Stop Asking Me to Echo Canned Sentiments in My Facebook Status

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Maria Langer

I am not a parrot. Stop asking me to act like one.

It’s completely out of control. Every day, at least one of my Facebook “friends” posts something like this:

If you’re not scared, put this as your status and see what people rate you!!! (1) Crazy (2) I’d marry you (3) I want to date you. (4) Sarcastic (5) I miss you (6) I’d kiss you (7) Beautiful (8) Smart (9) Imaginative. (10) Random (11) Smart mouth (12) Funny. (13) Fit. (14) Amazing. (15) Tough. (16) Cute. (17) I’d hit you with a bus. (18) I love you. (19) Weirdo (20) Friends forever

or this:

At 3 years”Mommy I love you.” At 10 years “mom whatever.”At 16 year “My mom is so annoying.” At 18 years “I am leaving this house.” At 25 years “Mom you were right.” At 30 years “I want to go to Mom’s house.” At 50 years “I don’t want to lose my Mom.” At 70 years I would give up everthing to have my Mom back.” you only have one Mom. Post this on your wall if you appreciate and love your Mom.

or this:

MAY I ASK MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS, WHEREVER YOU MAY BE , TO KINDLY, COPY, PASTE & SHARE THIS STATUS FOR 1 H0UR TO SUPPORT ALL THOSE WHO HAVE HEALTH PROBLEMS, WHO ARE STRUGGLING , AND JUST NEED TO KNOW THAT SOMEONE CARES. Do it for all of us , unfortunately no one is immune………AND MAY I ADD…….GOD BLESS ALL THE CAREGIVERS!!!!! THEY ARE THE TRUE HEROS……………♥ ♥

or this:

We are asking everyone to say a prayer for the US “Navy Seals” team and their families. Their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan and 30 team members lost their lives. IT WOULD BE NICE TO SEE IT ON EVERYONE’S PAGE…Even if its only for an hour. Come on guys! Show your support! I am HONORED to re-post this! Thank you to ALL of “OUR” Service Men and Women

or this:

30 lost, 30 unwanted visits, 30 doors receive that dreaded knock, 30 families with shattered hearts, 30 pairs of boots lined up with rifles and dog tags and helmets, 30 comrades remembered and grieved for, 30 funeral services, 30 names on newly made grave markers, 30 empty places at the table, 30 souls who gave all, whose lives leave a void, so let’s take 30 seconds to repost this and pause to reflect on such a sacrifice as 30 gone forever…GOD BLESS ALL THEM ALL!! ♥♥

or this:

I have a personal favor….. Only some of you will do it, and I know who you are. If you know someone who fought cancer and won, or fought cancer and died, or someone who is still fighting please add this to your status for 1 hour as a mark of respect and in remembrance. I hope I was right about the people who will! I will do this for my family and friends…!

or this:

There are moments in life when you wish you could bring someone down from Heaven…and spend the day with them just one more time, give them one more hug, kiss them goodbye or hear their voice again. One more chance to say I Love you. Copy and paste in remembrance of our loved ones who are not here..gone but not forgotten!:} IN LOVING MEMORY OF DESIDERIO LOPEZ AND DANIELLE BRITTANY LOPEZ….YOU BOTH TOUCHED SO MANY HEARTS AND WILL FOREVER BE MISSED BUT NOT FORGOTTEN…. ♥ ♥

or this:

COUSINS are the first friends most people ever have when they are children. No one will ever understand your crazy family like your cousin. Even if you haven’t talked much lately. Re-Post if you have some of the BEST Cousins in the world! I love my cousins….my cousins are the best. ♥ ♥

Don’t get me wrong: I have feelings for these causes. (Well, maybe not cousins because mine aren’t anything to brag about.) I just don’t think a social networking service is the place to air someone else’s feelings about them.

I find the canned commentary about the recent helicopter crash in Afghanistan most offensive of all. War is tragic, bringing news of death daily. I can’t begin to understand what the friends and family of soldiers killed or injured overseas must feel. These young people have given their lives for their country and back home, life goes on. It’s horrible to think that the best we can do is copy and paste the same bunch of poorly written “tributes” on Facebook. Especially when we only seem interested in doing it after an unusually tragic event, ignoring the people who are killed or maimed every damn day the war goes on.

This reeks of slacktivism:

Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism) is a portmanteau formed out of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes “feel-good” measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist.

