Controversial Figure

From my perspective, I’ve never really thought of myself as being controversial or prone to arguments, but as it turns out many people might feel that way about me. The disparity comes from the fact that I am not generally interested in many topics, but there are key topics that retain my attention and I really go off on those.

Those very few topics are in the tech space and the political space whenever I feel like it, and when it comes to these topics I get vocal, pushing through every argument to get my point across. The truth is that I am surrounded by people who also like to argue, so it makes it much easier for me to be argumentative than I would love to be. When you are surrounded by people with an ego that won’t allow them to be wrong, that tends to make yours worse, too.

Opinions are controversial

This isn’t anything that bad, being controversial isn’t a big deal as long as you aren’t causing massive outrage. In the spirit of this reflection, that got me thinking, who are some non-controversial persons? And how do they do it? As odd as that might sound, there isn’t any person who isn’t controversial. It might be hard to find and for anyone you think of, there is going to be a group of persons who disagree with him or her.

Some people are very much loved. You’ve got actors for example who are very much loved across the board and for whom it would be difficult to find hatred towards. You’ve got musicians, to a lesser extent celebrities, and many other people. The common trait all these persons who are loved across the board shared was the fact that they really shared their opinion first, and secondly they were talented in what they were or are known for. Once you get to know what the opinions of a person are on some topics, it's very difficult for you to remain impartial again.

It is either that will push you to love the person more or push you the other way. That's just how human nature works, and there is no point trying to make sense of it all. There are also a specific group of people who aren’t as much disliked as they are liked. Most people tend to be indifferent to them mainly because they don’t share their opinions, but their job is just to pass information, and those are news presenters. Despite being the mouthpiece for controversial ideas and information, they tend to stay far away from public ire even though I’ll admit, that has started changing in recent times with news becoming much more opinionated.

How not to be controversial

The solution is quite simple, first you have to understand your target audience and what they want. Everybody in the world isn’t going to agree with our ideas, but some people will, and those are the people you have to find and grow your audience. Some people like meat, others like vegetables, yet again others prefer both, so it is counterproductive to try to convince people who don’t like meat to eat it. They certainly prefer something else, so your first step is understanding your target audience and focusing your energy there. Knowing fully well that you are going to have some pushback from the other group who don't appreciate your ideas.

The second way you can handle this is by redirecting the ire, in what you are doing, is there a goal behind you sharing your opinions? Most people do it to get relief and to find people in which their ideas resonate, speaking out our minds has a therapeutic effect but doesn’t provide any real impact to us or the people listening. You are an actor, how does it help if the world knows who you are voting for? I don’t think that’s of importance to your acting skills in any way, you are a singer, why must we know that you are vegan? We already liked your music, so it makes no difference. There are people for whom we need to know their opinions because the decisions they make impact us, think about; politicians, businesses, corporations etc Even an actor and musician, your opinions on music do matter, but I have a hard time making sense about your opinion on space travel. To avoid being controversial, you will have to learn to not volunteer information but to give just what is relevant to the crowd you are speaking to.

Lastly, you can only be controversial to people for whom your ideas feel strange, people who are already accustomed to your ideas can only take it normally, that's the reason we strive to build an audience willing to listen.

Conclusion

We all hold the potential to be controversial at some point, depending on our communication, the audience, timing, and circumstances, any idea can be labeled controversial, at some point even the existence of space was controversial. Of course, if you are going out of your way to delve into controversial ideas, I don’t think it will come as much of a surprise for you if that draws controversy. But for a person giving even what would seem like very common ideas, there is still the possibility of getting some backlash at the end of the day.

Thanks for reading ☺️