Viral Post Proves How Much Better It Is To Answer Hate With Love

Woman overhears people making fun of her outfit, responds in the best way possible

Poking fun at others — we’re all guilty of it, aren’t we? Most of us don’t do it in an outwardly bitchy way, but we’d probably be lying if we didn’t admit to a few digs at others for laughs between friends. But what if our go-to chit chat defaulted to lifting others up, instead of tearing them down?

Harriet Rae was at a drugstore when she overheard employees laughing and making fun of her outfit. She decided to smile at them, then took to the internet to put some love out into the world.

“Don’t worry, I heard the comments you made to each other about my appearance and my shorts. You spoke loud enough for most people to hear,” Rae writes. “It’s obviously not the first time you’ve had a giggle and a made comments about another girl but when you do it normally, the person you talk about probably looks away and you actually make them feel really sad inside. But today, by the looks on your faces you really weren’t prepared for the massive cheesy smile I gave you!”

We should probably mention here that Rae looks fantastic, by the way. But when it comes baseless judgment, it rarely matters. That’s the point, really.

Insulting a stranger is pretty gross behavior, but before we cast stones and talk about what horrible people they are, we’ve all probably been guilty of having a laugh at the expense of others. Close friends communicate without words: who here hasn’t been guilty of using the “look” to have an inside-joke with a friend? Even the things we consider harmless — for laughs between friends — put a certain energy into the universe. Words have power, whether anyone hears them or not. What if we made an effort to use our words to just make the world… better?

That’s what Rae did. She turned the experience into a positive one, that the internet is truly responding to. It’s been shared over 55,000 times.

“Just so you know, your words didn’t hurt me. The looks you gave me did not either,” Rae writes. “If somehow you end up reading this, as Cornwall is a very small place, can you be a little bit kinder with your words? Some peoples [sic] skin isn’t as thick as mine has become and the next persons [sic] might be very thin indeed.”

“So in response to your comments, I send back some love! If you did your own hair and make up for work today, you are both very talented. I could never get my winged liner or my ponytail that perfect!”

The store where it happened, Superdrug, responded to it by letting her know they would use it in the future to train employees. She did not give them her location or a description of the employees because “the intended message of the post was to spread kindness and positivity not embarrassment or hurt.”

It’s takes just as much effort to send a positive thought out there as it does a negative one. The energy you put out is the energy that comes back to you — and Harriet Rae’s post is definitely proof of that.