Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers

Part project retrospective and part personal philosophy, this book by Marron is an account of his conversations with people who hate him, hosted on the podcast Conversations with People Who Hate Me. He reflects on lessons learned in the process of reaching out to strangers who responded negatively to his podcast, spitting anonymous vitriol and expecting no response. Searching for what makes an encounter work, he explores his own behavior, from deprogramming his instinct to attack, which only further alienated his guests, to realizing that his overtures to fellow progressives were sometimes rejected because their intersectional social marginality afforded them less privilege to assume a good faith conversation would not end in doxxing and real harm. Candid and conversational, Marron owns these early missteps with grace and wants listeners to know that when compassionate communication works, it has the power to change minds and the world.