37 FramesWhen You Work in the Spotlight, Trolls Eventually Find You
If you run a small business long enough … especially one built on visibility, creativity, and heart … someone somewhere will eventually decide they know your life better than you do.
They won’t know your business structure.
They won’t know the hours you work.
They won’t know the relationships you’ve nurtured for decades.
They won’t know what it takes to show up with integrity, day after day, celebration after celebration.
But they will know how to type.
Online trolling is not new. But in the last few years, as the pressure of running a business has increased, so has the volume of anonymous “experts” eager to take a swipe at people actually building something.
Why Every Celebration Gets Our Full Heart
It’s been an insanely busy season. The kind where the days blur, the airports blur, even the coffee cups blur a little… and somehow you’re still running on heart and deadlines.
As we write this, we still have ten more celebrations (and full productions) before year end. Ten worlds. Ten stories. Ten brand-new universes with their own center of gravity.
Because that’s how we see weddings.
Each one is its own life. Its own weather system. Its own heartbeat.
And we show up for every single one with our whole selves. Full heart, full attention, full intention. Always.
Burnout Season Is Real
We’re entering the final three weeks of what has basically been a fourteen-week marathon of weddings across the world … and yes, this is the season where burnout knocks loudly.
So we’re practicing the art of not burning out.
The discipline. The care.
For ourselves, for our team, and for the couples who trust us with one of the most important days of their lives.
We want our last wedding of the year to receive the same devotion and creative energy as our first. That’s always the goal. That’s the standard.
A Phone Call From a Florist (And a Familiar Story)
So today … somewhere between timelines, logistics, and too many open tabs … we got a call from one of our florists for an upcoming wedding. He was pretty shaken up.
Why?
An online troll.
Right in the middle of his busiest season. He was distracted. It was taking up space when he had none to spare. And we told him gently, honestly … not to give it a single second more than it deserves.
Because everyone has trolls now.
Everyone.
And that is the saddest sentence we’ve written all year.
The internet has made it easy for cowards to hide behind anonymity and feel bold enough to criticise those actually doing something. Building something. Creating something.
So we told him to Taylor Swift it. Haters gonna hate. Shake it off.
And then we shared our own story from last week. Because yes, in the middle of one the most extraordinary wedding seasons of our careers, we had our own tiny little anonymous moral sniper crawl out of the digital shadows.
The Troll in Question
Last week for us, it was a Canadian guy living and working in Japan, hiding behind an anonymous account, moral sniping at a world he knows nothing about.
And yes … we did respond. I know, I know… they say never respond to trolls. But we did.
Not with defensiveness. But with clarity.
Because when you’re wrongly accused of doing something not permitted … by someone who knows nothing about your structure, your registrations, your compliance, your global operations … silence can feel like agreeing.
So we answered politely. Even though we realized we didn’t owe him even that.
When we discovered who he was (and it didn’t take much … anonymity isn’t what it used to be), we wished he’d just asked. Truly. If he wanted to know how to break into destination weddings? How work permits work? Registering a business overseas? Entrepreneur visas? How to grow globally? How to build relationships with venues? We would have helped. We always do.
But trolls don’t want clarity. They want to try to create (anonymous) chaos.
A Stranger Pretending to Know Your Story
And here’s the part that truly surprised me: when we finally found out who this Canadian videographer actually was, I’d never heard of him. Yet somehow, he seemed convinced that he knew us … knew our business well enough to make assumptions about how we operate, where we’re registered, what visas we hold and what our lives look like behind the scenes.
And that’s the strange, unsettling reality of being visible online: strangers feel entitled to certainty about stories they were never part of.
We had no history with him. No overlap. Just a few mutual connections in the way anyone in Japan eventually does. We work in completely different wedding worlds, at completely different levels, with completely different types of clients.
Our paths had never crossed. Our circles barely touched. We were strangers.
So it was genuinely baffling that someone who doesn’t know us felt entitled to speak with certainty about us and our business. A business built over decades, across multiple countries, with structures, relationships, and responsibilities he has never witnessed from the inside.
But… it reminded us of something essential: People project what they do not understand. Then, they fill the gaps with their own shadows.
Wisdom From the Wedding Team
When we shared the anonymous messages with the U.S. wedding team we were working with, they didn’t flinch. They just said, “Oh, it happens to all of us.” Then added, “But don’t ignore it… because it actually makes you more aware.”
I asked what they meant, and the planner explained it perfectly:
“Trolls always remind us how different our worlds are. They remind us of the long roads we’ve all walked to get here. Decades working with global planners, legal teams, international clients… years of experience in forms that can’t be Googled.”
And she was right. 25 years in destination events. It has been a long road. A long, complex road… carved through airports, cultures, countries, timelines, and countless human stories. And what we’ve built is a business and a body of work we stand behind with absolute pride.
We’ve dealt with trolls a few times now, and yes, these moments do make you more aware. Aware that when someone tries to police you without context, it reveals far more about their limits than your actions.
The wedding world is small. People talk. And reputations … good or bad … travel faster than any algorithm.
Why It Never Really Makes Sense
Honestly, had we not traced the account, his name would still be unknown to us. But now he is. And maybe that was the goal?
But here’s the quiet truth: Not everyone who tries to diminish you has the range to stand beside you. Sometimes the distance between two people isn’t measured in geography. It’s measured in experience, integrity, and the worlds they’ve actually touched.
And that’s often the pattern with trolling: conclusions drawn in the dark by people who were never in the room. The confidence of the uninformed.
