Commenting on social media & people that think they know better

Commenting on social media is how online communities are built, most of them positive, but it’s also full of people that think they know better, who take the power of freedom of speech too literally and this is one of my pet peeves.

Commenting on social media

Commenting on social media

In life, there will always be people that know more than you do, for whatever reason they just have a more in-depth knowledge about something(s) that you don’t and is totally fine.  I’m talking about the people who spend time commenting on social media posts that turn personal and rude, either about the content creator, the subject of the content, or each other.

I love that social media creates these new communities of virtual friendships but in equal measure, it brings vast quantities of hate. My key concern are about those commenting on social media who are probably well meaning, but cross the line into rude.

Admittedly, anyone that creates content -myself included- rightly or wrongly opens themselves up for criticism, both good and bad. If it’s constructive, it’s welcome and just like at work, you learn from it and it helps shape future output.

Like many of you probably reading this, I subscribe to quite a long list of YouTube channels, no doubt the same ones as you. I don’t comment on the videos but I will often scroll down to see what others have said.

Mostly it’s lots of “I love you’s” if it’s the likes of Zoella, Tanya Burr etc. but every now and again you’ll get the odd comment that seems to cut through the charm and gets personal. Some peoples audacity amuses me but what’s concerning is when those comments concern the creator’s appearance and/or life which for the person commenting on social media, has no right to do.

For example, a few weeks ago I was watching one of Lily Pebbles’s videos and a viewer made a comment about her eyebrows. This resulted in a couple of others joining in on the conversation, delighted that someone had finally commented on something apparently they all felt needed saying.

Fortunately, Lily intervened and said that actually she likes her eyebrows exactly how they are and I just sat their staggered that people could be so unnecessarily rude.

I know that in western society, for the most part we are blessed with freedom of speech and commenting on social media is a good platform for engaging in conversation. The Lily Pebbles example was just one of many I could pull for the purpose of this post and just one of many, many genres and types of content out there for people to watch and provide opinion on.

But seriously, people need to wind their necks in and not spend so much time commenting on social media on things that literally are of no business to them. How a person presents themselves on camera, writes a post, arranges a photo etc. is up to them.

Just because they aren’t doing something the way you would do it, doesn’t mean it is being done wrong. By all means make a suggestion, but keep it constructive.

Thoughts?

Until next time x

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