To celebrate the third printing of I like your work: art and etiquette, now available here, we’ll be posting excerpts from the book during the next two weeks.
I’m almost never in physical proximity to assholes during the day—a decided benefit of professional blogging. But assholery finds a way, even online, and by far the most aggravating part of my job comes in the form of various breaches in netiquette. The following essay surveys online communication at its worst.
The Prank
Like most people, I’ve got better things to do with my time than prank my friends (or even my hate-reads), but that hasn’t
thwarted the development of Goatse culture. This trick, which not surprisingly is more popular among men than women, involves a disguised link leading to an image of a man spreading his dilated anus to expose his rectum. It should go without saying that sending someone this image is unacceptable, even as hate mail.
The Email
Don’t ask your friends for Goatse sympathy if you commit the following email gaffes: forwarding unlabeled not-safe-for-work emails; sending endless, stream-of-consciousness messages; willfully disregarding the blind cc field; and forwarding private email exchanges. We all break this last rule from time to time, but we shouldn’t. The last thing anyone wants to see is their email published on someone else’s blog.
The Chat
Speaking of privacy, the ability to IM people on Facebook and Gmail is not an invitation to do so. I often sign in to Facebook chat to say hello to friends from high school—I’m not there to discuss press releases. By the same token, while contacting a long-lost friend via IM is fine, having something to say doesn’t hurt, either. Look at their Facebook information page before asking them what they’re up to. At the bare minimum, chatting requires the appearance of giving a shit.
The Facebook
Respect for other people’s time, space, and privacy goes a long way. On Facebook, uploading a cock shot and tagging your friend in the picture might get their account deleted, as well as your own, so don’t let that joke run too long. Don’t litter your friend’s wall with links to your own work, don’t leave inane comments on other people’s pages, and don’t spam them with endless drinking, flower, and luck invitation requests. In short, be respectful of other people’s space.
The Break Up
I haven’t always been a stellar role model in this regard, but try to remember your web manners during a break up. My most egregious breach of netiquette occurred when, in the heat of battle, I subscribed an abusive ex-boyfriend’s primary email account to every spammer I could find. I assumed that subscribing him to a newsletter espousing the virtues of free-market economies was what gave me away, but in actuality it was something much simpler—I hadn’t bothered to ensure that my IP address couldn’t be traced. The lesson to be learned here is twofold. First, no matter how much you hate them, don’t subscribe people to spam. Having to change a personal or professional email address creates all kinds of problems no one should have to go through. This revenge tactic goes far beyond any appropriate expression of anger. However, if there’s nothing that can be said to dissuade you from the Internet equivalent of throwing your boyfriend’s clothes out the window, at least do it from the Apple iStore. It’s a good way to cover your tracks, and, at the very least, they’re likely to have a class you can attend on the subject while combing the Web for receptive spammers.