I used to have a bad, bad problem with putting my foot in my mouth.
I mean really bad. I’ve asked fat women if they’re pregnant, inquired about the status of dead spouses, and mocked the developmentally disabled for being drunk.
And I’m a nice guy. I genuinely meant no ill will. But due to circumstances that I wasn’t able to perceive, I was left looking like, for want of a better term, a total jackass.
Check that. There is no better term for want of.
But, just so people understand, I’m not malicious, or stupid. It’s just that, when your foot goes into your mouth, you look both malicious and stupid.
Now imagine reliving that one embarrassing moment when your toes pass your teeth and your foot lodges ankle deep in your primary speaking orifice forever, with thousands of people watching. They share your horrible experience as an example to others on behavior and ettiquite. Did I mention that this moment lives on forever?
Oh. Yes I did. Twice. In italics.
So here’s a tip that my social inept brain learned to send my social media brain: be quiet.
Quiet solves so many problems, it’s amazing there isn’t more empty space on the internet. But that’s a question for another post.
The gist here is that, just because you have a cursor, it doesn’t mean you have to curse. Er, speak. There are some rules of thumb to remember in social media concerning the sound of silence…
No One Looks Good In A Fight On The Internet Notice how movie villains always have the polite lines in the evil scenes? There’s a reason for that. The context around what they’re saying makes them darker. Thing is, the internet rids speech of context. There’s no inflection, and there isn’t enough text in social media to give context to speech (It’s why people use emoticons, BTW). That’s why, when arguments happen on the internet, it’s so easy for others to ridicule. Avoid arguing online.
The Internet Is A Great Place To Have An Opinion And it’s a terrible place to tell someone that they’re wrong. Part of it, again, is context. The other part of it is space. People have social media space, just as they have personal space. You wouldn’t get all up in someone’s grill, as the common parlance has it. So don’t do it online.
Better To Remain Quiet And Be Thought A Jackass than to start typing and remove all doubt. It’s an old saying right? Well, how do you think sayings get old? They’re true. And online, it goes back to that whole forever thing. If you say something inappropriate, it eventually gets forgotten (usually. certain restrictions apply). But if you post something inappropriate, it’s out there for as long as you’re online. Longer.
The echo chamber of the internet sounds the loudest when it says this one word: Listen.
