Dealing Negatively and Why I don’t care if you un-friend, un-follow, or sell me

August 8th, 2011 § 2 comments

Un-friend, un-follow, and sell are the negative sides to Facebook, Twitter and Empire Avenue, respectively. Each of these shows that it is possible to give your vote in Social Media without actually saying anything. This is a lot like the theory that “you vote when you shop, by not buying Jiffy you say that you don’t like Jiffy”.  My questions is though, why does it matter to me if you stop following me?  (or why do I like honey more than jelly with my peanut butter?)

For brevity’s sake I will use “follow” to refer to friending, liking, following, buying, or selling from now on.

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t really care if you stop following me. This is not because I am a heartless bastard, which you probably now think I am, it is because your un-follow doesn’t change anything for me. Ok, it is possible that you could have been the next million dollar deal maker in my life and changed my bank account forever – but if you are that fickle about me you wouldn’t feel comfortable with me holding your cash.  I would hope that my work speaks for itself, despite who I am or am not online.

As long as there has been social interaction, there has been a discussion about what it means when someone stops following you.”Why isn’t the hot girl in Calculus talking to me anymore?” Yes, there were hot girls in my Calc classes in High School and College.  Was it because I was a year younger than everyone in my class? Was it because I was socially awkward and emotionally unstable in High School? Does it really even matter now?

Answers: Probably. Probably. No, but I am probably am “friends” with them on FB now.

On certain days Social Media and the people who are involved seem nothing more than those curiously passionate friends in High School that would walk right up to you and say, “You didn’t <insert asinine reason here>, so we can’t be friends anymore”. Only with Social Media, it seems that people are saying, “If you don’t follow me, I am not going to follow you.” Take that! Damn, I am so offended because you obviously care so much about our social connection that you are willing to throw it away for what could be something as small as an oversight on my part.

Yes, I hope that people stay happy with me but I cannot expect that everyone is going to agree with me all the time.  I am going to offend someone out there when I bring up dinosaurs, evolution, the fact that I am not particularly into religion, that I don’t want to listen to political pundits, that I believe that we actually did walk on the moon, or that “me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbert.”*  It’s OK that you don’t agree with me or like what I say. If you want to stop following me or stop talking to me, great! That is totally your choice and I am proud of you for exercising your right to that choice. I exercise my right to that choice every day.

The problem I have, and the reason I am even writing all this drivel, is that so many people dwell on the negative and deal in the negative every single day. With social interaction, whether personal or impersonal, if you are negative then you breed negativity. If you say something negative, the next guy is going to talk about what you said and share your negativity with someone else.  Your negativity may effect someone’s attitude, which gets projected to someone else as “Man, that guy is having a bad day” or “What the fuck!? That asshole just cut me off!”.  This gets people no where, just like dwelling on whether someone follows you back or not. Obviously, I am never going to watch That 70′s show again, because Ashton won’t follow me back on Twitter.  What an asshole.

The reason I love Social Media (and the internet) is because it gives me the opportunity to find out about new people, get exposed to things I have never even dreamed possible or likely, and have real discussion with people that I would never have met otherwise.  There are tons of great ways to be involved in Social Media and there are millions of people out there with who to interact. If 1, 100, or even 1000 people don’t care for you – Screw ‘em. It doesn’t matter, you will find more people out there. If you can’t find more people, then maybe you should try something else.

You can un-follow me here:

http://twitter.com/mbernier

http://facebook.com/mkbernier

http://empireavenue.com/mbernier – lots more links here, please vote with your un-follows!

 

 

*A quote from Super Troopers, one of my favorite movies.

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    • Liz Pullen

      Matt, I’m not convinced. It sounds like you actually care a lot and you’re trying to convince yourself that you don’t. 

      I don’t care who you are, no one likes to feel that they’ve been rejected. It could be the folks who have these petty tirades saying that you aren’t following them are being foolish and taking themselves too seriously. It also sounds like you’ve decided, by choice, not to care what other people do. But the head doesn’t dictate what the gut & the heart feels.

      • http://mkbernier.com Matt Bernier

        I care about people who I have a true relationship with, people who choose to put a relationship on the line because I clicked a button or an image on a website obviously don’t understand the meaning of “relationship”.

        I am not going to do business with someone because they “liked” me on Facebook, I will do business with them because we have talked on the phone or met in person and I think that our relationship could flourish and that we will do good business together.

        If I enjoy what someone is saying and what they do online or offline, then I will engage them and become friends with them. If I don’t I won’t.  If someone chooses to not “friend” me, I don’t mind. That is their choice.

        I have spent too much of my time wondering why someone doesn’t like me or won’t talk to me. Sometimes they have a genuine reason.  If they approach me about what’s up I am always happy to discuss and possibly learn from them. Sometimes people have no reason, sometimes they are too busy, or too self-involved and I am not able to meet their standards. Oh well.

        What I refuse to do is sit here and think about every person on Twitter or Empire Avenue who I follow/buy who doesn’t return the favor. I am getting what I need out of the connection and they are getting what they need. I may attempt to engage them, if they return the favor then great. If they don’t, I am not going to sit on my couch and cry about it. I will move on with my life, like I would hope so many people online would do.

        Your online presence is only an extension of who you are as a person, it should not define you. I will not compromise who I am for a meaningless relationship, but I will go out of my way for a meaningful one.

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