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Dealing With Self-Appointed Internet and Social Media “Police”

by David M. Doolin, PhD on January 22, 2010

(Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes)

Here’s how you deal with emotional issues of getting tooled by self-appointed arbiters of the internet and the new social media applications. That is, when you get “policed” by the chattering classes.

First, let’s examine how the real world works. Consider:

Fact: If Brad Pitt does it, he’s cool.
Fact: If you do the same thing, you’re a chump (putting it nicely).

A large number of people tout social media tools as breaking down barriers to communication between people.

A real, and very chilling side effect: you’re never more than a few clicks away from being ostracized.

When your every move, every piece of communication is subject to world-wide, public social scrutiny… you’re back in high school. Or worse.

As in high school, if you can’t score points, keep your mouth shut (fingers away from the keyboard) and focus on what you do best.

This is as old as the internet. Go back and read through some of the usenet flame wars for historical examples.

Here’s another example, a bit of hurt feelings in blogistan back at the dawn of sponsored tweets. In my opinion, both parties are being silly here. Matt Cutts needs no reason to follow or unfollow people. Shoemaker shouldn’t care one way or another.

Here’s concrete action you can take when you’re too emotionally wrapped around social media:

Close your feed.
Unfollow everyone not in your audience.
If anyone bitches, they can just unfollow you. Or block them.
Go do something else for a while. Like walk the dog. Or tell your mother you love her. Or both. I guarantee it will make you feel better.

I post publicly on twitter as @websiteweekend, my current business brand. You can also find me on twitter as @doolin, which is a very private, blocked feed. If I don’t know you personally, I won’t accept your request to follow me.