Twenty Commandments of Social Media Etiquette
Social media and the internet. When the Romans built those long, straight and effective roads they had no idea what was going to be using those roads in years to come. Similarly, those early pioneers – Tim Berners-Lee, Mark Zuckerberg, Noah Glass, Kevin Systrom et al could not have realised what their various creations might achieve and might still achieve. I daresay none of them realised what fantastic tools they had created for my kind and me. The advance of technology and the various forms of applications and social media have not only contributed to a growth in our numbers, those entitled millennials for example, but our reach has been massively extended beyond the use of the humble telephone. Whereas once my tendrils coiled from my person when I was physically proximate to you, through the use of Lieutenants, elegant hand-crafted letters and those whispered words from landlines and telephone booths, now my tendrils are multiplied a billion times over. They surge across the internet, striking from well-composed e-mails, appearing from the medley of text messages which race to and fro. I surf forums selecting those who are the most appropriate targets and victims and use the vast array of electronic media at my disposal to seduce and ensnare. Messages, photos, videos fly back and forth across the many outlets, across my many devices. In my bolthole the glow from multiple screens would allow you, if I ever admitted you across the threshold, to see my studious gaze and fuel-filled grin as my fingers dart and glide. Opening one application, closing another, composing a message, answering a query, laughing at a comment, reaching out, reeling in, seducing, devaluing, hoovering. Like some grand organist at a technological organ, the screens change and glow, from phone to phone, from PC to laptop, to tablet. The notifications pings and appear, each one the potential for fuel. Yes, the seemingly unstoppable advance of the availability of wireless communication and the many, many methods of connection that are available have been a playground for our kind. We can observe, learn, ply our trade as we cross jurisdictions, mountain ranges and oceans like never before. Once upon a time a bar or a club was a prime hunting ground for some of our kind. Now it invariably begins online and we can broadcast our love-bombs across a massive area, tweaking and adjusting until we refine matters so we can close in on those in a proximate area. The few hundred in a local bar become several million in a city who can then be met face to face and the most potent fuelling begins.
The use of social media and the internet is all pervading throughout your entanglement with our kind We seduce using it, we bombard and charm using it. We harness its formidable power to devalue, to smear, to disseminate the lies about you and then broadcast news of our newest conquest in order to further your misery. Pictures plastered across our timeline. Comments smeared across your own. Others piling into the frenzy of electronic barbs and hooks. The enticing hoover of a late night text message. The blocking, the deleting, the eradicating. The capacity to scour your online profile for information to commence your seduction. The ability to monitor where you are and who you are with as we ready a hoover. The game playing from knowing you can see I have read a message but I won’t respond, leaving you churning, anxious and on the edge of indecision as to whether you ought to try again or remain distant. The carousel of available targets, the endless permutations and possibilities for gathering fuel. Such potential and such excitement. The triangulation across the airwaves, the shuttling of similar messages back and forth to various recipients, a beauty parade where the most effective responders then are chosen for the next stage.
If all of this was taken away I can revert to old school methods. I have that skill set. The junior of our number would be in serious distress, thrashing around and unable to perform effectively as us great sharks cruise easily utilising the older methods to suck up all that fuel to leave the younger of our brethren starving and failing. Not that such an occurrence is likely to happen. No, instead it will only become more and more of a narcissist’s heaven as faster and more intuitive devices are created. How long before the “Find an Empath” application makes its presence known? Watch with glee as the radar sweeps around and notifies me that there are 42 empaths in a one-mile radius. Such sweet delight!
Of course with every new system, every new method of interaction there come rules, obligations, conventions, protocols and procedures. Many are informal, internationally recognised as the dos and don’ts of social media usage. Our kind, naturally, is not isolated from such a development and there is indeed an etiquette (which is just a euphemistic way of saying this is what you really should do) with regard to social media usage involving our kind and your kind. Accordingly, let me introduce you to twenty commandments of social media etiquette as decreed by the Council of Narcissists.
- You are never to tag us in any photographs without our prior permission which can be revoked at any time and without reason.
- Our relationship status is only updated when we deem it appropriate. Any insistence by you that we reflect your existence will meet with repercussions. Your relationship status? Nobody is interested.
- All photographs post discard will show us ecstatically happy and with ourselves draped around your replacement. You should make sure you look and do so regularly.
- All adverse comments about you are true and must never be removed, amended or diluted by you.
- We have a stock of unlimited likes which we can throw around over other people’s comments and pictures as often as we want and you have to deal with it.
- If messenger says I was active five minutes ago, it is lying.
- I can block, ban, unblock, revoke bans as and when required. You must facilitate access to all your social media at all times without condition or exclusion.
- My tweets are slices of intellectual brilliance. Nobody reads yours (unless they praise me).
- All electronic communications used by me never existed. You imagined them.
- My 1500 friends of the opposite sex are exactly that. Why else are they described as friends?
- All postings by you are subject to scrutiny and questioning as in, “Whose hand is that in the background?” and
“I see two glasses on the table. Who else was there?”
- Just because it shows I have read your message is not determinative proof that I have done so.
- It shows my message to you has been read. You have ten seconds to reply.
- You are duty bound post discard or escape to accept follower and friend requests from utter strangers with unusual profile pictures.
- Notifications do not appear on my lock screen to save battery power. Honest.
- All my postings must be liked and commented, re-tweeted etc. by you within one hour of their creation. All comments must reflect my brilliance and incisive insights on the topic du jour.
- The fact my device automatically logs in at a location is not evidence I have been before. It merely shows how welcome I am.
- You are not permitted to demonstrate favour to other posts, tweets, pictures etc. over mine.
- I filter everything that might appear on my timeline. Popularity requires such a step. No, I have not got anything to hide.
