Just a reminder not to be stupid
So, the other night, I was out having a drink with my good friend, Bethany (who is about to be FAMOUS – but more on that later) – when I noticed this guy looking in my direction…and laughing.
Often enough, I think people are out to get me – I think it’s a little-sister-of-two-big-brothers complex - so I gave him a pointed look and asked him what the hell was so funny.
Of course, he wasn’t looking, or laughing, at me – he was looking at the sanctuary candle with a picture of the last Pope (as in not the current, German one) on it. You see, Bethany had ordered this drink called Holy Water and the ingredients are: Green tea vodka, St. Germaine and lemon juice – with a sanctuary candle on the side. The candle might have a picture of the baby Jesus or the Virgin Mary or, in this case, the Pope. (And the drink is delicious to the max.)
“Oooohhh,” I said. And tried not to look like an asshole.
And then he asked me why I was so grumpy. And I told him that he didn’t know me well enough to call me grumpy. And I said, ‘What if I’m not grumpy? What if this is just my natural state? Wouldn’t you feel like a jerk?”
He said he didn’t think it was my natural state, so he wasn’t worried – and then told me he was grumpy, too. Something about some cowboy at work who goes off and runs wild, gets himself into impossible situations and then needs my new ‘friend’ to help him out – even while he’s on vacation.
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I work for AT&T,” he said.
I refrained from saying something nasty, and instead implored, “And what do you do for AT&T?”
And he just gave me this ‘lips sealed’ kind of look.
“What?” I said. And his girlfriend piped up, “He could tell you, but then he’d have to kill you.” Which he didn’t appreciate at all.
And then my earlier refraining was lost. “What? Do you chase after people who leave AT&T for Verizon because of all the dropped calls and break their kneecaps or something?”
He was totally not amused and made several off-color remarks about how I have a big red mappy network thing hanging over my head. “Listen,” he said. “Call someone and say, ‘I’m going to k**l the Pr****ent’ and watch what happens. But don’t really do that, okay? It’s not pretty.” (See, he made me wicked paranoid, I can’t even bring myself to say those words in this post – which is not part of the AT&T network.)
“Are you serious?”
“Totally.”
“AT&T listens to phone conversations?”
“…and texts and emails. And it’s not just AT&T, don’t kid yourself. We have it all, everything you’ve sent or typed into your phone.”
I guess I knew this on some level – Patriot Act and all that – but I’ve been busy blocking it out. “I suppose this should make me feel safer.”
“As long as you’re not stupid,” he said. And then he bought us a round of drinks – I’m guessing because he felt guilty for all the eavesdropping…and the dropped calls.
Filed under Myth or Reality, News | Tags: at&t, cell phones, email, holy water, privacy, text, verizon | Comments (23)Dealing with hate online
What is going on? Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I’ve watched the Hate Meter rise. One of those times, it was disturbingly turned on me in reaction to a post I wrote, but the horror of it really supersedes the target. Hate is just nasty. There’s no way around it. And social media seems to breed its own brand, or maybe it’s the same old, same old – just wearing a new dress. A new dress getting soaked in a shit storm.
Why people hate
I’ve got to say it seems to boil down to these three things:
- Insecurity
- Fear
- Need for attention
Social media, for worse in this scenario, offers people a filter. They can and do behave in ways that they would probably never behave in real life. No one can see them, they don’t have to look into a person’s eyes and see their heart and soul. They can hide behind their computer screen armed with 26 letters and some exclamation marks.
How they hate
Social Media is so vast that it gives the haters quite the array of options:
- Social networking, such as Twitter. They can bring someone down swiftly by tweeting something nasty to their followers, pushing the retweet or carrying on in public (@reply) conversations.
- Video. This makes them seem bold, when really they’re hurling their hate at a camera, not an actual person.
- Blogs. Let me count the ways. They can write their own nasty post or leave horrid comments on someone else’s.
- Email. Start a hate campaign, make it juicy, add pictures and it will go viral.
- Forums. How fun to start a hate thread!
The Umbrella: What to do about it
In the face of social media hate, you have some choices to make:
- Fight back. Now this seems like a good idea at first, doesn’t it. ‘How dare s/he say that about me!’ Believe me, I understand that you’re raring to go. But, just like my older brothers who teased me relentlessly, this is what the hater wants. They’re baiting you. So…
- Silence is really an incredible option. Bite your tongue, dog’s chew toy, a towel. Walk away from your computer. Channel George Clooney and do not engage. (if you got that joke, you get a gold star)
- Block ‘em. You have the right to block people from your blog and your networks. You do not need to be harassed on your own ‘domain’ – so to speak. I’m not suggesting that you block or censor naysayers. Differing opinions are great and add a lot to the conversation. But hate and violence are not to be tolerated.
