The GH father/daughter duo get real about handling social media.
In today’s world, choosing a career in the spotlight puts you in the crosshairs of social media, both positively and negatively. General Hospital stars Donnell Turner and Tabyana Ali shared how it impacts their lives.
Donnell Turner & Tabyana Ali Get Candid
Turner and Ali fielded questions from their GH fans at a recent Zoom event hosted by Coastal Entertainment. The on-screen father/daughter duo, who portrays Curtis Ashford and Trina Robinson, respectively, were especially outspoken regarding how they handled negative comments on social media.
Ali jumped right in. “I’ve said this before, but those types of things or those types of comments just don’t affect me as much just because I just don’t know who you are,” the actress declared. “It doesn’t register in my brain. It really does go over my head, and it doesn’t impact my life because they don’t know who I am.”
The actress, whose character was also touched by negative social media, explained, “They don’t know what I’ve been through. They don’t know me personally. They don’t know my mom. They don’t know how I interact with other people.” Ultimately, she takes it in stride. “I’m like, ‘OK, you say your piece,’” she said.
Turner chimed in. “People say, ‘Oh, it’s what you signed up for,’ but it’s really not what I signed up for,” the actor insisted. “I signed up to do what I love, which is telling stories on TV. When I dreamt of being an actor, there was no social media. So, if you have negative comments, you can tell your friends at home, or you keep them to yourself.”
When Things Get Personal
The actor shared a personal story about being attacked online. “I remember on Twitter, one year, when we had the second Jordan, played by Brianna Henry, and they were already bad-mouthing her on day two,” he said, describing the incident. Turner revealed how he handled the whole thing. “I tweeted give her a chance, you know, she got thrown in. You just have no idea the page count and how fast we move the workload. I expressed that a little bit harshly, and the backlash was crazy because I defended my coworker, but it was the way I defended her.”
Emotions don’t always translate well on social media. “People didn’t like my tone,” Turner theorized. What happened next was brutal. “I got to feel what it was like to get that vitriol, and then when you block someone, I guess, for certain people, that’s the victory. ‘Yay. I got them to block me.’ So, then they screenshot it and posted and there’s all that kind of silly, passive-aggressive stuff that I don’t really play. I mean, if you wouldn’t say it to my face, you know what I mean?”
Luckily, both actors have a healthy attitude when dealing with social media craziness. Ali takes a responsible approach. “It’s up to me to choose how I deal with that and how I take that on.”
Turner picks and chooses his battles. “I check in on social media every now and then, but I’m not really active because I really believe it would make me an unhappy person if I read comments,” the actor said. He likes to keep it balanced. “You don’t want the highs to get you too high or the lows to get you too low. I don’t want to be enslaved by the comments of random people, right?”