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, Steffi explores what to do when a former employer keeps popping up in your feed.
I keep seeing social media content from my former employer, where I had such a horrible experience. I don’t even follow them—it just comes up. What should I do?
Felt this question in my soul. Not only are we fighting for our lives to avoid exes, soured friendships, lurking managers, and well-meaning parents on our social media feeds, we have to contend with the fact that companies also have voice-driven social media presences, and in their bid to lock in on the attention economy, we get their content on our feeds. The algorithm has definitely fed me content from a former employer that I absolutely hated working at, and it bums me out every time I get it on my feed. You were just trying to doomscroll, and now you have to relive the memory of an uncomfortable work environment because someone in the social media marketing department is sending out content into the void in their bid to hit their target KPIs.
All you can do for this situation is block and mute. Ban all mentions of the company, avoid watching the content of former coworkers who still post the name. Frankly, that’s all you can do to draw digital boundaries. Beyond that, you will need to turn inwards, whether that’s in the form of a journal, a therapy session, or a night out with friends you made outside of work. A terrible workplace can truly be so mentally and emotionally corrosive, and it sucks to see reminders of a time you felt so defeated or angry for most of your waking hours, but it’s important to remind yourself of the other aspects of your life that are fulfilling and exciting. You should log off, sure, but it’s possible that other reminders will crop up, whether it’s running into the person who made your life miserable IRL, seeing the name of the company when you’re managing your investments, or reading a headline about them in the news.
The fact is that you can block the mentions, but you still need to deal with the root problem, which is processing whatever happened that made you have such a knee-jerk reaction to glancing upon the company name during your scrolling session. Companies have such an overarching presence in this country, so it’s important that you are able to make life easier for yourself by doing things that help you heal and serve as a reminder of the wonderful things in your life outside of your previous work. Hopefully you have a job that fulfills you now, hobbies that excite you outside work, or a support system that understands how messed up your old job was. And this is true of seeing any old pain echoed onto new posts. When you see that ex-boyfriend, ex-friend, annoying ex-manager crop up, it’s important to have something you know you can lean on.
Is “like-reacting” to texts with no response rude?
I personally don’t like-react to anything except logistics because I do think it feels like a cold reaction (imagining giving someone a thumbs-up when they tell you they’re getting engaged or something), but I don’t take it personally when someone does hit me with one. Of course, this has been a social media etiquette question since the heart button was rolled out, but I think we’ve collectively settled on the golden rule of intent versus impact. Anyone that is over 40 years old? Not rude. Anyone that generally texts with periods? Not rude. Anyone who doesn’t have Twitter or TikTok downloaded on their phone? Not rude. Someone who usually types in all lowercase with exclamation points, but their syntax has suddenly changed for this heated conversation? Rude. Someone who saves their contacts with emojis? Rude.
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