I think mean comments, such as you get on Hacker News often have a grain of truth to them. That such emotion is attached to that grain of truth suggests that so

I think mean comments, such as you get on Hacker News often have a grain of truth to them. That such emotion is attached to that grain of truth suggests that someone likes your idea or cares enough about your product or the area you're focussing on that it's worth pursuing. Better then to count the meanness as validation of what you're working on and to extract the grain of truth as constructive criticism suggesting how you can improve.