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Community Management – How to be a Terrible Netizen

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 22, 2020

Community Management – How to be a Terrible Netizen

Are YOU a Terrible Netizen? I have been managing Able2know for over twenty years and I have seen my share.

It is a generalized Q & A website and the members are all volunteers. I have learned a few things about making yourself the biggest jerk online during this time.

Because I have seen a lot of people being awful, as if it were their aim in life.

How to Be a Jerk Online

  1. Post as fast as you can and don’t think about it. And anything worth doing, is worth doing fast. Editing is for wimps.
  2. When you’re being attacked, never step away from the keyboard. Because the way you feel about people online is never related to the offline world. It only comes from online events.
  3. Be vague with your words. Because anyone who cannot figure out what you really mean is an idiot, and you should tell them that. Clarity is for other people.
  4. Everyone should/must get you, oh terrible netizen, even the aforementioned idiots. What you have to say is perfectly wonderful for every audience and needs no tailoring.

Yet More Jerk Advice

  1. Be First and Best, every single time. Why let anyone else be happy? They’re a bunch of idiots anyway.
  2. Always get in the last word, terrible netizen. And this is even if you have to do that over and over again while someone else tries to do the exact same thing. That person is an idiot. You, of course, are not. Never!
  3. Call people by names, because there’s nothing that says maturity like using a taunt from second grade or a word that trips a profanity filter.
  4. Discuss as many controversial topics as you like, and don’t expect hard feelings. Because if people become defensive, their skins are too thin for them to be online in the first place. So have at them.
  5. Never stop, and never surrender, and never ignore anyone. All comers deserve your pearls of wisdom, 24/7! Therefore, even months later, when the other person has clearly gone off to do something else, go back and pick at that scab some more.

I hope you let me know if you’re going to do any of these. So I can find a way to cross the street and walk in the other direction when I see you online. ‘Course, that probably just makes me an idiot.

Can You Still Find a Terrible Netizen Online in 2023 and Beyond?

Good lord, you can find them more than ever! Still being jerks. Still overthinking or underpreparing. And still spouting God only knows what, whether it’s Covid conspiracy theory nonsense or incel garbage or sealioning or just nanny nanny boo boo kinds of taunting and claiming to be better than anyone else.

Good netizens are hard to find. But terrible ones? They’re a dime a dozen, I’m afraid.

Published inCommunity Management