Why We’re Naming It Now
This post is written because we’ve seen too many good people hurt by this type of behaviour recently. Somehow meant to hurt their business. Recently we’ve seen it with:
Wedding friends and vendors here in Japan.
Family members at home running small businesses.
Friends suddenly hit with fake Google reviews from jealous competitors.
Creatives attacked by anonymous accounts angry at the success they didn’t earn.
It’s happening everywhere. So it’s worth naming. Worth talking about. Worth shining a light on.
For Every Small Business Owner Who’s Been There
This is for small business owners who’ve been there.
Here are our top 10 ways to deal with online trolls with grace, wisdom, and the unshakeable calm that comes from knowing who you are.
(And especially for our florist friend… we love you. You’re amazing.)
1. Know This: Trolls Never Punch Down … They Punch Up
People don’t troll those they consider beneath them. They only target people doing well enough to try to rattle them. If someone is trolling your work, it means your work is being seen.
Envy disguised as expertise is still envy.
Let that land softly.
2. Remember: Trolls Don’t Know Your Story
They don’t know your journey, your sacrifices, your business model, your legal structure, your context, your relationships, your wins, your failures, or the quiet courage it takes to build something real.
They know… pixels.
You know your life.
And that is what matters.
3. Never Respond in the Heat of Emotion
Professionalism is your greatest armour.
Write the response in Notes if you must. Get all the frustration out.
Then delete it.
Because the lowest energy in the room should never set the tone.
4. Protect Your Peace Like It’s Intellectual Property
Your energy, your creativity, your focus … that is your real currency. If a stranger can take that from you with a single comment, they’re not the threat.
Your boundaries are.
Tighten them.
Reclaim your space.
5. Let Your Community Do the Talking
Real clients.
Real colleagues.
Real friends.
Real partners.
Real venues who trust you with their spaces and their couples.
The people who know you will always outnumber the ones who don’t.
The venues you work with regularly.
The planners who call you first.
The couples who return again and again.
The global client families who fly you across oceans.
That is the proof.
And it speaks louder than any troll ever will.
6. Understand the Psychology: Happy People Don’t Troll
People building, growing, creating, innovating… don’t have time to tear others down.
Trolls project what they lack. They whisper what they think the world won’t give them. They claw because they can’t climb.
Small minds critique. Great minds create.
People who want to grow don’t hide behind anonymous accounts to make assumptions about strangers. They seek mentors. They ask questions. They listen. They learn. They build.
The ones who want to rise find guides, not targets.
The ones who want to create something meaningful look for community, not conflict.
And the ones who are truly walking the path know how long the road is … and how impossible it is to walk it without humility.
Trolls, on the other hand, try to fill the gaps in their understanding with projection. They critique what they’ve never experienced. They moral-snipe from sidelines they’ve never stepped beyond. They use shadows instead of showing their face.
But people building something? Happy people committed to excellence? People genuinely interested in this industry, this craft, this life?
They ask.
They learn.
They grow.
And that difference matters more than anything an anonymous account could ever type.
7. Document, Don’t Engage
If the troll escalates, document everything.
Screenshots. URLs. Dates. Times.
You’re not reacting … you’re building a timeline.
Because when someone crosses the line from commentary into harassment, evidence matters and reporting becomes simple.
8. Know When It’s Time to Use Your Tools
Platforms have reporting mechanisms. Lawyers exist. Cybersecurity software exists. Digital fingerprinting exists. IP tracking exists.
So yes… anonymous accounts are rarely anonymous anymore.
Most trolls underestimate how traceable they are. It’s just a reality.
9. Redirect Your Energy Into Your Craft
Every minute wasted on a troll is a minute you could spend:
• Crafting a new story
• Designing a new experience
• Serving your next couple
• Inspiring your team
• Building the business that actually exists … not the one someone invented online
Your legacy is built in the work, not the noise.
10. Keep Becoming the Person Your Younger Self Needed
This is the most important one. The world needs more people who lift others up, not drag others down. More creators. More dreamers. More people willing to stand in arenas rather than heckle from shadows.
Be the one who shows up.
Be the one who builds.
Be the one who shares generously, collaborates openly, and celebrates loudly.
Be the one rising … not the one trying to pull others back to the ground.
Because the world will remember the builders.
The storytellers.
The ones who dared.
It will never remember the trolls.
Final Reflection
To the small business owner reading this: You don’t need to shrink to fit someone else’s insecurity.
To any trolls reading this: You could be doing so much more with your talent than hiding in the dark. The industry needs more heart, not less. More storytellers, not snipers. More collaborators, not critics.
And to everyone else:
Rise.
Shine.
Create.
Keep doing your work with integrity. Keep building a world where excellence and kindness are the loudest voices in the room.
We’re rooting for you.
A little Addition:
Maybe this is the part that matters most.
If it’s happening to us … two people who’ve been around this industry for decades, who do everything above board, who have amazing teams and lovely lawyers and global connections … then it’s almost certainly happening to others. To other businesses. Newer businesses. Creatives who don’t yet have the confidence to brush it off or the resources to investigate where the noise is coming from.
So if you’re reading this and you’ve been hit with anonymous posts, fake reviews, strange DMs, or that unmistakable sting of online spite… you’re not alone.
And if you ever want to compare notes (to see if we have the same troll!), share stories, or simply not carry it by yourself … just drop us a message. We’re here. We’re happy to share what we’ve learned. And most importantly, we’ll always stand with the hard-working professionals who show up with integrity in a world that sometimes feels far too easy for those who don’t.
Because community isn’t just who celebrates with you.
It’s who stands with you when things get noisy.
📋 Planning | 📸 Photography | 🎥 Film by @37frames
37 Frames
