People tend to keep socially unacceptable thoughts to themselves. You might still be a racist, but you're less likely to say racist shit to other people.
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There's a degree of public shaming involved in saying racist things – ask Michael Richards, Katt Williams, or James Watson – that makes people think twice. That's not a bad thing. It's how social norms are enforced and the boundaries of acceptable conduct are enforced.
Like many people out there in internet land I am head over heels in love with White Whine, which bills itself as a collection of First World Problems. I suspect most people like it because it's funny. And it is. Consider these two examples:
Hi Becky!. This is Kaylyn’s mum :-) . I have a concern about the snacks that you’re serving to kids.
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Today we were in the store and Kaylyn pointed out the type of cookies that you served at the teddy bear picnic. Much to my dismay they weren’t a name brand. My husband and I pay very good money for childcare and we expect that corners won’t be cut in the care of our child. That and we don’t want to instill the sorts of values in her that make her think that it’s okay to settle for less than the best. That might be hard for you to understand but it means a lot to me.
Her email signature has a Deepak Chopra quote in it.
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Then there's this:
The popularity of White Whine has exploded rapidly – its creator is no doubt the next person in line to get a seven-figure advance for a book deal on his free Tumblr – in part because everyone has one or two of these yahoos in his or her social networks. You know, the girl who whines about going on too many vacations or the guy who goes on venom-laced rants about immigration when his domestic servants displease him. My hope is that over time, a good dose of public mockery will condition a generation of people who grow up on Facebook to think twice before they start putting their impulsive thoughts on the internet. You know, that format that preserves everything you say. Forever. More importantly, maybe people will start to realize that they don't really need to spend as much time whining about trivial First World Problems. As Daniel Tosh says, "It's time you learned that your ranch dressing is not that fucking important." Indeed it is time, internet. Indeed.
RT Butte says:
Whatevs, if you call someone out on being a spoiled, self-important, prat you're just being a big old meanie. I mean, these are totally valid complaints! My God, I remember the time my $50K BMW was in the shop to get a new baby-seal skin cover for the passenger seat because a homeless person caused me to swerve and spill a drop of my venti half-caf nonfat half-whip single-shot cinnamon machiatto on it. I mean, I had to drive the Bentley for TWO WHOLE DAYS while they hand-clubbed enough baby seals to reupholster it. Worse, I left my $500 shades in the sunglasses holder, so I had to fall back on my $400 pair. Ugh. And of course, my condo was having the kitchen reno'd and I really just needed some zen after a hard day of being a rich, idle twat. I mean, my life is difficult.
Also, the whole foods store ran out of imported California heirloom tomatoes, and no other tomato tastes right after those.
But yeah, no, life is tough for rich people. I mean, aside from having the governing apparatus of an entire country in our collective back pockets and reaping the rewards thereof, life is really hard.
(I don't know if there's a machine that will club baby seals for you, but if there isn't, I smell a market opening up.)
Nunya Bidness says:
Over half of the people I deal with every day have uttered at least one of the phrases from that website. Seriously.
Monkey Business says:
It is my great hope that the oversharing embraced by my generation leads to a great social awakening where the stupidest and most ignorant thoughts of mankind are exposed to the sunlight of public view, after which they ignite and burn out of the public consciousness like a vampire at a beach on the equator.
zebbidie says:
According to Know Your Meme (an invaluable resource when you are older than 30) this can be traced back years, but it has only suddenly taken off.
OTOH I know it is easy to hate on these people and their general coarseness, but…don't you feel a little bit like one of those gomers being riled up by Fox News putting on a story about welfare mothers or immigrants living high on welfare?
It's like anti-windows fanatics become wide-eyed zealots for a corporate thug like Apple. It wasn't that their smarts had made them immune to being suckered, it was only that nobody had discovered how to push their buttons. Now they have.
Brandon says:
To each his own, I guess. I think about one visit to that site is enough to satisfy my snark craving. Yeah, some of the posts are pretty shameful and worthy of mockery. Others seem fairly harmless: I'm sorry, I can't muster contempt for the guy who complains (in a fairly innocuous way) that both his maids quit at the same time without notice. I guess I'm obligated to hate him because…he can afford two maids?
But beyond that, what the fuck? He didn't compare his plight to third world peasants, he just said having this happen out of the blue was an inconvenience. Of course it would be an inconvenience. But hey, let's put his post on this public site and mock him, filthy bourgeois swine that can afford two maids!! Many of the posts there were clearly written in jest. And Christ, many of the comments there rival Youtube comments in terms of their clarity.
