Sometimes on social sharing sites and social networks, there are deviants – the “rebels” who set out just to make your life a little more miserable. Granted, it’s not so much that they are bad folks (I’m sure that in real life they volunteer at soup kitchens and work with after school programs), but when they provide or comment on links to articles, their dark side comes out.
So here we are once again, discussing netiquette and all the nasty things that come with it. Today, I’m not here to tell you how to make online friends. I’m here to show you how to avoid having any of them.
Keeping Up That Blogspam
If there’s anything that folks absolutely love, it’s blogspam. In fact, and I don’t know about you, but I for one wish they would actually make a breakfast cereal called Blogspam. I’d eat it every single morning. There’s nothing quite like clicking a link in a comment only to discover that there’s only about a paragraph of the article I want to read. I hope the owner of the site earned lots of ad revenue for it!
But really, blogspam isn’t cool, and if you do it, you should be ashamed. What would your mother think?
Reposting My Stuff As Your Own
All it takes is a nice dish of plagiarism to really make your day fantastic. It’s so exciting, right? Sometimes, what I’ll do is copy and paste a sentence into Google from one of my MUO articles only to discover a plethora of other sites that have copied and pasted the entire thing. Granted, it’s not so bad if they actually link back to the original, but come on – really?
Furthermore, folks sometimes do the same exact thing with comments on social sharing sites – “This looks hilarious! I wonder if they’ll notice if I say it in an entirely different thread…”
Showing Off Those Superior Grammar Skills
“Grammar Nazi” is such a cliché term, but the act of being one is fairly cliché itself. It’s high time that these individuals be recognized for their services to the Internet, right? Well… no. Not really.
Grammar Nazi-ing never exactly contributes to the conversation (unless it aids in saving Grandpa), and I believe that it is now common knowledge that typos exist, and this is due to the modern-day individual whose mind is constantly whirring. Basically, with all the information that is coming in and going out, I think that folks should give a little lee-way when it comes to online grammar.
Besides, if an article or comment has great grammar throughout its entirety, and there is one minor slip-up, there really shouldn’t be much fuss – “You used the wrong ‘to’; therefore, your argument is invalid.”
Demonstrating Just How Intellectual You Are
I see this way too often with comments. Sometimes, people write their opinions in plain talk. Take me, for instance. I don’t like to use a whole lot of big words or lengthy statements, and this carries over into everything I write – including comments. However, there are folks who like to respond with comments that appear as if they have sat down for hours with a thesaurus just to make themselves appear smarter than you.
I mean, it’s great that you have such a delicious vocabulary, but it’s also quite obvious you are only using it as a means to degrade someone. Not cool, man. Not cool.
Conclusion
So there we have it, folks – four ways to avoid making friends on the Internet. All you really have to do is play nice, though. We could actually be friends, in that case….
What other ways can you avoid making friends on the Internet? How do you typically try to make friends online?
Image Credit: kakisky, Urban Dictionary, KnowYourMeme
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