There are certain social media rules we can all agree on: Ghosting a conversation is impolite, and replying “k” to a text is the equivalent of a backhand slap (violent, wrong, and rude). But what about the rest of the rules? When can we really remind someone of our old Venmo request? What happens when someone tries to flirt with you on LinkedIn?
Fortunately, terminally online writers Delia Cai and Steffi Cao are here to answer all your digital quandaries, big or small. Welcome to Fast Company’s advice column, Posting Playbook. This week, Delia and Steffi will both tackle the question of internet shade—throwing and receiving.
What are the rules of throwing internet shade? We’re all doing it, but what’s the difference between being snarky and being mean? I see my co-worker tweeting shadily about our other colleagues and even our manager all the time, and I’m wondering if I’m the prude for feeling like that’s not cool.
Steffi: Subtweeting your colleagues on your main feed when you know they follow you is wild work, and I don’t think it’s out-of-bounds to think it’s not cool. You can’t spend eight peaceful hours on Slack together and then switch tabs to see them writing nonsense like, “ugh I hate these ugly losers I spend eight hours a day on Slack with.” It’s awkward! Everyone has problems with their coworkers at some point or another—but at least for me, it’s the insincerity that becomes the grating part of it all.
To me, the delineation of being snarky and being mean is the depth of the cut. A catty swipe at someone’s work is one thing, but taking it to the level of someone’s personal values and identity is mean. No one’s a saint, either! We’ve all been snarky, and we’ve all been mean. But the difference comes when you’re not willing to own up to either.
I tend to live by the idea that anything you tweet publicly, you should be able to say in person to someone’s face. Not that the world should be one giant episode of Bad Girl’s Club, but we’ve entered the era of social media where I think we can all agree that our statements online can come back to haunt us. So you better be ready to stand on it.
Delia: I’m all for the basic rules of comedy: Punching up is good, but punching down is bad. Leaving specific names out of it offers good plausible deniability. But your coworker’s tweets are crossing the line in my opinion because, as Steffi and I have addressed in the past, people should be very careful about how they mix their online and professional lives. Tweeting about your evil boss is probably punching up, technically, but I’d save that kind of “shade” for your group chats and IRL vent sessions.
Steffi: Agreed—if I can leave you with one last thing, I will reiterate that you need to stop letting your coworkers follow you on socials. Use your Close Friends tools. If you don’t want the smoke, don’t light a gigantic fire on your feeds.
An article I wrote came out recently, and I saw people—not friends of mine, but like, we definitely know each other—disparaging my writing on X and even in their newsletters. It definitely hurt my feelings, but I also get that criticism is a fact of life. Should I say anything? It just sucks because we’re not strangers, and I wish they’d given me a heads up. But is that even fair to expect?
Delia: Receiving criticism is definitely the name of the game if you’re a writer, of course, but you’re also allowed to defend yourself! It’s up to you. I would probably not say anything but make a nice little mental note (meaning, I would memorize every dastardly word they said), and then simply wait for the opportunity to come when we end up seeing each other in person. Then I’d casually bring up something like, “So I saw/heard that you didn’t like my work!” in a kind of cheery voice, and see how they react. A real critic at heart would be willing to engage with you about the work; someone who’s just shading for clout will probably start spluttering and backpedal.
If they were being more personally shady, i.e., calling into question your character or spreading a rumor about you, then you are well within your right to reach out—via a public reply, DM, or what have you—and tell them that they’re being a jerk. I’ve personally gone in with a quote tweet around the offending shade and gotten snippy right back, but that is a matter of personal preference!
Steffi: I’ve been on both sides of this coin, getting heat from people for disagreeing with their hot take, as well as having hordes of people piling on my work and subtweeting my skill. Here’s the truth that I’ve learned over the years: If you are going to stir the pot, you have to be prepared for a splash zone. Not everyone is going to like your work, just as you aren’t going to like everyone else’s. The same goes for anyone trying to put their work out online, whether it’s music or paintings or vlogs. Obviously, prejudice and attacks on character are never okay. But to be honest, I think everything else is fair game.
Your feelings are entirely valid! No one has ever been raised to handle this kind of digital feedback loop. But I think you have to maintain some level of perspective. At the end of the day, do you still stand by what you wrote? Did it resonate with the people you wanted it to? If yes, then who cares! To be a writer analyzing the world means accepting that your perspective will in turn be analyzed. It is childish to demand sympathetic immunity as a one-way street, and it makes you a poorer writer for it. Actually, Delia imparted some incredibly important advice when I was in the throes of getting a lot of shade about my writing: there is a kind of criticism that sees what you are trying to do and can acknowledge where you fell short, and there is the kind of criticism that is grading you against an entirely different scale. Only you get to decide what you intake and improve on.
Ultimately, this is the kind of problem that only really exists online, because most of these mutuals do not have the gall to fight you IRL. And more realistically, I would guess that they’re also trying to curry for some likes online. Who among us? Let yourself feel hurt by it, but know that this will likely be the end of such negativity. Sticks and stones may break your bones. . . .
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