And I'm still not sure who the site is supposed to be mocking. Rich people? White people? Rich white people? Are rich people of other ethnicities cool, or do they automatically become white by virtue of being rich? Apparently the guy who says he hates it when people clap between movements (filthy swine that can afford tickets to the symphony!!) gets the "Whitest Person in the World" award. Whatever that means. Haha, white people sure do like their classical music. Great social commentary!
The Moar You Know says:
Just about everyone thinks, for some reason, that Facebook postings are only available to their chosen friends.
They usually are not. I hire people, and one of the many things that I do is I make candidates add me as a friend on Facebook, so I can have a good look at what they've posted. No add, no job. Their online presence is important, as that's the medium we work in. I don't ask for sainthood by any stretch but I do expect that you won't have pictures of your ass tattoo available for all – including clients that you work with who are Facebook friends – to see. Learned that lesson the hard way with an employee, by the way, hence my screening requests.
I have gotten some stunned and dismayed looks when I tell candidates that, but also I have had some people with some rather unbelievable postings and pictures who really didn't think that their public alcoholism/racism/douchebaggery/substance abuse/etc. was going to be a problem.
It is.
acer says:
Now that it's the end of "mass affluence," I look forward to a lot more indignant Tweets about warlords and cholera.
Elle says:
Now *this* deserves to be lampooned on that site. I'm staggered at the entitlement of thinking you have a 'right' to intrude upon the personal lives of your employees and potential employees. What employers absolutely have a right to do is impose standards about online conduct that might include a) not befriending clients / service users / students, and/or b) not discussing work online.
There are so many lines between online and work personas that are unclear, and about which there is no case law to rely upon, but 'add or no job' is both creepy, and fraught with risk.
Misunderstanding Privacy Laws says:
To : The Moar You Know
Not only are you abusing your position as an employer, but I hope, expect, and would otherwise be surprised that you have passed up employees who would have otherwise bettered your business beyond the short sighted realms of your ignorant assumptions.
Seriously, you ask your employees to add you on FB?
Although I find gambling irrelevant at the best of times, I'd bet if your employees had any voice left to express personal opinions that might (might?) stray from your own, they would have a few things to say (behind your back because they cannot post this now) with a general consensus that would otherwise deafen several of your senses were they not so dull and underappreciated.
Have some appreciation for
Misunderstanding Privacy Laws says:
(con't)
So sick of employers with self-righteous attitudes who burn fires with the energy of their employees as if their employees are lucky to have their positions. It should be the other way around considering how scarce human capital was considered just a few short years ago.
I'd also bet you're one of those bosses who act as if the sky is falling when their employees are 30min late while expecting them to work obscene amounts of unpaid overtime. You are, aren’t you.
I wonder if any of your employees would stay if it weren't for the entire globe being scared shitless of an impending global collapse. I hope someone sues you for infringing on their privacy rights or at least challenges you on your "interpretation" on their level of "douchebaggery" – as you put it.
Rant over.
Ed says:
That's not only totally creepy, but in any western nation other than the US I'm guessing it would be grounds for a lawsuit that would leave you and your employer wearing a nice barrel/suspenders combo for the rest of your days.
"I have gotten some stunned and dismayed looks when I tell candidates that"…yes, much the same as if you asked them to show you their tits as a precondition for employment, which is at least as invasive and at least as illegal.
SeaTea says:
I'd work around by creating a group that gave the prospective employer no privileges but seeing my profile pic and add them to that. Win/Win.
I acknowledge the entertainment value of mocking shallow people, but mostly agree with Brandon. Almost all mocking is a very dangerous way to create an "us" by creating a "them", and almost none of it does anything positive, even when well-intentioned. It's human nature, I'm convinced, but much of human nature is pretty destructive when social situations exceed a certain threshold that's in the "small number of hundreds of people" realm.
zach says:
http://www.reddit.com/r/firstworldproblems is another good location for these gripes, such as "My bigscreen TV is too big to fit into my SUV."
Elle says:
It would certainly expose an employer to massive risk. European anti-discrimination law, which is transposed into member state law in different ways, makes it unlawful to discriminate in hiring decisions against those with specific protected characteristics. It's not unlawful to refuse to employ someone because they are a dicksmack, because dicksmackery is not a protected characteristic. However, if your perception of their dicksmackery is tainted by your views on their race, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, pregnancy, marital or civil partnership status, or disability, then you are on the hook.
If you're a public body, then demanding access to people's Facebook pages is arguably a breach of their European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) article 8 right to respect for a private and family life, home and correspondence.
