Nashville Is Muted

What a sad day for the community of bloggers here in Nashville. The very platform that gave several hundred voices the freedom to share, discuss, encourage, challenge and to the surprise of many, introduced to a deep sense of community and friendships has been hijacked.

Brittney Gilbert - who has been on the face of WKRN's Nashville Is Talking has been verbally dishonored and carpetbombed into submission.


- just like that, she's gone -

Your host is simply not cut from strong enough cloth. This is the internet. People are vicious. They are even more vicious when they fail to make any distinction between you and a feelingless, faceless media company. It’s easier to justify the venom that way. And while some people may get off on feeding those frenzies of hate, I do not. I tried to not let it affect me but it does. Every day. The tears and the stress are just not worth it.

Brittney and I certainly don’t agree on a lot of things, but I have always had the utmost respect for her. The encouragement and extended opportunity to guest blog at Nashville Is Talking on two weekends certainly motivated myself to perfect my blogging skill sets, engage in conversation and most of all, gave me a deep appreciation for her efforts. And I don't even discuss politics here!

When someone had a time of need, Brittney would pick up on it and share the need. When babies were born, she quickly saw the value of new life in a baby's smile. Even when a dog or cat had lost their way and needed a home, Brittney took care of it.

Remember the local dog Thunder?

And the Festivus, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Solstice, Holiday Get-together at the Mothership BBQ?

Or the first time many saw each other in living HTML at Wolfy's?

I left a comment at NIT for Brittney Gilbert, and I'll say it again: My encouragement to you Brittney is to focus on all the good you’ve done – grab hold of those moments, embrace them, hold those memories in your heart, rather than the nameless who choose to judge, kick and belittle. “Go with those who’ll go with you and bless the rest” is still my wisdom nugget to you. Forgive them and move on. You don’t need to be dishonored in such a vile way with toxic relationships that only seek to tear down rather than build up.

Paul was deadspot on: "We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell."

I celebrate you Brittney; this is truly a sad day for Nashville Is Talking.

- Kerry Woo