Social Me Me Media – Part One – Jerks Use the Internet Too!

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm going to come right out and say something.

I get in fights on the internet.

I'm working on it, I swear. But friends, I'm here to tell you it's an uphill battle.

I joined twitter a couple of years ago. Twitter is a great tool if you want to follow friends and interesting public figures and keep up to date on current events. It's also a great way to YELL at people you disagree with. I don't know why I was compelled to follow every hardline right wing politician and political commentator on the internet, but it wasn't long before I was tweeting stuff like :

Dear @SarahPalinUSA – SHOOTING BABY DEER w HOMEMADE CATAPULTS IS NOT A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT! Pls GO BACK 2 ALASKA.

(For any hardline right wingers currently reading my blog, please note : I am being sarcastic, I actually agree with you about everything. Please still buy my books. – TR)

This kind of thing went on for months. Instead of paying attention to Oprah, Raffi and the Governor General, I fixated on the negative messages that were all too easy to find if you looked for them. My blood pressure soared, and my creative energies were being sapped from paying so much attention to these hateful hateful people.

So I took some drastic measures. I unfollowed all the jerks, and got back to finding out about Lady Gaga's Kraft Cheese Singles™ dress, and the details of David Suzuki's webstreaming lecture series on Sustainable Emu Farming. Almost overnight I noticed an improvement in my mood and my creative output.

Unfortunately, I wasn't out of the woods yet.

Dun Dun Dunnnnn….

The other day I was unfriended on Facebook. It's a long story, but I'll try to give it to you in a nutshell.

A lot of you are probably like me. You found out about Facebook one morning in early 2007, and by the following afternoon you had an account, several photo albums, and people who had bullied you in elementary school were sending you friend requests. During those early days most of us were guilty of the friending binge. You know what I mean – whodoiknow?! whodoiknow?! aretheyonfacebook?! ihavetorememberallthepeopleiknowandfriendrequestthem! facebookfacebook! whodoiknow?!

During those very early days of Facebook I was sent a friend request from a stranger. It was a woman, close to my age, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out who she was. Eventually, I vaguely remembered meeting her at a party, circa 2001. A party where we were drunk, spoke for about ten minutes, discovered we had a couple of people in common, and went our separate ways. We never spoke again, but somehow she found me on Facebook and sent me a friend request. Then we continued to never speak again.

For four long years I have ignored this woman, and she's ignored me. I don't blame her for sending me a friend request – we all did the same thing back in those idealistic free lovin' early days of Facebook. But here's the thing. Occasionally her status updates pop up in my Facebook feed and it turns out that she's kind of a neo-conservative. That's fine with me, really, I honestly believe that there are a wide and legitimate range of political opinions, and we aren't all going to agree with each other. But if you're the kind of person who throws your opinions out into the world like grenades, you should kind of expect people to respond. Is that reasonable?

Still, for four long years I managed to ignore this person. Then the other night, she made a characteristically snarky comment about something, and without really thinking about it, I quickly typed a sarcastic reply and clicked send.

Click the refresh button – wait for it – wait for it – Baboom! Unfriended. UNFRIENDED! Gasp!

I don't know why I care, I mean, I literally spoke to this person for about 10 minutes out of my whole life. We were essentially strangers. We obviously have absolutely nothing in common. I mean, I like ice cream and Stevie Wonder, and she thinks the Canadian social safety net is a scam for leeches and freeloaders. MY Facebook friends like music and art and gardening and biking and their kids and all kinds of other fun stuff, and HER Facebook friends like to joke about overweight people and talk about how stupid liberals are.

You might be thinking that this is a very one sided account of the story, and she can't defend herself. Good point! Maybe she should get her own frickin' blog.

See? I find it way too easy to get riled up about this stuff.

You might be wondering what any of this has to do with writing and publishing. I had intended to blog about how what I'm learning about the importance of an online presence for newbie writers. I've heard the same thing everywhere. From publishers to writers to editors to agents to readers – everyone expects a writer to have an online "platform" or "hub." Naturally most writers choose to have a website and usually a blog, along with Facebook and Twitter and any number of other social networking sites.

Sometime soon, I'll write that blog about creating a platform, but when this Facebook altercation popped up the other night, it got me thinking about something more specific. You see, part of the transition to developing a public online presence is developing an online persona. The way you present yourself to people who aren't your friends and family. New online friends, readers, and (hopefully) book buyers.

Here are two very different examples of online writing personalities. Neil Gaiman for those of you who don't know him, is a fantastic and prolific writer, with an interesting online presence. He has a great blog and is active on twitter, and keeps himself relevant by engaging regularly with his readership. Another example is Jacqueline Howett. Howett is a self-published author who submitted her book to a blog that posts reviews of self-published fiction. The blog gave her book a bad review, and instead of accepting it and moving on (even the best books are bound to get bad reviews) she got into a prolonged and embarrassing fight – first with the blogger, then with lots and lots of other readers of the blog. Howett now has a reputation on the internet, but unlike Gaiman's it's not exactly a desirable one.

So if there is a point to my ramble, I guess it's this : I could choose to develop a persona that fights with people who disagree with me, or I could choose to develop an online persona that wants to have interesting conversations about books and art and current events with the cool people who are interested in having those conversations.

Obviously, the latter option is the way to go. But taking that route involves spending some time ignoring the stuff that pisses me off, and focussing on the stuff that's worth the energy.

It's worth it in the end, I'm sure, and so I am going to continue to make a conscious effort to avoid those conflicts.

But it's not going to be easy. I mean, have you heard the crap that comes out of Sarah Palin's mouth?