How to deal with the anxiety of finding out you were the butt of a groups joke

[lookingforadvice24]

Looking for some advice of how best to deal with the anxiety I’m currently feeling.

I have a small business in a tiny city. I done some digital marketing training with an expert a few years ago who told me that the way the human brain works we are much more likely to engage with people than products and if you include yourself in your small business posts they are likely to get 200 times the engagement. I pushed my discomfort around it aside and powered on and plastered myself all over the internet. My business is doing really well and we have grown from just me to 12 employees in 18 months.

Someone I briefly knew posted on social media about starting doing content creation for businesses and I thought our content could do with being a bit more polished. I reached out, we met up and I explained my thought process behind me wanting to appear in the content off the advice of this marketing expert and how I now felt it was what I had built my business up around. The content was really good and she seemed lovely but it was demanding quite a bit of my time to get the content stuff done and I already felt totally at my capacity so I didn’t continue working with her.

Fast forward to today, I get a message from a friend saying the content girl had gone on a girls trip and she had heard from a girl on the trip that they played a game of seeing who could buy each other the silliest phone case. The girl told my friend that the content creators friend bought her a phone case with a photo of me on it. I then see she puts up a post of the trip saying ‘mine was the best but Isn’t for social media but it has someone very FAMOUS on it’ (the famous was in capitals) so they are obviously taking the piss out of my for my business content stuff I post.

I feel so humiliated, I am feeling anxious at the moment anyway waiting for the results from hospital about something serious and I just feel like this might be the straw to break me. I can bare the thought of being the butt of the joke like that. I just feel so embarrassed.

My business is my only income as a single parent and I believe the content stuff really works and is a big part of my businesses success. I can’t bare the thought of going back online tomorrow knowing they are all slating me in their group chats. It’s such a horrible feeling. These women are in their 30’s with daughters.

All my friends are sleeping to ask for advice at this time. Hoping someone on internet will be up to give any tips on how to try and forget this.

What can I do? How do I feel better? There is no point in confronting her is there? I barely know her anyway and it will just add fuel to the fire I would imagine.

Thanks for reading anyway x

You've done really well.
But drop any thoughts of engaging further with this woman

You are over thinking, there is no harm done. One post, your identity withheld, nobody cares.
You will be judged on your product, not a telephone cover given as a present.

Print her face and stick it on a toilet roll and post it.

In my youth, I was often described as beautiful or extremely attractive (never pretty though). I never believed it of course and was deeply insecure about many things about my looks (and other things) as I never fitted the tanned, blonde and blue eyed type that was all the rage at the time and I didn't have the classic good looks of my mother's family who mostly looked like film star material. I look back at old photographs and could kick myself for all those insecurities I had as a young woman. This women may appear gorgeous to you but that doesn't mean she can't feel jealous or insecure. Just rise above this and don't descend into the dust of the arena.

I agree with pps that you should be really proud of your achievements and that the actions of the content creator say a lot more about her and her social circle than they do about you. I also agree that it might be better to leave well alone. If you can be bothered/want closure it could be worth casually getting in touch with the content creator to check in. As in you were surprised to hear about the phone case and you were curious about what led to it (as it’s so unprofessional).Had she been upset by the two of you parting ways? If so, an honest convo about this with you might have been more productive as the phone case stunt is bad for business type thing. It sort of calls her out and potentially opens the door to a more honest convo about what’s behind this, that might give you closure. Good luck!

To clarify: the phone case stunt is bad for her business

They’re jealous - rise above it - make a post that says you’ve heard people love your content so much they’re even making phone cases with your picture on! So you’ll be selling phone cases with your picture on from now on thanks for the great idea!

Urgh, people suck. I’m sorry you’ve been treated like this. It really isn’t very professional of her (I suppose it was her friend really though).

On the upside at least it shows that the advertising worked! Can you try to look at it from that angle?

Message her saying' Love the phone case you bought xxx. where's it from so I can order one for myself' then add 'being FAMOUS has got me lots of business & helped my business grow. Thanks for the extra advertising' Leave it at that & don't give her a second thought. She thought she was being funny, she wasn't so don't worry yourself over it & ignore her from now on. It sounds like you're doing really well so keep it up whatever way works for you.

Focus on your successful business which is successful no doubt because you know where your priorities are and where your time should be spent - not on her as it turns out which she needs to deal with professionally. I agree with others, your instincts were serving you well it seems.

Don’t respond, she/they will at some point know you knew about the phone case and your lack of response will be a measure of how trivial the behaviour is. Leave her to fuck up her own reputation, because I guarantee even those laughing along will be making a mental note that she isn’t credible. The world can suddenly be terribly small when someone does something like this; word gets around and she goes to the bottom of the list of potential people to work with. That’s her problem, not your’s.

Having my own business is a dream of mine, and not only have you done it, but grown it to 12 employees in 18 months!

That is honestly one of the most impressive things I have heard in my life. You are absolutely not butt of any joke.

This person is clearly jealous and immature. Ignore them.