email as is.

What’s that old saying? Living well is the best revenge? I think, my friends, it’s time to do just that. So keep the dumb comments and the hate mail. Keep it all and re-publish it.

Who cares if they’re saying bad things about you? They’re clearly in the minority, and most hate mail authors expose themselves as either people with an axe to grind (and thus, a biased opinion regardless of what you say or do) or idiots; Both of whom you can do little to stop.

And let’s be honest, the bigger yo get online, the more these people are going to crawl out from under their desk to snipe at you. You have to get exposed to this now to build up the mental armor you’re going to need to succeed. Having a plan in place to manage and cash in off your hate mail / dumb blog comments is the healthiest thing you can do.

As an added bonus: In the event your hate mail / idiot blog comment authors upgrade themselves from trolls to ogres, the hate mail page will serve as an archive you can tap to send to their service provider if things escalate.