Does the Internet Make People Ruder?
June 2nd, 2006 by Bob Bly
I’m not a spammer: I don’t send e-mails promoting my products unless people opt into my list.
Occasionally, though, people think I am spamming them: they either didn’t opt into the list and somehow got my e-mail by accident (how I have no idea) — or more likely opted into my list but forgot they did so or did not recognize my name in the from line.
What shocks me is that this (to me) mild inconvenience — a person getting an e-mail he doesn’t want and can delete with the click of a mouse — prompts unbelievably outraged and rude responses.
Example: “You #$&*&(#$! STOP SENDING ME THIS CRAPPY EMAILS FOR YOUR IDIOT STUFF YOU LOUSY SPAMMING SCUMBAG!!”
Is this an appropriate or acceptable reaction? No. Not even if you ARE being spammed.
A few months ago, a waiter in a restaurant tripped and literally spilled a bowl of drippy, stinky cole slaw all over my head.
Did I swear, rant, or rave?
No: I told the (visibly upset) young man, “No problem, accidents happen.”
But the person who told me to go #$&#*& myself because he received an e-mail he didn’t want apparently doesn’t think accidents happen — or that even if they do, the victim should be graceful and abide by the accepted rules of behavior in polite society.
What do you think? Was my e-mail correspondent way out of line? Or do you react the same way to things you don’t like when online?
This entry was posted on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 at 1:58 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 2nd, 2006 at 2:08 pm
The person’s reaction to your email is way out of line. And “yes”…the Internet makes people rude, it certainly enables rude behavior. Anonymity is one reason, distance is another.
Many people think it’s ok to “pop-off” with insults, name calling, and unsociable behavior – mostly from an anonymous ID or email address. Far more people do it on the Internet than do it in person. That makes them cowards.
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Hey Bob,
THANKS for the post. I thought I was the only e-newsletter publisher on the net who got such rude e-mails.
We use a double-opt in list and STILL get accused of spamming. In fact, the publisher of the largest e-newsletter in our field placed us in her “Warnings” column as potential spammers.
I e-mailed her pointing out our double opt in system and she retracted her statement. But she didn’t engage in even rudimentary fact checking before she ran the piece.
BOY did we get nasty e-mails that week!
So yeah, some Internet surfers tend not to engage in fact checking before they shoot off complaints. They also tend to forget subscribing and confirming their desire to get on your list.
Those folks are few and far between, though. Most subscribers are fantastic professionals who are a joy to work with.
We must concentrate on those people when a feisty e-mail rolls in.
June 2nd, 2006 at 4:06 pm
I agree with the point about distance and anonymity. But people have also become set in their reactions to spam, whether it’s inappropriately rude (like Bob’s respondent) or a quick delete and never thinking about it again. So when an e-mail reaches their Inbox with the hundreds of others in a day, recipients will probably react the same whether they remember they signed up for it or not. And to play devil’s advocate for a moment, I don’t think any of us would be so forgiving as you were to the waiter if there were 10 or 20 waiters spilling cole slaw on your head throughout the day.
I run e-mail marketing for a large corporation. We also use double opt-in and I’ve seen many of the same reactions from external clients as well as internal staff. And yes, I want to jump through the screen every single time I see a rude response with my hands in the standard choking position.
Beth, Believe me. You are not the only one.
June 2nd, 2006 at 4:24 pm
Hi Bob,
I have a feeling that generally, people are not as polite as they were maybe 10 or 20 years ago. The relative anonymity of the internet surely feeds this. That person would most likely not have told you to go &$%^&&* yourself if he or she was standing right in front of you!
June 2nd, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Bob,
I’m really sorry I shot my mouth off at you like that, I was having a pretty bad day. Now stop #$%^&@ spamming me with your blog! I never ordered this, how did I get here?!
(before anyone flames me… I’m *kidding*)
June 2nd, 2006 at 6:03 pm
I’ve been on discussion lists where similar things happen, only the rude unsubscribe request goes to the whole list.
And to the list archives. Which, if the list has been around for a while, tend to show up highly in Google.
Which means that in the top search results for the would-be unsubscriber’s name is the person’s rude request — and since it’s a mailing list, the unsubscribe instructions are usually right there in the message. What kind of impression does that make?
(Real spammers, of course, love getting rude “take me off your list” mail because it confirms the address is live. If you really think something is spam, you should never respond.)