- Find an outlet. Friends, trusted colleagues, your mom. Rant to them. Let them love you and tell you it’s okay. Have them remind you of how wonderful you are and how batshit insane the hater is. If you can, invite them all to an email party – let the stream of love and fun ensue. The hater is left to hate alone in silence while you’re all having a lovefest.
- Depend on your peeps. Watch with glee as your readers go to the mattresses for you – defending, talking back, throwing themselves in front of you like the iron clad shields that they are.
- Rise above. Go do something that puts you back on track. Write a killer post. Retweet good people. Make a donation. Hang with your family. Don’t forget that you are better than this hater and their hateful stink. Hate can be like quicksand, don’t get pulled down into it. Don’t believe it, don’t invite it in.
- Be careful. If this hater is really scaring you or making serious threats, do not hesitate to take it directly to the police. Don’t forget to document and save all correspondence. Not only emails, but screen shots of tweets, forum posts, etc.
Don’t forget that the ‘world’ is watching. Oftentimes the hater is just making a fool out of their own sorry self. If you keep your wits about you and do the right thing, your social media value and reputation will only go up – and so will your self-preservation. Now, go on with your bad self…and make love, not war.
Image credit: Kayepants
Filed under How To, Social Media | Tags: email, Julie Roads, social media, social media ettiquette, social media hate, social networking, Twitter, Writing Roads | Comments (11)email & web 2.0 obsession
I’m going to do my damnedest to write this entire post without being wooed away by the buzzes and beeps of my email, Skype, Twitter (and on and on) accounts. If I can do it (oh no, there’s an email now!), you all owe me $5.
Does anyone else have this problem? (oh! another one! This is painful.) I’m trying to write a post, an article, a website – and my email is beeping at me, my phone is buzzing at me, Twitter is tweeting at me, Facebook is dinging at me. The desire to go running to each of these calls is immense. It’s my curiousity…and just a wee bit of ADD. But, all in all, it’s pretty classifiable as an addiction – I jones for the information behind the techno alert, literally. I get high off the fast pace set by my fingers, eyes and brain as I cruise from page to page on my browser and from app to app on my computer.
I’m completely convinced that if I could do what many experts, like Tim Ferriss and Stephen Covey, suggest, I would be much more productive. I’m already pretty gosh darn effective, so just imagine what I could get done in a single hour, let alone a day, if I just stayed put?!
They recommend, in their own ways, that you only check these connective activities 2-3 times PER DAY. And that you schedule these times and stick to the schedule. Whoa….the willpower that would take.
I’m making a pros and cons list:
Pros of only checking email, Twitter, phone, etc. 2-3 times per day
- Increase in productivity
- Greater concentration
- Calmer atmosphere
- Calmer mind (unless I’ve gone mad wondering what I’m missing)
- Less distraction
Cons of only checking email, Twitter, phone, etc. 2-3 times per day
- What if Oprah emails me and says I only have one hour to get back to her, but I’m not due to check my email for another 3 hours?
- I’m already shaking, and I’ve only been practicing this for 15 minutes
- Back to #1, what if I miss something really important?
- I’ll miss the frenetic pace of moving here, here, here and here – in moments.
- By the time I get to check my email, there will be a billion stacked up.
Hmmmmm….this is very interesting. Although every fiber in my being doesn’t want to go to the 2-3 times per day schedule, my only real reasons for staying with my current practices are my addiction and this completely 8th grade fear that I’m going to miss out on something.
If you read the two lists, you can see that the pros list reads slower, more peacefully, it’s almost elegant. The cons list reads like Chicken Little on crack and with an exaggeration problem. I didn’t do that on purpose – I just reread what I wrote and it became painfully clear.
Maybe I’ll try it for a week…but I’ll have to warn all of my clients because they’re used to immediate feedback. Can the world really wait 3 hours for me? This is insanity. You are all witness to a madwoman. And what about meetings? Will I have to schedule my meetings around my email checking times?
Listen, for all of you snickering out there, I don’t eat white sugar or flour, I don’t drink, smoke or do drugs, I’m terrified of internet porn (just look what happened to Duchovny), my 2 year-olds make knitting impossible….this online, internet, emailing mass of activity is my vice (and, funny enough, my profession).
FYI, there have been 20 Twitter updates, 8 emails, 2 phonecalls and 8 Facebook updates in the 30 minutes I’ve been working on this post…and I never veered off the page. And, will you look at that, I feel pretty calm, pretty good. I can check this task off my list.
Eureka! Maybe my own personal answer is this: it doesn’t have to be 2-3 times per day, but I have to abstain per each project. I like that. I’ll get each project done with total concentration, no distractions. My reward is a check into my online social/work world. Nothing will get too backed up (which would only cause further stress.)
I’m psyched and I’m officially starting now…oh, and you all owe my $5.
Anyone else dealing with this? Any good or proven bad solutions?
Filed under Critical Copywriting, How To, Networking | Tags: copywriting, email, freelancer, Julie Roads, marketing writer, online social networks, time management, Writing Roads | Comments (8)
