Last week, I did an interview with Christopher Gabriel on WDAY about online anger (you can hear it here). He asked me, specifically, about some angry tweets that he labeled “drive-by nasties.” These are tweets or Facebook posts where the author doesn’t attempt to have a dialogue or any sort of civil discourse but, rather, just says something cruel or hurtful and disappears.
I took a look today and found a couple of examples (I didn’t have to look very hard).
A tweet about the economy from President Obama was met with this.
A Guardian Facebook post about Hillary Clinton was met with this (note how many times it was “liked” as well).
A Huffington Post Facebook post about Washington state’s new marijuana law that says that you can’t sell anything that may appeal strongly to kids was met with this.
And even a Huffington Post Facebook post with cute pictures of dogs and babies was met with this.
I’ve addressed online anger plenty here but these are particularly interesting because the authors don’t seem to want to have a discussion. In many cases, people responded to these posts but the authors didn’t respond back. It’s not that they were trying to start a fight, necessarily. It’s more that they just want to unload without having to deal with the consequences.
So what are these drive-bys all about?
It seems like there are a couple of thing going on. Obviously, we have people who are angry, judgmental, and disproving. They are upset about something and they want to let the world know about it. That’s actually a lot of people, though, and most of us don’t take to Twitter or Facebook to tell people off and then run away from the conflict that follows. What really stands out here is that they don’t want to be challenged in response. They want to be heard but they don’t want to listen.
I can’t help but wonder if at the root of these is a lack of confidence. They have strong beliefs but don’t really feel comfortable in defending those beliefs. People who feel secure in their positions are willing to stick around and discuss them. It’s likely insecurity that drives people away from the post-comment argument.
It’s unfortunate because social networking provides such great potential to have real conversations about complex issues. It could be (and is) used to bring smart people together from across the globe to discuss and solve problems. We can’t do that, though, if people continue to use it as dumping ground for their disapproval and frustration.
Great post, Ryan! It’s the same crowd we see in talk radio. The folks who, instead of a serious discourse on a topic where views are disparate, they go straight to a personal insult or a disparaging and dismissive comment… and move on. No one at our end is losing sleep over their angst. But the possibility for a deeper exploration of something, be it bullying, education reform, DUI legislation, healthcare, etc. goes out the window.