When I challenged this parroting on Facebook with the comment “Either I’m friends with a bunch of losers who can’t seem to come up with anything original or this is completely out of control,” one of the worst offenders responded:

Losers..I think not!!!!! I have friends with loved ones that are now serving in our military……….When something bad happens, it effects us all…..No one wants that knock on the door!!!! We are showing support….NOT JUST POSTING FOR THE HELL OF IT!!!!! AND….I and many others have had family members that have either died or survived cancer………..I WILL NOT ACCEPT THE FACT THAT I AM OR ANYONE ELSE I KNOW ARE LOSERS!!!!!

(Perhaps all that is true, but there’s definitely something wrong with her Caps Lock key.)

I’ll argue this: There are far better ways to show support than to echo poorly written sentiments composed by others. If I’d lost someone in that helicopter crash and had to see this crap posted and reposted on Facebook all day long, I’d be shattered. Aren’t these people worth a little more effort? Can’t you put your sentiments in your own words?

Why are so many people like sheep?

So I came up with a New Rule: You ask me to put something canned in my Facebook status for “even just an hour” and I remove you from my news feed.

That should lower the noise to signal ratio a bit.

Social Networking Stupidity, Part I

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Maria Langer

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Is your social networking activity making you look like a jerk?

I just had to blog this. It’s such a great example of someone really screwing up with social networking.

A local area magazine (I’d rather not mention its name since I don’t want readers to trace the idiot who is the subject of this post) did its annual article on the 50 best places to eat in the state. Just today, it posted on its Facebook page:

Since our April issue was published, we’ve received numerous emails from readers who have informed us that two of the restaurants we included in our “Best Restaurants” feature have closed: [redacted 1] and [redacted 2]. Both restaurants were open at press time, and we regret that our very long lead time might lead to some disappointed readers.

One of the page’s followers commented:

Sounds like you need a new contributing writer~I’m available!:)

After a few other comments from readers, the editor replied:

Doesn’t have anything to do with the writer, [redacted]. She’s one of the best in the business. It’s because of our long lead times.

I can understand that. The magazine is, after all, a print publication. It’s not as if you can create the content and distribute it a week later.

But the commenter didn’t stop there. She fired off two more comments in quick succession:

I would beg to differ! A good writer would have given the editor the heads up. It’s not just about coverage, it’s about follow up too. I know she can write, but is she paying attention?????

and

btw–EVERYONE who lives in [redacted 2 town] knows how long [redacted 2] has been closed, not buying the excuses.

Whoa. I couldn’t let that one go. I have a lot of respect for the publication and the difficulty of remaining up-to-date in print. So I replied:

Give it a rest, [redacted]. [redacted magazine] does have VERY long lead times. Stuff happens. Also, its not likely you’ll get hired on as a writer with an attitude like that. Cut them some slack!

Within an hour 8 people had “liked” my comment, so I know I wasn’t far off-base. Another commenter suggested she try Xanax.

The point of all this is, this woman posted a slightly critical comment that was basically asking for a job. When the editor defended his publication against the criticism, she fired away with more critical remarks. (And don’t even get me started on the idea of a “writer” using five question marks at the end of a sentence.) Is this the way she does her job hunting? Her comments make her look like a real jerk. Who would hire her?

This was today’s example; I’ll likely follow this up with more examples as I stumble across them on the ‘Net.

How Twitter Can Help You Become a More Concise Writer

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Maria Langer

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140 characters or less.

One of my biggest problems as a writer is that I tend to be overly wordy. If a story can be told in 500 words, I’ll take 1000. If a how-to piece for a magazine article needs to be 1500, I’ll write 2200.

I was lucky. When I first got started as a writer, only the magazine publishers cared about word count. I’d spend a day writing a piece and then spend half the following day cutting it down to the necessary size. I still wound up submitting 10% to 20% more words than they wanted. The book publishers didn’t seem to care how many words I wrote.

Times change. When my primary book publisher started restricting page count, I knew I had a problem. It bugged me, mostly because they were willing to cut out entire chapters of a book revision just to keep the page count under some magic number spit out by a spreadsheet. Content didn’t seem to matter as much as maximizing that bottom line. The tail had begun to wag the dog.

Most of my magazine work, on the other hand, went digital. Since there is no paper and a page can be any length, they don’t care how many words I submit for a piece. Of course, payment by the word went away, too. Instead, I’m paid by the article. As long as what I submit is complete, they’re happy.

