Twitter Abuse

Everybody has stories like this to tell. It really isn't special, and as far as abuse on Social Media goes, it probably was of the more harmless variety. Well, definitely - because murder and rape threats didn't come into it by any stretch.

But just because you didn't get threatened with rape...does that already make it harmless? Did you therefore get away lightly? Why should it not be possible to contradict somebody about a reading of an article in The Guardian of all places? Why should it not be permissable to defend the author of an article against blatantly absurd readings? Why should one not be allowed to point out what the author "really" meant, especially when it's done in a polite and non-offensive way? Is that already showing  too much female uppityness when dealing with a twitter-male? A twitter-male who has a lot of like-minded mates whom he is ready and willing to summon as back-up via copious RT's: "Look at 'er - getting above 'erself, having an opinion when I expressly stated what's what!"

I'm no shrinking violet on twitter, I don't withdraw into my mousehole just because some fat, bald uneducated male tells me to do so. On twitter, you learn to deal with people who think just because they're invisble, they can dish it out. And in my experience, the best thing is to look those people squarely in the eye and hit back. As soon as they feel your fear all hell breaks lose. Because, make no mistake  those people are without exception pathetic, deficient men (yes, men) with an inferiority complex. On Social Media they feel empowered, they feel nobody can beat them (unlike their daily experiences in real life where they probably have to kowtow, buckle and scrape).

So, it isn't as if I was dumbfounded by this particular reaction, not as if I didn't have my defences in place. I hit back, of course I did. With the sort of thin sneer which drives men like that into paroxysms of fury. They would kill you then if they were physically there. But they're not.

So far, so bad. But it made me think: Is it all really worth it? Is it worth my time defending freelance Guardian writers at the cost of getting abuse form a totally irrelevant person whom I don't know and will (fortunately) never meet? Why bother? Why tweet? I don't tend to get abuse in my daily life, I don't have encounters with pond life telling me off, telling me what's what. So...why go online to meet abusers, clueless, hapless human beings with a huge rage, a sense of entitlement and an axe to grind?

I don't know, but I don't think it's fundamentally a good idea. I will have to think about it. But it definitely can't carry on like that.

Intercultural Differences in Social Media Usage

Recently, I've taken to posting about half my twitter and Facebook messages in German. The majority of my folllowers is located in Britain, but Germans are the second largest group. I'd published some articles in German-speaking media, and after all - hey, I live in Germany!

So I feel qualified to tell you about some striking differences in German vs. British social media usage.

The first result (after about 2 weeks) was that my Klout score went down a whole point. (Let's leave aside the undoubted dubiousness of Klout, but in terms of pure numerics it can be trusted.) This prompted me to do my own research into the matter.

In the interest of easy access to my findings, I will abandon the narrative form and present my findings in bullet-point form.

• German twitter/facebook users are organised tribally. They often know each other personally and then form Social Media nuclei.

• A big reason for Social Media usage is to organize "Meet-ups" and get-togethers". Whilst these obv. exist everywhere, the German interest in them can almost be called obsessive.

• German users group themselves locally. Once you found acceptance into one such town/region circle, many other users will follow you. Membership has to be "proven" via heritage, immense interest in the region, or - best of all - personal acquaintance.

• German Social Media users are (in my experience) predominantly male. There are of course females but they tend to be even more tightly knit by interest or locality.

• A (at least for me) slightly off-putting feature of German female SM usage is the tendency to give oneself childish, overly sugary "kuschelige" nicknames. ("Wuschelchen" etc.)
  

• Internet technology is German male users' prime topic. (You might think this characteristic for men the world over, but it's definitely not true for British male social media users).

• Interaction is mostly limited to these tech subjects. Even the shared regionality serves more as a form of glue than an actual topic of communication.

• Germans hardly ever do RT's.
  

• If there are RT's these are limited to notifications about meet-ups. Thereby serving as a sort of "Flüsterpost" - an internal network.

• Germans (again this applies to males) are more prone to using Foursquare than other nations. There are users who hardly ever post anything but a Foursuare notification.

• A good number of Germans only post deliberately "absurd", out of context posts, and don't follow anybody. Again, like the Foursquarers, this inhibits any sort of dialogue and reverts back to an old "Read Only" profile.
  

I am refraining from interpreting these findings. I merely wanted to take the subject of Interculturalism which so often hangs in yesterday's world of "The are so polite, The English" into a more up-to-date context.