As with all things in recruitment, it is always best never to ask/know. If you have a lovely chat with a candidate about their childcare difficulties, to pass the time before IT can get their presentation off their thumb drive, then there will always be a suspicion that that was a factor in your decision.
Sluggo says:
@themoaryouknow
"I have gotten some stunned and dismayed looks when I tell candidates that"
Is that all you get from them? From me you would get: 1. 'Piss off' 2. a door slam and 3. a bill for my time.
Smart employers realize interviews work both ways.
Larry Dickman says:
The Moar You Know–
grade A trolling, keep it up!
Ellie says:
"People tend to keep socially unacceptable thoughts to themselves. You might still be a racist, but you're less likely to say racist shit to other people."
Clearly, you've never met my in-laws.
mothra says:
So here's my question: what expectation of privacy do you have over personal information you have posted on the Internet? Seriously. Not that I am necessarily saying that Moar's behavior is legal or okay, I don't know about that, but I do know that once you put it on the Internet, ANYONE can potentially access it.
xjmueller says:
In a similar, but slightly different vein – check the folks who don't realize that the Onion is fake news. These sites define "american exceptionalism."
http://literallyunbelievable.org/
acer says:
"People tend to keep socially unacceptable thoughts to themselves. You might still be a racist, but you're less likely to say racist shit to other people."
I'd like to insist on the nth occasion that this isn't early-'90s "political correctness" (e.g., "womyn"), it's evolving civility. That's why I automatically distrust cigar-puffing right-wingers who whine about "PC" – are you really that upset about the tight asses of certain coastal academics and co-op chairpersons you'll never meet, or are you pissed that society is finally ready to shame you for being a slave to your assumptions and a backward piece of shit?
For the record, although I cringed at today's comment, I really like The Moar You Know.
Hobbes says:
There's a very easy solution to this: tell the employer you don't have a Facebook account. You can create one, sure, but he'll be your only friend and there won't be anything on it, and you'll probably just close it again the next day. I have to wonder what he'd do – there ARE people who aren't on Facebook (I am but my wall is pretty much empty, there are no pictures, and I'm shutting it down after my friends' wedding next weekend because all I've been using it for is coordination around that), and unless your job is "Facebook developer" I can't see "having an active Facebook account" as a plausible job requirement.
The Moar You Know says:
So, it's OK to use people's postings as "deterrence" for behavior you don't like, but an outrage to end all outrages if a potential employer wants to use that person's same postings to avoid damage to their reputation and/or bottom line?
Thanks all. This has been most educational for me.
Ike says:
TMYK
Stalking job candidates on the internet? Totally acceptable. Requiring they add you on Facebook in order to be considered for the position? I'd sue your fucking ass to the motherfucking moon.
Ed says:
"So, it's OK to use people's postings as "deterrence" for behavior you don't like, but an outrage to end all outrages if a potential employer wants to use that person's same postings to avoid damage to their reputation and/or bottom line?
Thanks all. This has been most educational for me."
Well, one of those things is totally fucking illegal, so…other than that, good analogy.
Ben says:
. . . To be fair, the Holocaust set the bar pretty high for First World Problems.
Elle says:
Er, no. All of the organisations I'm involved with currently, either in a non-exec capacity or in my day job, have policies about social networking, specifically designed to limit reputational risk and (in some cases) to protect staff and clients. In our jurisdiction, these policies form part of the employment contract. The disciplinary policies and procedures, and codes of conduct, also set out inappropriate uses of social networking that would attract different levels of disciplinary intervention. These include things like: befriending clients on Facebook (where the client group is particularly vulnerable), criticising the work of colleagues or otherwise making personal, derogatory comments about colleagues, and discussing work covered by non-disclosure agreements or that is otherwise commercially sensitive.
The standards are necessarily higher for public figures, and for people who essentially represent their organisations in the mind of the public.
Elle says:
Totally. I'm not much of a complainer on Facebook, but I do feel for some of the people on the site Ed linked to. Sometimes I'm bummed not because of the international community's failure to engage in Darfur, or the world economy tanking, or injustice and cruelty everywhere, but because I just smudged my nail polish sliding a Buffy DVD into the player.
Del says:
@Brandon – just another voice agreeing with you. I totally could have written that (clearly self-deprecating) lemon tart post. In fact, I'm afraid to read any further into the site, for fear of finding myself ridiculed.
LevelB says:
Thanks.
Anonymouse says:
@TheMoaryouknow:
I don't have a Facebook account. I've never seen the need for one. I never had a MySpace page, either, nor do I typically post anything online, in any venue. Are you saying you would refuse to hire me, regardless of my skills, because I don't say stupid stuff on Facebook? Really? Good to know. What is your business? I think I'll refuse to patronize it.