June 2nd, 2006 at 8:32 pm
I’ve had the same thing happen. The best/worst was for a local swim team mailing list that was a double opt-in list. Someone wrote to me, rudely, saying take me off this F*&^%ing list. I responded politely by quoting the “click here to unsubscrube” link and explaining what to do. She responded rudely, again. And again. I went to unsubscribe her manually but could not see her address listed. I figured she must have set up a forwarding thing so I had no idea which email to unsubscribe! I tried to explain this and got an even ruder response. It amazed me because this was NOT “strangers around the world” but someone in our small town.
June 2nd, 2006 at 11:04 pm
I think people feel overwhelmed and powerless because of rude marketing techniques that invade their privacy, waste their time and cost them money to avoid. I’m thinking of telemarketing, junk mail, and spam. Obviously, we’re in marketing, and one would hope we take the time to target our markets and craft our materials in such a way that they’re inoffensive to most and actually are welcomed by some.
But let’s face it, not everyone does. In fact, we know there is an avalanche of rudeness going out from the marketing establishment just from our own experience. I think it amounts to a crisis in our field, because it makes us all look bad. Then things like this incident happen because Bob is getting lumped in with people who truly are obnoxious.
Are there steps we could take to encourage a higher level of professionalism in our field?
June 3rd, 2006 at 5:49 am
Bob, I thought I was the only one who received nasty emails. I get one or two every so often. I’m amazed at how nasty people can be. And like Beth, I use a double opt-in process and still had someone tell AOL I spammed them.
But I have to admit, I do get mad when companies send me unwanted marketing emails after I’ve ordered something. Why? Because they didn’t ASK me if I wanted these emails. I just spent 20 minutes unsubscribing from over a dozen companies’ lists. If branding includes our (positive and negative) interactions with companies and their products, then it seems to me branding needs to include how one reacts to unwelcome email.
Dianna Huff
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:24 am
Know what’s rude? People who hide behind email when they should have live conversations.
June 3rd, 2006 at 12:00 pm
Robert Rosenthal: I e-mailed the guy back, told him he was rude, and suggested if he had something to say to me, he should have the courage to say it to my face — and gave him my phone #. Of course, he did not call, because he and his ilk are spineless worms.
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:52 pm
I’m always surprised that people have that kind of time on their hands … to write rude emails – or sets of emails! – when there’s always that great “Block this address” option. Or just hit “Delete.” Better to light a candle than curse the spammers.
Some folks are definitely overwhelmed with emails, tho’. I’ve reverted to faxing to some clients – that piece of paper actually gets their attention where emails are seeming to get “lost” more and more often. I’m also definitely fnding that it can take people forever to open attachments. I think they keep planning to get to it “later.”
One friend and I use only the “Subject” line to communicate via email with each other – he’s reading his on a wireless PDA and, as I understand it, shorter is better on a PDA screen. It’s like telegrams. With people’s overload generally and the crush of emails, the whole form is getting less and less effective, it seems to me. It would be so weird if, in the end, paper mail wins ’cause it gives you the stage to actually say more than 6 words. Plus snail mail makes it harder for the angry ones to huff.
June 5th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
I believe that any venue in which the person can be invisible allows some the feeling of a free license to be rude. In the 70’s I was a telephone operator (the old fashion cord board type like Lily Tomlin on the television show Laugh In – have I sufficiently dated myself) and I found that being a voice over the line gave some the courage to be ruder than they’d ever have been in person.
Frankly, those that take advantage and spew venom in their blogs, their emails and their voice mail are truly cowards. Additionally, just like those choosing to use four-letter words exclusively to express themselves, are showing their lack of intelligence.
June 6th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
I agree with mst of what you say except for:
“Is this an appropriate or acceptable reaction? *No. Not even if you ARE being spammed.*”
Spam personally costs me a lot of money. Dealing it takes a lot of my time – even with spam filters a lot slips through. I sometimes miss valuable customer emails in the spam folder. And if it’s real spam, then it’s often full of sexual innuendo, semi-naked women and the like. Now that’s pretty rude. I’m sorry, but I hate spammers with a passion – but I certainly don’t hate opt-in emailers!
June 7th, 2006 at 7:07 am
But Dan: if I absolutely hate the service in a restaurant, I complain to the manager. But I don’t curse him out, yell, scream, or shout. I am sure you do not either. So why is that behavior acceptable online?
June 7th, 2006 at 11:27 am
I hate the s*xual spam too – for some reason a while back, I got a lot involving animals. Just the subject lines made me very angry. There was no “company” to register my anger with … so I did what I could, I got serious about upgrading and using my “keywords” filters. Ugly spam gone!
