Monday, October 24, 2011

The Thing I HATE Most: Social Media Drama

Many of you who read my blog know I am passionate about social media. I have blogged a lot about the many positives of SM and I have dabbled a small amount about the negative aspects of it as well. My negative rants mainly had to do with the corporate part of it though. As I have alluded to in previous posts, I have warned that a more thorough dissection by myself on some of the personal negatives of social media was coming. This is what tonight’s post is about.

I hate social media drama.

More so, I hate it when someone tries to put you down or convey something that they were too chicken shit to tell you to your face through a social media channel. I know everyone here has seen it. Some may have fallen victim to it and some may have dished it out. When it comes to myself, I have felt the sting of social media attacks before. Strangely enough, it has always been inflicted upon me by girls. Or maybe it is not that strange. Let’s face it, women are catty. They will rip apart their supposed best girlfriends through social media and trash ex-boyfriends. Sounds very high school-ish, right? Well, unfortunately, many girls way past high school age participate in this.

I want to get across that I am not bitter. Majority of the girls I have dated, hung out with, or just been acquaintances with have been awesome. Things did not work out or our friendship just grew distant and that was that. No jealous feelings, no animosity, no social media attacks. Just a mutual parting of ways.

Unfortunately, not all have been that way. If a relationship ends, let it end face-to-face. Don’t air it out on your Facebook status or on your Twitter updates. Don’t think of some back road way of sticking it to the person through a post.

One of the most common things that happens when a relationship ends or a friendship is broken is for a person to delete the other from their Facebook friends or Twitter followers. Yes, this is incredibly immature. But you know what, if you are even more immature than that and you resort to social media attacks or social media games, save yourself some freaking dignity and just DELETE that person.

Some of the social media slights I have received are so childish I actually laugh at them. In college I had a girlfriend and we broke up, it did not end on the best of terms. We weren’t talking. Two weeks later this person randomly posts on my Facebook wall saying something to the effect of “Hey Brent, I hope you are doing well. I am doing so awesome. Well, have a good week!” Of course her profile picture is of her and some random dude with arms locked around each other. I really couldn’t care less about this girl but I just shook my head because it was just so obvious what she was doing and so pathetic at the same time.

My brother has been the target of the “courageous/loyal friend” attack. This is when the friend of an ex goes on Facebook and blasts the person on his wall for all to see. Give me a break. Is your life so dull and unfulfilling that you have to cause drama in the relationships of others? You don’t look like a good friend when you do this. You look like a loser who only knows half the story and likes to get in the middle of other people’s business.

I have had girls who try to hash things out with me over Facebook Chat. Sorry, won’t do it. I follow the exact same protocol for online chatting as I do for texting. I won’t entertain arguments or attacks unless they are taken up on the phone or in person. Again, those transcripts last forever and more importantly, context and tone are lost in text discussions.  If you have to hide behind a computer or behind a phone keypad to get your point across, you are not right for me.

Twitter is another social media outlet that can allow people to take a childish route at taking shots at someone. I think I am a prime candidate for this type of ribbing simply because I am a Twitter nut. People know I am addicted to the medium and that I do follow what is going on.

This summer I had one girl who I had this long distance type deal with.  She had recently gotten a Twitter account and had less than a handful of followers.  She knew I got her tweets delivered to my text message inbox. We had stopped talking but then all of a sudden one night I got a general tweet from her saying she needed a guy who was not “always winning.” If you know me, you get that. Anyways, it infuriated me. I let her know about it, I was probably too harsh on her, but it just explains how little tolerance I have for this type of stuff. She promptly deleted her Twitter account. We have since made amends and are friends.

I also had one girl totally misconstrue a tweet I sent out by changing the wording of my original tweet and sending it out as a retweet! Now how low is that? I had never really even thought of this as a possibility in the Twitter world because it is just so mischievous.

One night I was hanging out with a  girl for like only the second or third time and she sends out a hashtag that read “#stupidboysday” (or something like that) during a dumb argument we were having…I got the Tweet in the middle of our little dispute. The same girl a couple months later then sent out a Tweet to all of her followers that contained the same personal attacks on me that she was flooding my text message inbox with. I would not respond to the text messages so she decided to tweet the message to get my attention.

There is a reason why I primarily date older girls. They are just more mature, less self-obsessed, and way beyond the urge to cast out all of their feelings for the whole world to see. Again, while I believe girls participate in social media bashing much more than guys, I also know that the majority of girls don’t participate in it at all.

Social media is a cheap and slimy way to stick it to someone. Use SM to network, promote your brand, follow your interests, keep in touch, etc…..don’t use it to settle a score. When it comes to relationships, treat them with respect, even if they are broken. Social media does not do them justice. Although it definitely is harder, seek out the person and  talk to them face-to-face. It is the right  thing to do. Don’t Blink.

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