Haven’t we all heard the phrase, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all?”
It is a rule we should all try and follow closely although the internet, especially the instant-gratification personality of social media, can cause extreme carelessness. When we are bombarded by literally hundreds of emails, articles, Tweets and status updates each day, it is easy to forget that there are real people involved.
Case in point, I have been a member of Meetup.com’s Tennis Group for several years. As a member, I have participated in a few events and received the organizational emails and responses. One thing about Meetup.com’s default setting – when one person replies to a Group email, everyone is copied. This issue can be fixed by changing your default settings which will control the flow of emails. As one can imagine, if you do not change the default setting, you can receive 70+ emails is one day!
One (self-proclaimed new) member sent a nasty email to the entire group about this large volume of emails and accused everyone of being dumb or inconsiderate since she was getting hundreds of emails sent to her work address.
Without dwelling on why she would use her work address for a personal activity, suffice it to say, she received plenty of feedback and none of it was nice. Imagine my surprise last weekend when a new girl showed up for a local Meetup event. As she proceeded to boss the players around, a jokester asked if she was the one who sent the spiteful email the previous week.
Guess what her answer was? Guess again if she is welcome at future events?
My point for the anecdote is this one – in the virtual world, it is very easy to be brave and rail on others because it is faceless. Or, lose control and your temper because you are having a bad day. Would this girl have stood in front of a crowd of 200 strangers and told them off? Accused each one of them of being stupid? I highly doubt it but she did its online equivalent and received the same sort of playground justice.
How many times have you wanted to respond to someone’s ignorant or downright cruel comment or posting? Or, remind them that you’re smarter or know more about a specific topic? My advice – take the high road and let it go. Not only will you look like the bigger person in the long run but also you just might have someone to play tennis with!
Quick shout-out to the Plaid Racquet, the best tennis shop in the world and first place I ever worked.