The Ultimate Limitation

Of course, my history with publishing isn’t the point. The point is, a writer needs to be able to deliver a message in the desired word count.

And that’s where Twitter comes in. With only 140 characters, it’s often tough to communicate a complex message. While many people resort to cryptic txt world abbreviations, I prefer not to. Instead, I prefer whole words and even whole sentences.

Still other people will use several consecutive tweets to tell a story. This is generally not a good idea — more than two Tweets in a row that tell a long story is generally considered bad Twitter etiquette. Besides, where’s the challenge in that?

A better idea — one that offers good practice for a writer — is to embrace the 140-character limitation. Deliver complete, grammatically correct — or nearly grammatically correct, as I’ll discuss in a moment — thoughts as whole sentences.

And this is what I attempt to do on Twitter.

Tighten It Up

Here’s how I embrace Twitter’s limitation and use it as a tool to practice tightening up my prose:

In Twitter client* software — compose the tweet to say what you need to say.
Check the character count. If you’re under, tweet it as is. You’re done. Skip the remaining steps.
If you’re over the character count, start paring down the text. Here are the things I do in the order I usually do them:
- Reread the tweet. Do you really need to say all of that?
- Look at the long words. Can any be replaced with shorter words that mean nearly the same thing?
- Kill the adverbs. This is basic writing advice that has nothing to do with Twitter.
- Look at the adjectives. Do you really need them?
- Drop periods after obvious abbreviations, such as Mr or Dr.
- Kill the articles. This is where grammar begins to suffer. I have a personal rule: if I kill one article in a tweet, I kill them all, just for consistency.
As soon as the character count gets below 140 characters, re-read the tweet. If it’s what you want to say, tweet it. You’re done. Skip the remaining step.
If your tweet doesn’t relay your message, start over from scratch.

This exercise can be fun if you go at it the right way. Although it might seem tough the first few times you do it, it does get easier and easier. I’ve gotten to the point where I sometimes cut so much out that I can add another short sentence. Not bad.

Are you a writer or just a tweeter? If you’re a writer, rise to the 140-character challenge of Twitter without leaning on txt abbreviation crutches.

*This is nearly impossible to do on a cell phone using txting, so don’t even try.

What’s More Important: Your Beliefs or Your Follower Count?

Posted on August 15, 2010 by Maria Langer

Should you really be worried about losing followers for voicing your opinion on blogs and social networks?

About two weeks ago, I linked to a story on NPR.org titled “Redefining Empathy in Light of web’s Long Memory.” The basis of the story is the sad fact that people have been losing their jobs or having old personal information resurface publicly because of information posted on the Web. This information isn’t usually damaging when looked at objectively, but when taken out of context or examined through magnifying glasses wielded by small-minded people, they can be embarrassing — or in one instance covered in the story, ruin someone’s life.

I linked to the story on Twitter because a very close Twitter friend, who is new to social networking, had been making foolish comments on Twitter and Facebook — comments far more likely to get her in trouble than the examples in the story. But it was another Twitter friend who replied:

That article is a good reason for not posting politics or religious views online. I’ve had followers drop me for posting religious

The tweet was cut off by Twitter’s 140-character minimum, but you can end it with the word “views” or “articles” and you’ll get the gist of what he was saying.

Indeed, I know exactly what he means. Although he and I share general religious views — that is, we’re non-believers — he had a tendency to link to the more radically inspired content online, content that could be seen as seriously offensive by believers. (Hell, some of it even offended me to the point that I stopped following his links.) While it’s one thing to read and link to logic-based arguments against religion by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, it’s quite another to read and link to “radical atheist” content. It’s one thing to say, “I don’t believe and here’s why;” it’s another to say “You’re a moron for believing.”

I did notice that he’d stopped tweeting so many of those links, but it wasn’t until his response above that I realized why.

And this got me thinking about something else: why we blog or participate in social networks.

Does Follower Count Matter?

Follower count is never something that concerned me — especially on Twitter. The vast majority of people on Twitter don’t actively participate. How can they when some of them are following hundreds or thousands of people? Twitter would become a full-time job if you actually read the tweets of more than 100-200 people.

(This, by the way, is one of the reasons I’ve never followed more than 140 people at a time and am constantly dropping noisemakers in favor of thought-provokers. I actually read the tweets in my timeline. You can read more about my thoughts on the follower count game in “Twitter is NOT a Popularity Contest.”)

