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10 Types of Social Media Commenters
I opened a Facebook account years ago in order to keep up with family living in various places across the country. It’ll be fun, they said. And at first, it was. Pictures, events, recipes and everyone’s morning coffee have been shared on this venue, for which I am appreciative. It’s gotten pretty dicey at times and I’ve had to remind myself why I am on social media in the first place.
I often wondered why it changed so much but then realized it’s because the world we live in has. We’ve changed with it. Things that matter to us are all plastered on there and it’s no longer about sharing thoughts in our own words. It’s now full of memes, GIFs, political articles, competition, and memories of long ago that we share again in the hopes of remembering what was.
Then I started a Twitter account and kept it private until about a year ago. I wanted to just lay low and see how it was to interact with mostly strangers. Way out of my comfort zone, but I’ve grown to appreciate many in that community of people. There are some very smart people who have gained a following and use it fairly wisely. I use social media more than anyone else in the family, including the teens. They actually see it for what it is and if they want to connect with friends, they do so with texts and phone calls. I could learn a lesson from them.
I have spent many hours on social media, some for work, some in my friends bubble on Facebook and eventually outside of it on Twitter, quietly observing other users mostly in the writing arena in order to get a feel for what it would be like to be a writer whose work would be critiqued, commented on, and hopefully even found to be useful. I’m actually very impressed with how a few of my favorite writers handle (or don’t handle) comments from the masses.
I’ve been afraid to put myself out there in this day and age where everyone gets their news at the speed of light, and in turn can have an opinion on everything from politics to parenting and even some things that have no consequence to one’s existence. This is assuming, of course, that I get a following outside of my bubble.
Let’s be honest; sometimes the comment section on a post is like a car wreck you can’t take your eyes off of. Some of them even make us uncomfortable, because now we are faced with the fact that not everyone sees things the way we do. Sometimes people sit in their own truth, which is the furthest thing from the actual truth. Other times we are closer to agreeing on a issue than we think. It’s been a fascinating year and here are my general observations of the top 10 types of social media commenters, in no particular order.
The Headline Commenter: Many people who comment on news sites I follow read the headlines of articles but never the actual article. They are looking for something to find fault with and the quickest way to do so is to pick a controversial headline, type something irrelevant about the article, and get into conversations with complete strangers about a topic they know nothing about, yet apparently have strong feelings about the seven bolded words that lead up to it. You can figure out who has and who hasn’t read the article as long as you have.
The All Caps Commenter: These folks often get chided for using all caps in a conversation as if their caps lock is stuck. It’s usually older people who have a blank avi (they were called eggs on Twitter, but now they’ve changed the silhouette of the blank avatar to an actual person) and think they have wisdom that no one else has so in order to get their point across the caps come out. I’m all for respecting the elders; as a matter of fact, I pretty much am one now. But nothing says “I’m shouting at you on the internet” quite like the all-caps thing. It also doesn’t make your statement more truthful when you use them. My personal exception to this rule is a cousin of my dad’s, who told me before we started communicating on Facebook that she always types in all caps. No matter what. It’s her signature and I find it amusing.
The Snarky Commenter: I’m all for a little sarcasm. We can’t be serious all the time. There are some really quick-witted people who can comment about a topic and force us to see the humor and ridiculousness in it. I appreciate those people because I am one of them. When there is very little logic being used on one side of an argument, sometimes you just need to point it out in that way. It probably makes the other side more angry, but if they had an actual argument to begin with that wouldn’t be so easy.
The Parroting Commenter: Using phrases like “we the people,” “deplorable,” and “the new normal,” the parroter peppers their comments with catch phrases from talk radio and/or news outlets. They also use the words “global,” “social,” “misogynist,” and “Hitler” a lot. You can usually tell which side of the political spectrum these people are on and how disconnected from actual facts they might be. They mostly let their feelings rule them. Also see: trolls.
The Cursing Commenter: This one drops the f-bomb often, sometimes in abbreviations and acronyms you might have to look up in the urban dictionary to figure out, and those words are becoming more common than the word “the” in a sentence. It used to offend me, but now it’s part of the everyday language on social media so I’m not as taken aback as I was a year ago. Not my style, but it works for some, especially the younger writers. A friend once referred to Twitter as the bathroom wall of social media. I can’t say I don’t agree with that.
The Busy Body Commenter: Because I’ve been a wife for the last 26 years, a Christian, a conservative, a stay-at-home-mom, a homeschool mom, and the furthest thing from a feminist one can get, my life is fodder for controversy. The hilarious thing about it all is that it’s absolutely none of anyone else’s business how I conduct my life. It’s of no consequence to yours and your life is for you to live. Social media has given a voice to anyone with a keyboard and those voices are many times used to pass judgment on our fellow human beings for the absolute dumbest things. Guess what? It will never change my mind to know how some stranger on the internet feels about me teaching my kids at home. Thanks for your concern, though.
