Slashdot Mirror
Social Media and the Age of Microcomplaints (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: "Name an inequity, and it is highly likely that social media has helped call meaningful attention to it, if not started and hashtagged a movement," claims the NY Times. The article suggests people are much more willing to complain about meaningless issues now that they have a public audience. "The smartphone in particular has facilitated extemporaneous caviling. Irritations that the passage of time may have soothed can, in the moment, be immediately expressed to an audience." Further, an aggrieved social media post can lend more weight to a minor problem than the author ever intended, or than it deserved. An offhand tweet can lead to a nationwide media frenzy as people who aren't connected with a complaint's author lack perspective and emotional context for it.
The day my life became amazing was the day I realized that people spend far, far, far less time thinking about me as I do thinking about how they think about me.
Microcomplaints may make a mountain out of a mole hill, but it may also give management (or at least someone higher up the food chain) and opportunity to earn back business.
Several years ago I ordered a mattress online at Sam's club. I waited for it to be delivered. And waited. And waited. After missing several dates it turns out that their vendor screwed up the order and it never even went into manufacturing despite being told that it had really been shipped. None of the CSRs at Sam's club or the vendor really cared about me or gave me any options other than keep waiting. Walmart Corporate got a hold of me after I posted several microcomplaints online and satisfied my situation much in my benefit within a few hours. Instead of losing my business forever (especially since a Costco just recently opened, they earned it back).
Like those tweets last year that kicked off the biggest video game moral panic since Columbine? Or would Slashdot prefer to keep singing that tune?
Social media has created a new scary norm where that "nationwide media frenzy" (mob mentality) is the prosecutor, jury, and judge and your employer's fear of reputational risk is the executioner.
It doesn't matter if you are right or wrong. Logic doesn't apply - only perception management.
The new, widely-embraced form of discrimination is having an opinion different than that of the mob. Our laws need to adjust to form adequate civil protections.
Back in the early 90s when websites were just being created and foisted upon us (yes, kids, there was an Internet (long) before there was a slashdot!) a funny and insightful friend said this, "I don't know about this new World Wide Web thing. It's going to make people think they're a resource." Blogs are one realization of her forecast. I see social media (and all the crap that goes on it) as another form of it.
Did she ever call *that* one!
Jason Van Patten
Meh. For him to make this comment suggests that he thinks the other six attacks were irrelevant. Had he said that this was an attack on western civilization/values/activities/way-of-life I would agree with him. Where was he when Charlie Hebdo was attacked? The fact that a concert was attacked is irrelevant. It was a large soft target that happened to coincide with an exhibition soccer game and Friday night recreational activities when nobody had their guard up.
Said the man, oops, the person, whose idea of "articulating" a point is to add curse-words to his/her/its/their speech.
I don't need no negro's permission to say "negro", thank you very much. The word simply means "black" — as in "Negro Lives Matter" — and, incidentally, that's exactly, how Blacks are called in Ukrainian, Russian, and a whole host of other languages. It is perfectly neutral.
Oh, wow, maybe, you are articulate, after all! In one phrase you managed to violate all the rules:
I'm going on a hunger strike in protest — until Slashdot editors apologize and resign for fostering an environment, which allowed you to mentally-rape me with your angry speech. Safe Zone! Safe Zone! Safe Zone!!! Please don't hate...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.