Sometimes I wish this was a “forum” based group, ’cause this topic got me thinking about a subject I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on. Are you running into more & more clients who appear to be too busy to think straight? A lot of ’em seem to be spending so much time with email and Internet stuff generally that they’re becoming a bit peeved when they have to look up from their computers at all. That’s a n-e-w kind of rudeness, I think.
June 7th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
True Bob, I don’t shout at theme either, nor do I reply to any spam – it just validates your email address and encourages them. However, I do think sending spam – especially the sexually explicit kind – is not analogous to poor service in a restaurant. It’s much ruder.
But I understand we’re your coming from. My first job was providing IT heldesk support. We got a lot of abuse too. Whether it’s the Internet or the telephone, people think it’s okay to be rude to you.
At the time I was philosophical. I figured that they stressed and weren’t operating as they normally would. I’d like to think that now I’m older, I could take the same relaxed attitude to the abuse, but I’m pretty sure that I’d bristlke a bit
June 8th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Dan: Spam is worse than bad service. I don’t think it’s worse than having a bowl of cole slaw dumped on your head. Do you?
June 10th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
On the subject of why people act how they do, I’ll just say we could drive ourselves crazy trying to apply pure logic to human behavior. Working with the public will prove that time after time.
With all due respect to your forbearance in the cole slaw incident, Bob, I could see how that could have been an accident. Spam is never accidental.
June 14th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Gina: But is getting an email you don’t want REALLY as bad as having a bowl of stinky cole slaw dumped on your head, having another driver crash her car into yours, or a package not be delivered on time? All of those have happened to me, and guess what: I didn’t throw a hissy fit over any of them.
June 20th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Hello everyone in this blog list and hello Mr. Bly!
I think that the concept of internet rudeness falls in with the rising loss of personal responsibility in society. People aren’t taking responsibility for anything anymore; they need a warning label on a cup of coffee to tell them it’s hot. If they get burned, they sue.
I know society is growing more anonymous (big cities, internet, phone business) and I think that’s already been stated above. In road rage, we’re fuming at a Lexus, not a person. So on the internet, we’re fuming at an email, not a person. The faceless society is an anonymous avenue for shameful behaviour, but it doesn’t answer the critical questions.
Why are we fuming? Why are we so enraged? And why do we allow ourselves to express it the way we do and vent it on others?
It isn’t an anonymous society, it isn’t emails, it isn’t the swerving Lexus, and it isn’t even a bowl of cole slaw on one’s head. Those are just variables of life in flux with each generation. Reaction to said variables is the key to the issue at hand. Why does the human respond the way it does?
I’ll tell you what I believe the problem is. People aren’t raised right. It is as simple as that. Anonymous culture or no, a person raised with a sense of right and wrong isn’t going to flame someone over email. Kids are no longer taught personal responsibility, they’re not taught to control their tempers, they’re not raised to be diplomatic or seek positive outcomes. Is the kid whining? Stick a cookie in its mouth. People no longer have a sense of mores, morality, politeness and the general niceties of civilized society. They lose electric power and decide its OK to loot stores and shoot at people trying to help them.
Mine is the first generation to be raised by a television or a daycare, and mine is the first generation to be lacking a sound societal base from which we gain social mores and ethics. In short, we might as well be monkeys loose in a zoo beating each other over the head with sticks to see who gets the biggest banana.
People like Mr. Bly end up getting flamed by nasty emails when a generation ago that sort of response would have been ghastly and unthinkable.
Hope I wasn’t too long winded. This is a phenomenon I have experienced myself (as a customer service representative for my state’s welfare department.) Yuck! One of these days I’ll be a copywriter and can quit dealing with the welfare system! Hooray…
–angela
angieoakley@bellsouth.net
ps. don’t flame me ha ha!
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May 7th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
They were rude, for sure. It’s not the internet that’s making them rude, though. I used to think it was, but there’s something far more nefarious at play.
Political Correctness is the boogeyman here. If we didn’t have to triple check literally every word that comes out of our mouths in public every single moment of every single day, people wouldn’t feel the need to lash out constantly when faced with the opportunity.(sorry for the run-on sentence)
When people again feel they’re able to voice their opinions or concerns without being shunned by everyone around them I think this sort of behavior will slow, and quite possibly disappear.
We’ve always had anonymous forums, right? We haven’t always had societal censorship of our thoughts and opinions. It’s easy to point your finger at the internet and anonymity as the issue, but doing so doesn’t actually look at what has CHANGED since people were more polite and less inclined to rage.
Just my $0.02. Keep the change.
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