The Data Commenter: I, too, know how to Google and look stuff up. These folks post links to charts and data or articles from HuffPo to support their points, but they don’t make an actual point first. They just post the first wiki article that pops up and then expect you read it. If you want to have a conversation, use your own words and thoughts, not someone else’s. It’s pretty simple. Maybe comment first about why you chose the thing you are posting so it can seem relevant.
The Text Commenter: I get there are just 140 characters in a tweet, and now 280 for the select few. But really, the word “you” has just two more letters than “U” and it’s pretty easy to type “to” instead of “2,” unless you are confused about to, too, and two. Type the complete words out and just do another tweet if you run out of room. We shouldn’t have to try to decode the meaning of your post so please just stop. I don’t even read those anymore. But please do keep using emojis. They are useful many times; especially the eyeroll one.
The Logical Fallacy Commenter: These are the people who took debate in high school or read some books on logic and want to impart their wisdom to us all. They point to generalizations, strawmen, red herrings, and the like, after which Google gets a workout from those in the conversation who have no clue what any of that means. My rule, always, is to stay on topic, know your audience, and don’t get personal. That way I won’t have to tell you that you are using an ad hominem. (I was a debate teacher, so….)
And lastly,
The Troll Commenter: They can be spotted a mile away. Many on Twitter are bots now. They are programmed to respond instantly and are never nice or have anything useful to say. They want a response as instantly as they gave theirs. It is the troll’s desire to get attention, even if it’s bad attention. They love to be combative, never stay on topic, are rarely logical, and comment just to get a rise out of people. They are commonly accused of living in their parent’s basements. Don’t feed the trolls.
I’m positive I’ve left someone out. Like the people who just want to make sense of it all. Who are honestly sharing their perspectives on a topic and would like to know more about how other people are thinking and have a legitimate conversation. We are living in a rapidly changing world because of social media. It’s a blessing and a curse. Some just want to reach out to know they aren’t alone trying to navigate a world that makes no sense at times. When I can, I want to be the commenter that lets them know they aren’t. We need more of those.
Published in General
I joined facebook to upload family photos as my kids are kind of scattered. I have some facebook friends who share interests. Some are groups of old warbirds fans and old airplanes of various kinds. I am in a number of USC football groups. Basset hound groups. I have blocked probably 100 political commenters who seem like trolls. I do read a few political posts from commenters I like, like “Wretchard,” Richard Fernandez, who is probably the best informed person I know on the internet. I do post links to interesting articles I see.
I’ve never gotten interested in Twitter. I have a blog which has few commenters anymore as my posting is intermittent, but I post stuff I want to remember. I have old posts about Obama from 2007 and about healthcare, which I know a bit about. I also post on another blog, Chicagoboyz, where we have interesting discussions. Many are about history and such.
I’m the commenter who wasn’t there.
Will anyone be brave enough to list the ten types of Ricochet commenters?
#1-9 Marvelous people
#10 That one guy
Great post, BTW – I was surprised to realize, yes, there are more than 3 types. Or four. No more than four.
The Pouncer – Similar to the Logical Fallacy and Troll commenters, these people will seize upon one particular point, no matter how minor or even relevant, and then beat on you, hammer and tongs, to recant your entire post because you were (or so they say) entirely wrong on that point. No matter how much you defer, deflect, or ignore them, they will magnify their grievance to the point where it attains critical mass and sucks all the life out of whatever discussion you wanted to have.
The Authority – Now you’ve done it, you’ve attracted the attention of the “expert” on whatever topic you’ve posted. They’ll shred your entire post with mockery and derision.
The Ardent – Similar to The Authority, except that they will couch everything in terms of moral castigation instead of factual. You are not merely mistaken, you have sinned against whatever authority they claim and are a very bad person, possibly not even human.
I really resent you singling me out like this.
The drive-by commenter: May even engage in conversation for a while, but simply disappears when a question is asked that throws light on a logical error in his/her (xir?) original assertion.
I have concluded that much on the Internet and social media it just plain obnoxious nagging: “10 things you must do,” “15 things you should never do.” I have an acquaintance who appears to have recovered from cancer by becoming a vegetarian (which I appreciate and am glad for). Now all her posts are about how benighted the rest of us are for eating conventionally.
My brother and sister-in-law who live abroad recently spent a week with us in North Carolina. My sister-in-law told me that she wanted to challenge my 28-yr-old son on Facebook. He says he doesn’t believe in God and frequently posts on Facebook that “believers in God are idiots.” (I believe he is dealing with drug addiction and bipolar disorder.) I told her I had decided not to respond to him “in public.” (I think people forget that challenging others on social media is challenging them in public. I think we forget that responding on Facebook is not the same as personally spending time with someone, conveying the fact that we love them, and privately engaging them about an issue.)
This is actually why I like Ricochet. People are generally nicer and engaging and take the time to think things out and respond to you intelligently.
Uh, sure. Let’s make it a group thing. You start first.
Laura, I joined FB in 2010 to keep in touch with all the people in my life simultaneously. Have been off it for two years.
At first it was fun but it became tiresome and then annoying. A crazy sister used FB to stalk my cousin, the discussions of politics and especially the GIFs and memes are all so pointless.