So if so few followers actually read and respond to what you say, the overall value of followers is diminished. You’re not networking when the communication is ignored. That leaves me to wonder why people should actually care about how many followers they have.

After all, it’s not the quantity of your followers, it’s the quality. I’d rather have just 10 followers who interact with me daily than 5,000 followers who seem to ignore everything I say. It’s the networking aspect of Twitter that attracts me.

Should Your Social Networking Activities be a Lie?

So that brings up the more serious ramifications of my Twitter friend’s tweet: changing what he tweets to preserve follower count. Even though he reads radical atheist content and obviously feels strongly about it — strong enough to share it, anyway — he stopped sharing it because he doesn’t want to lose followers.

“…a good reason for not posting politics or religious views online…” are his exact words. But I’ll argue this: if your political or religious views are important to you, why should you hide them? They are part of your personal makeup — they’re what make you who you are. To pretend that they’re not is akin to lying about who you are.

To omit them from your social networking activities will prevent you from finding other people who share the same views you have. And isn’t that why we participate in social networks? To meet and interact with people who share similar views?

The Special Case of Bloggers

Bloggers, of course, face this dilemma in a much more magnified way. Our blog posts aren’t limited to 140 characters a pop. We can go on and on about any topic we like, linking to content, quoting content, opining on the values of that content. We can make complex arguments for or against anything we like. Or we can simply share a link and let our readers do their own homework, forming their own opinions about a topic without help from us.

Either way, the blog post is out there and it stays out there. It’s not 140 characters that flit through the Twitter timelines of the people who follow us, disappearing almost as quickly as they appeared. It’s out there, archived, accessible, searchable. There are comments associated with it, RSS feeds that direct to it, other blogs (and even feed-scraped sploggs) that link to it.

Should bloggers be concerned about sharing their opinions on controversial topics such as politics and religion?

It all depends on what they’re trying to achieve with their blogs. If their blogs exist to voice opinions on these topics, being shy would defeat their purpose. If their blogs exist as a personal journal of what’s going on in their lives and minds (like mine does for me), hiding their thoughts about these things — especially when these things are important to them — would be akin to putting up a false front to their readers — and betraying themselves. But if their blogs are intended to showcase a product or service or way of life, adding their opinions on non-related controversial topics is probably not a good idea.

The Importance of Being True to Yourself

And then there are people like me: people who have non-mainstream opinions but, because of their work, should probably present a mainstream face to the public. I’m sure there are a lot of us out there, but it was only recently that I found someone with a situation so similar to mine that I took great comfort in his blog’s existence. (I’m referring to Ted Landau‘s Slanted Viewpoint.)

While I don’t consider my opinions extreme, I know they’re not mainstream. They are shared by quite a few people, but usually not the outspoken ones you see on television. (It’s ironic to me that the “conservatives” are the loudest, most outspoken Americans; what’s that about?) Still, when I write a blog post voicing my opinions about something like religion or politics, I get a lot of nasty, hateful feedback from readers who seem to have gone out of their way to visit my blog and blast me. The most obvious example, which amazes me to this day, is the outrage of “Christians” over my post, “The Bible in the Refrigerator.” These people got so abusive in comments that I had to shut the comments down. (And don’t bother entering a comment about that post here; it won’t appear.)

So what do I do? Betray myself by pretending not to be outraged by the stupidity and ignorance I see in today’s world — just to make the mainstream happy? Pretend that I’m not offended by having someone else’s religion thrust on me every day of my life? Pretend that I’m content with a political system rendered ineffective by partisanship bullshit?

Does the world really need yet another middle-of-the road blogger? I don’t think so.

But what’s more important is this: Do I pretend I’m someone I’m not just to maximize the appeal of my blog to readers? Do I sell myself out just to give all the “fans” of my books a warm and cuddly feeling about me?

The answer, of course, is no. Because just like Twitter follower count, the number of blog readers or subscribers is meaningless to me. What matters is the quality of the readers, not the quantity. I want my blog read by people who are smart, people who can think, people who can comment with their opinions — whether they agree or disagree — in a clear, unoffensive way that furthers the discussion and makes me — and other readers — think.

So I’ll put that question to everyone who participates in social networking: What’s more important, your beliefs or your follower count?