- If my response is a non-sequitur when we are messaging this does not mean I am messaging someone else at the same time. It means you are not keeping up with me.
25 thoughts on “Twenty Commandments of Social Media Etiquette”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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I’m a private person. I don’t need people knowing my business. They don’t need to know anything. You don’t need to know anything. Who I tell is my business. Oh wait hold on let me post 500 shirtless selfies for my minions to admire and adore…….WAIT I’M A PRIVATE PERSON. This utter BOGAN.
Hahaha. Their contradictions really can be entertaining (after you’re removed of course).
I’m just mad at myself for entertaining this “private person” bulls*t. We knew each other for a long time before we dated. But it turns I didn’t really “know” him. I will never let someone do that to me again. Cherry on top was when I met his parents but then he wouldn’t let me friend his Mom on FB. Weird.
poor chap doesnt know I actually don’t look at his page. only found out accidentally. poor fool.
Mine just recently blocked me on FB despite us being done for 4 months. Trying to get negative fuel?
Hello Blugirlygirl, Yes. It will be negative Thought Fuel because he clearly knows or believes you are looking at his FB still after 4 months.
He knows I’m watching from somewhere
He insists I’m obsessed with him and that I’m demented and different all this while having another chick behind my back I didn’t know it until I had a hard confrontation with his minister he told me very straight forward as if im supposed to know already I think she is ugly as hell and old as hell HES in 30s she’s probably in her 40s she’s what I call devils advocate and is as blind as hell and drier than a horses food you can see it I her eyes and that she is hostile I’m a good body language reader just by looking at a picture I’m the total opposite jolly completely empathetic giving caring and considerate
He deleted me from his Facebook page after I mocked one of his pictures privately to his phone
What does it mean when he keeps manipulating me through Facebook even though he has blocked me twice in different accounts ?
Describe how he is manipulating you through FB.
He I directly hits lies to publications if stuff that would puss me off for example some sexy girls from Miami that are dolls of sponsored cars now he’s getting married and he hit liked the other day tons couple who she was like me overweight and he was a normal guy I recently asked him why did you say you would never be with someone like me ? What did you meant? and he didn’t answer that’s all he said abd he’s trying in s weird way that only I can understand making me believe that even my supporters who are not in our group of friends believe the same thing they do about me abd agree with hem which is false And now he’s playing the pity party because his dad died. The other day he hit like to a boy who seems to catch he player game since a very early age and he reacted with shock mouth open emoji as if he was surprised at this vegsvior making me believe he us nothing like that when he gas done the opposite in the past in this sort of behavior example because his dad died . We separated four years ago I just recently found out about his getting hitched and following his fathers death not too short time later I said some general things you normally say when someone dies and I gave him some sort of instructions to recovery and readiness for his mothers soon to be death since she’s very ill normal I acted . Three years ago we had a conversation where he lead me to believe he was waiting for me and now this disaster disgusting now since I’m playing the no contact with poker face strangely through text message or whatsap because he didn’t deleted my number or blocked me and has payed single significant attention to all my messages since discard now he’s playing the pity party Tha he feels like he has lost everything blah blah blah he is a man if Pentecostal believes and his church is like a group of narcicist sociopaths builders so there you go
I dont understand 1) why somebody can expect immediate answer on whatsapp
2) why it us expected from a narv’s victim that she/he should anwer within 10 sec? ( i nean short term)
This was so funny I came off twitter just to post that smilie 😀
😀
I find it humorous but well extended.
Just another reminder why social media isn’t all that.
Urgh! Don’t i know it. CONSTANT texts to hook me back in and then the snapchat videos of him driving at 1.30am for a “bootycall” visit. He’s always on game. Never not on game. He’s very tedious and boring 💅
Urgh! dont i know it. Just got a snapchat video of him driving at 1.30am to a woman’s house for a “bootycall” as he puts it. Oh and the house is a mansion of course! Sooo predictable and boring. I told him he is boring me completely 💅
Don’t I know these too well, especially first two!
HG, can you put out a companion list of top rationalizations given (during golden period – I realize you don’t bother explaining yourself during deval) as to WHY you request/demand Rules 1 & 2?
I know these will be familiar to the audience here:
“I’m a private person.”
“Would be frowned on by work colleagues.”
“Trying to be gentle to my ex who is still obsessed with me and might hurt herself.”
“Trying to protect you from my ec who is still obsessed with me and might hurt herself (or you).”
“Ex will use against me to try to take away custody of my child.” (This last one does not apply to you, I know.)
By all means Cody, consider it done.
Thanks! Can’t wait to see your list- maybe you have some I haven’t heard…yet. But like I said elsewhere, I’m a fb/ig addict and from the very beginning I’ve wanted to share my relationship with the world but G has blocked me at (almost) every opportunity- except when I’m pretty sure it has suited his “relationship bulletin” puposes of punishing his ex. He probably is not aware but even though he is not in most of my photos or tagged in any of them I make sure to take pictures that make it clear to his ex or anyone else whose been to his place that I am indeed in his place. The other day I took a picture of the breakfast I made him and he has very distinctive placemats. Even sometimes just the view from his window is enough. So if he thinks he can go out with someone else and tell them he is not dating anyone else, if that person stalks him the way we all do and finds my public ig account, she will know he is lying. 🙂
And all the triangulation and building a new harem on one account – while the other account sits dormant. But you know he’s lurking on the other account, as well. Ready to appear at anytime.
But, watching … always watching and knowing what’s being said.
My N. would say “I get my fun on the Internet.”
I thought he meant looking at porn. Now I understand what he meant. The fuel.
His fun is the all the fuel.
One of my favorite posts, HG. Thank you.
Thank you.