But the thing that really pissed me off and led to my leaving was all the liberal people who put up the French tricolor as their photo on the day after the Bataclan atrocity. My last post on FB was to the effect of, your putting up the tricolor is meaningless. If you care about muslim terror, stop voting for politicians who facilitate it.
I don’t miss FB a bit. Not one tiny bit.
I joined Facebook to keep up with my kids in college back in (you’ll have to ask Mrs. OS when it was, that’s her area). I enjoyed it for a while, then people decided to turn it into some kind of forum for beating dead horses and attacking anyone who dared to have any opinion differing from their revealed wisdom. Still I never actually stopped using Facebook it just kind of faded to the background. When we joined Ricochet (again check with Mrs. OS if you need a date) it became more and more the place to go for information and interesting commentary. Facebook became something I might check if I had any free time left after catching up at Ricochet. The last time I went to check my Facebook page I couldn’t figure out how to navigate the thing quickly, it had changed that much. So I did something else. I may try again. Or I may not. I did delete their app from my phone as the frequency of notifications was becoming overwhelming for me. And turning them off did no good as they magically turned themselves on again, very irritating.
As to the trolls and stupid comments, I’ve always used what I call the watermelon method: when eating watermelon on my deck I’ve always spit out the seeds. I don’t swallow them as they aren’t good for me. I do the same with curses, irrelevant comments and simple foolishness, I just spit it out. Works for books, too. So I’m not much bothered by it except when it gets to the point that too much time is wasted by such foolishness. Then I just unfriend them, usually after having spent weeks or months skipping over their posts as unhelpful to my general mental health.
If I can get caught up on Ricochet before I run out of time, I may visit Facebook today. Or maybe not.
Kudos, this is the right attitude to have. We homeschooled our kids before it was ‘done’. My grandmother, bless her heart, asked Mrs. OS about twenty times, “Where do you get your books?” “Is it legal?” In those days we had to get our books through a local Christian school as publishers refused to sell to homeschoolers. And, yes, it was legal in Oklahoma thanks to a fortunate clause in the State Constitution. Early homeschoolers in other states had to fight in court and their legislatures for the right to educate their offspring! In America! or Amerika?
Anyway, it was worth the effort in many ways including, for us, financially. Mrs. OS is brilliant (how did she end up marrying me???) and since I contributed recessive genes, two of our boys got Academic Scholarships to OU (National Merit Scholars = full ride including tuition, room and board, fees, everything) which was a nice payback for the lost income and somewhat minor expense involved in homeschooling.
Homeschooling is a lifestyle choice, not for everyone. It has many rewards though. For one thing it enabled our kids to complete their coursework in half days enabling them time to pursue their lifetime interests at a young age. I wouldn’t trade it for the gold standard of private education. Nor would I disparage anyone who chooses differently.
Sadly, I was at times some of these people when I was on facebook. I ditched it a while ago and became a happier person. But these “10 types” seem right on. Nice article.
This was a wonderful and thoughtful Post. Thank you, Laura!
I look at it this way….
#-1-7 Marvelous people
#8-10 Those three guys
I’m sure I can find at least one person for each of Laura’s types.
For the sake of civility I won’t, but I could.
There are only two types of people who post on social media. Those who want to tell you to believe what they believe, and those who don’t. Perhaps the second type knows something that the first type doesn’t – specifically, that nobody has ever changed anyone else’s mind by posting on social media. And that the more vehement and nasty the effort to change minds, the more it will have the exact opposite effect.
This is a fundamental fallacy – one which I have seen made even by experienced lawyers who ought to know better. People seem to believe that if they can demonstrate how strongly they feel about something, others will come around to their point of view. In fact, all this does is throw doubt on the measured rationality of the person who is venting their emotions. It’s just amazing that people keep using this same tactic and, apparently, expecting a different result. Or maybe they don’t actually care about persuading anyone anymore, but just want to reinforce their self-image by virtue signalling.
For my part, I much prefer the gentle sarcasm of a @JamesLileks or Jonah Goldberg, which actually has the potential to make people stop and think. Or at least I hope so.
The former are especially fond of posting links that start with “The one question that destroys [insert position here]”, or similar hyperbolic terms. The people who post these are not interested in debate anyway, only virtue signaling to their own, or shutting up anyone who might disagree.
There is another type of person:
The Meme Poster – No longer seeking either to debate or engage, this person just posts silly or funny pictures as a way to remind their friends “Hey! I’m still alive, but I’m not taking this platform all that seriously any more.”
I might be guilty of that one.
And, of course, every time such a link is posted, the unanswerable question will be answered within 24 hours.
I feel like sharing this video here would be appropriate. Cracks me up every time: Facebook Friends Song.
I worried for a moment that you were going to share the one by Knife Party. No, I’m not going to link to it, it’s not at all CoC compliant. The name “Knife Party” should tell you all you need to know.
Ha ha! I will NOT be looking that up!
Sound move.
Thanks, they really nailed it.
Category Eleven, checking in.
Ditto! It was hilarious!!
You must be RARE. :)
Thank you- means a lot coming from you! So I’ll add: The Real Writer Commenter. :)