I recently had one of those rather painful "teachable moments."
In this case, the "Today I Learned" experience took place yesterday, when I took a photo of a homeless woman. I posted it on Steemit, and gave it a "cutesy" title to grab peoples' attention. Boy, did it ever!
My "click-bait" title, "The Homeless... Are They People, Too?" instantly became a lightning rod when several bolts of wrath were directed my way in the comments. At least one reader let me know that they were unfollowing me.
It hurt to discover that anyone would take a rhetorical question so seriously, and apparently without reading the article. I in no way intended to disrespect the woman or her condition. Had the offended reader taken a minute or two to actually read the entire post to the end, they would have found that it was - in reality - a compassionate, introspective reflection.
I was commenting not only on the state of the physically homeless, but of all humanity. I was actually comparing myself, and all of us, to her. I was trying to imagine being in her shoes. My conclusion, in the article, was that we're really not all that different; that our differences are superficial.
Butting Heads With My Readers!
Photo courtesy of Ming Jun Tan and http://unsplash.com
Thinking more about what happened,
I shouldn't be too surprised. My Steemit audience comes from extremely diverse backgrounds, different native languages, and vastly divergent cultures. Though I'm not entirely sure how recognizing that will change what I post, I will make an effort to be more thoughtfully aware in the future of how broad my audience truly is.
Reflecting on my shock at the vehemently negative response to my post, I will probably try to avoid such click-bait titles, at least for a while. At least until my jangling nerves settle down!
Attempting to remove all ambiguity, I renamed the post The Homeless Are People, Too.... And after thinking about it much of the day,
I wrote a haiku about this painful experience.
Please enjoy, and use shocking titles at your own peril...
📖What's In A Title?📖 - A Haiku
Penned click-bait title...
Wrath of non-readers smoked me!
Won't soon retry that!
My Title Turned Into a Wreck!
Photo courtesy of Blair Fraser and http://unsplash.com
Thanks for your time and attention.
I'm here on Steemit because of you, my readers. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you!
This post is intended to count towards @dragosroua's Challenge30.
I have very eclectic interests and hope, over time, to write about all of them.
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Read content after a headline? Why do that when I can get mad instead?
Sad but true! :(
So we lose a few
Sharing on a new platform
Gems stay, winter day
:) :) :) :) :)
Click bait drives me crazy. Now that I have that out of the way...I like your revised title better. It's a better fit to the article.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting... Nice to "meet" you, @simplysara! Even nicer to find you browsing my older articles! And, I have to say, I'm delighted that you've re-steemed my article about creating organized tables of contents! Thank You! :)
For right now, that's how I'm saving posts for later. I want to use some of your techniques, but I do most of my Steeming on my phone. This way I have the info when I sit down at a computer.
@creatr cheer up
we all learn lessons everyday that's what matters
and we can't really please everyone
I learned from @thecryptofiend - don't take it personally
and its hard not to - so I try to always look at things the way my mentor taught me how - to look at things like a 2 tipped pen
one tip is black the other is red - well sometimes I do just see red hahaha
what's funny is that - this is the net and this still happens
then no one can tell us there is no reality here isn't it :)
my wish is you and the other author get to sort things out
speaking of which at least the author didn't troll you
I had such - the power of mute is very effective :)
Steem on
Hello, my dear friend @englishtchrivy!
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave me your encouraging message! :) :) :) You are so kind!
As it turns out, the person who reacted so badly actually returned and apologized to me! (If you look at the comments under my "Homeless" article, you can see what they said... I was so surprised and pleased! To me, coming back to apologize is really such a great thing, and very hard to do. We all make mistakes and do things we later regret, and for them to come back and apologize took courage and humility, and I very much respect them for it!
But it is very sweet of you to encourage me, Thanks so much, Dear! 😄😇😄
@creatr that's good to know I'm happy for you
when two people are open enough and none of them means anything negative to just pester another person just because the other didn't get their whim - peace is easily achieved.
Am happy for you both!
Your post shoul have been read not just go by the title
Anyone who flags without even reading the article is a piece of crap.
Actually, wasn't quite that bad... Didn't flag, just "unfollowed." And (surprise!) came back later and apologized, which I respect the heck out of! :) It takes guts and humility to apologize! ;)
I lost a friend on facebook once. Completely misunderstood a point I was making, tore strips off me then unfriended me, so I couldn't actually point out how he'd misread the comment.
Clearly an idiot, so I didn't lose much sleep over it.
Yeah, sadly, some people are just intractable! :( And you just hafta' let them go...
social media...we're always learning. I've gone against some major heavyweights on Twitter - it wasn't pretty. What I learned is similar to the old carpenter's saw ( pardon the pun) measure twice, cut once. It'll smart for a day or two, but been there, done it, bought the t-shirt. It gives us pause each time we hit the post button :)
I've had a few debates on Facebook with, let's say, some "interesting" people. And no matter how civil and (subjectively) rational I work at being, it can still be quite tedious and a real "energy vacuum cleaner" when it happens.
I've only had one fairly lengthy debate here on Steemit, with @stan, and he was very gentlemanly about it. I suspect there will be more and interesting discussions to come whenever I post another of my more outré biblical/theological opinions... :) Ah, what fun to come! :)
Perhaps unfortunately, I have a tendency to hit "post" and then pause... :O
Nice pun, BTW... ;)
I am surprised no one flagged you! People posts but no one reads you!!They stop on the picture and the title. You can this experiment again and again, it will work! Happy for you that some people actually read your posts. Keep up.
Hi, @jyezie! Thanks for commenting. I will keep up, and I appreciate the encouragement. Yes, I am very happy to have some people actually read my work! ;)
Same issues, different form. I've noticed when I put up my fiction, grabbing headlines get votes, good work without them does not. Perhaps it's the nature of social media and instant gratification, but It's a concerning trend. Following anyways, great stuff regardless of what the uniformed masses think.
Greetings, @ilovebatcatstew, and thanks for taking time to say "hello" here!
Yes, I suppose social media draws people with a short attention span. Thank you so much for your encouragement and for reading what I write! :)
My latest investing journal had one too
It must have been sedate or too early in the day to get any response - more like the moribund "oh, boring, another post about money" -> I can assure all readers the boredom sets in well past the first image
http://mymark.mx/TIB16
I have observed that a lot of people do not read the article, but vote on first response emotional reflex to the image and the title. Many when commenting seem to do the same. It seems they are so anxious to criticize that they do not have time to actually read or think about what is being said.
ColdMonkey mines Gridcoin through generating BOINC computations for science.
Greetings, @coldmonkey... Nice to "meet" you! Thanks for dropping by my blog and for your astute observation about how people respond.
I seek real, live readers; people who will read what they find of interest among my postings... Might you be one of them? ;) I hope you'll browse my Topical Table of Contents and see if anything I've written might just draw you in. Simply click on the GIF below, and Thanks again for commenting!
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P.S. I've enjoyed looking over your lovely artwork... Following you now! ;)