As soon as I read this, I instantly thought of my post here … which you might like to read, if you have the time — all comments gratefully received, thankyou. I wouldn’t normally bait-and-switch like this, so don’t think I’m a bait-and-switcher myself, I’m not … not all people who reply are self-absorbed (I’m responding and I’m not) … but I think you might find it an amusing example of the phenomenon of off-topic autobiography, to which you allude here, so it’s not really bait-and-switching, you see (which is an example of what I said about not all respondents falling into one of your categories). I often worry about doing that when I respond to people but, at the same time, don’t see the point in copy-pasting, when I have already written a perfectly good post/article … plus it might drive some traffic my way, which … when you stop and think about it … is only fair really, after I gave them some applause. Also, I have often stumbled upon great writers/thinkers here when I’ve come across one of their responses to someone else and investigated them, resulting in some friendships I might otherwise have missed out on, if they hadn’t written about themselves. So, I have to disagree with you about that, because, although I can’t remember where I read it now, I saw a statistic saying that around 47% of online friendships are started that way and some of them (maybe 15% of that 47%) end up being real-life friendships too. Did you do any research into these things before you started writing this? If you had, not only would this article have been more interesting to me, but you wouldn’t sound as uninformed about statistics as you do. The problem with people like you, who don’t really understand statistics, is that you always like to imply that statistics are used to tell lies, when really it isn’t the statisticians who are at fault but the people who misuse the statistics, so you are blaming the wrong group of people here. I bet you aren’t even qualified to talk about statistics, are you? I am and I run a course on statistical analysis — if you and/or anyone else reading this post would like to join my mailing list then I could send you some introductory material and sign you up to the course afterwards. Also, in point 8, I think you yourself missed the point that those people are raising valid points — also in point 10. I don’t see why you had to make this political either — not everything is about politics and the World would be a much better place if people didn’t try to do that and tell everyone else what to do with their lives … they’re worse than government. Nevertheless, I’m impressed at the way you’ve managed to succinctly list the main (not all) types of comments seen across social media and will tell everyone else I know to read this article (after reading my reply, naturally, so that they take the right, sceptical, approach when they do) — with some more experience and guidance, I think you have real potential and am looking forwarding to reading lots more by you!!!
Double points for an unrelated autobiographical tale, was it?
Times double points for sneaking in bizarre statistics.
Times triple points for politicisation.
I make that a multiplier of twelve, plus I reckon I’m due at least triple points for getting them all in, so make that a 36x multiplier. And there should probably be a bonus for making it all such a long and rambling single paragraph … say double points … making that a grand total of a 72x multiplier.
You can’t give me more than 50 claps though, so, we’ll split the difference for now and you can give me an extra 22 claps elsewhere some time 😉