Hazy Davy says:
The first thing I do in a force-reduction consulting job interview is show my genitalia. After all, we're in the business of screwing people. [And, really, who hasn't seen my junk?]
The first thing I ask employees at my think tank is to let me take a CAT scan. After all, it's their brainpower I want. [And, really, if they're letting doctors see it, why not me?]
The first thing I ask people I'm hiring at my PR firm is to reveal their sexual history. After all, it's titillating (get it?), it could be bad PR for our PR firm, and I only insist they share with me the history that they've told some of their friends.
————-
The stages of White Whine, as experienced by Hazy Davy:
HD, Pre-visiting WW: "Oh, I'll probably be mildly offended at the problems of the rich-privileged."
HD, at first visit to WW: "Oh, wow. The class divide is funny. FUNNY!"
HD, after about 5 minutes to WW: "I hate people. I'm going on a killing spree."
HD, after gathering up the weaponry: "Wait. That's BS. There's no way most of that is true. People are posting things explicitly to get on WW."
HD sits down to watch an episode of "How I Met Your Mother", an equally BS catalog of interactions, and thinks, "That Barney's a pretty righteous dude." Wonders if he made the list on someone else's killing spree. Kisses his son goodnight. Posts snarky, fake anecdotes on ginandtacos about WW.
Harrison says:
For what it's worth, Reddit has a site like this called r/firstworldproblems, with the same sort of … complaints.
However, it's played for laughs.
Robert says:
I added one of my older sisters to FB at her request, with some trepidation.
Now I get to see those 'America is great! Jesus is Lord! If you agree, please repost this! ' boilerplate messages, and hear how she's doing on FarmVille.
If there was any way to de-friend her without causing major butthurt in my family, I would certainly do so. The request from my remaining older sister will NOT be approved.
markg says:
I checked out "White Whines." It would be a lot funnier and more effective website if the proprietor recognized that some of the whines he uses are actually satirical. Like most obviously the guy he quotes who gave a park a bad review because it only had foliage half the year and the grass was greener on one side.
acer says:
@Robert:
Just "hide" her posts on your feed. I've done that with MANY erstwhile schoolmates.
blahedo says:
Rather than directly join the ongoing pile-on of @Moar, I want to go back to his/her original post:
> "Just about everyone thinks, for some reason, that Facebook postings are only available to their chosen friends. They usually are not. … I make candidates add me as a friend on Facebook, so I can have a good look at what they've posted. …really didn't think that their public alcoholism/racism/douchebaggery/substance abuse/etc. was going to be a problem."
Do you see the rhetorical dishonesty here? First, you make a claim about FB being more public than people think. (This part is, fwiw, basically true; a lot of people forget to de-public their FB account, or don't even know they have to.) BUT THEN, you require them to give you private access—-so even people who are very scrupulous about not making posts publicly about, say, their alcoholism, you plan to treat as if they were saying them publicly. This is not holding their oops-I-thought-it-was-private public posts up to a public standard of scrutiny; this is an invasive and unfair attempt at gaining access to their private lives in order to make a hiring decision. (And you better damn well hope that none of your candidates are in a protected class in your state; if seeing their "Friends only" posts informed you that they were (say) biracial, or Jewish, or gay, they have a big-time discrimination suit against you.)
Or perhaps you were talking about the way that even things said privately have a way of getting public. News flash: this is not news, it is not new, and it has nothing to do with Facebook. People have betrayed secrets for a long time, and while you have every right to tell them that they're in trouble if they are responsible for letting out company secrets or attitudes about clients or whatever, you DO NOT have the right to say, "by the way I'm installing bugs in your house to make sure you're not telling these things even in confidence to your friends, your family, or your spouse." Why should you have the right to do so on Facebook?
Fifth Dentist says:
@ the moaron you know
Yep. I definitely discern the scent of some serious douchebaggery. But it's not coming from your potential employers.
"I have gotten some stunned and dismayed looks when I tell candidates that"
The nerve of them! That demand in no way gives off a vibe of potential creepy cyber stalker.
grendelkhan says:
I see this as an unalloyed good. If you're a twit, it's best that the world should know it. By all means, folks, post your first world problems.
On the other hand, there's a certain chilling effect that all this digging-around brings up. (Ed, I'd think you would be particularly well-acquainted with the idea.) I wonder if it's a natural trade-off. If we're to mock the entitled asshats of the world, I think we lose something in the bargain.