05 Aug Is All Fair in Love and Social Media? (pt 2/2)
In my last post, I cited the case of a client that is suffering from a nasty case of ‘bullying’ on Twitter, and I asked whether the social web is a breeding ground for negativity. There is, after all, no real code of conduct when it comes to honesty across blogs and forums. And I also questioned the motives of those who are persistently negative online: why? Desperate to make a point? Inferiority complex? This post will focus on another area of negativity: not that of content, but of tone.
Just recently I encountered someone on Social Media Today who appeared to fall into this category of persistent negativity. In the comments of a piece I wrote asking why the word social seems to be so difficult for companies to understand, he had a pop at someone else for being “intolerant” and “a fanatic” for apparently no reason. It wasn’t what he said that I found distasteful (everyone’s entitled to an opinion, after all), but the tone he used. It was overly aggressive and bordering on abusive.
Morbid curiosity got the better of me and I tracked down his blog. What I discovered was more ironic than rain on your wedding day, a free ride when you’ve already paid, the good advice that you just didn’t take or any other Alanis Morissette-inspired (poor) examples of the word. Here was a guy using social media (in the form of a blog, Twitter and LinkedIn) to put down social media and the people who use it. Um…hello?
But aside from the irony, there’s a paradox here. The actual thought behind the blog, and the author’s comments, are intelligent and challenging. It’s thought-provoking and it goes against the grain, questioning where the proof is that social media marketing is valid, which I love. I find people disagreeing with widely-believed theory interesting and worth listening to; where would we be if the likes of Einstein or Newton had accepted the status quo? I myself have written some negative and, hopefully, challenging stuff in my time too; Is Social Media Killing Our Kids? wasn’t the most uplifting piece, and Are PRs Really Up To The Social Media Task? was a call for people working in comms to wake up! So I have a lot of respect for the author for his content ideas.
However, what I strongly dislike and disagree with is the negative tone the author uses. In one post, he says that “labelling people who disagree with you is a) offensive and arrogant and b) a poor way to teach them alternative ways of thinking”, and yet in his response he aggressively ‘labels’ the initial respondent. He’s repeatedly offensive and arrogant throughout his blog, in fact. In other posts he calls people on social networks “selfish”, “spammers”, “simple-minded” and “ignorant”. Passion is one thing; being offensive and abusive is another entirely. Does someone need a hug?! And perhaps more to the point, I feel it significantly detracts from what could be a great message, to the point where I’m inclined not to read it even though I should be his biggest fan.
These last two blog posts have cited just two examples, but the web is packed with such negativity in terms of both content and in tone, and social media is, unfortunately, its voice. I don’t know why otherwise intelligent people feel the need to be aggressive, offensive and negative when they’re perfectly capable of presenting well thought-out, rationale arguments and, as per the course for me, I don’t know what the answer is and I’m leaving more questions than when I started! What really remains, for me, is the title of these posts: is everything fair in social media? Are people entitled to say what they like, when they like? We don’t have to read it, after all. And are negative social media marketing tactics ethical? Please join the debate…
(And Robert, I welcome your comments.)
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