Comedian Trevor Noah, who will replace Jon Stewart as host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” later this year, came under fire last week for tweets he posted that some considered offensive. Comedy Central released a statement defending the comic shortly afterward. Credit: Getty Images
If you spend enough time online (and boy do I), you start to notice certain patterns of behavior and you get to see how those behaviors play out, in both positive and negative ways.
That's really what my column in Tuesday's American-Statesman print edition (available on MyStatesman.com) is all about as I offer 10 ways you can be a nicer, happier person on the web, whether it's in email, texting, social media and beyond.
The 10 is a bit of a misnomer, I actually packed in a lot more suggestions than that, but they’re divided into five sections on ways to do better and five kinds of things to avoid.
Here’s an excerpt from the piece:
1. Stop complaining so much, and keep your outrage in check. Last year, I wrote about the "Internet outrage factory," an increasingly common tendency for Internet mobs to overreact to news stories and minor scandals. The problem is, many of these items turn out to be hoaxes or misunderstandings when all the facts come to light. Stop jumping on those angry bandwagons and, while you're at it, stop trying to publicly shame businesses that make an honest mistake or that you aren't dazzled by. Sharing information about a scam or nightmare customer service experience is one thing, but using social media as a bully pulpit to get something you want is shady at best. Accept that sometimes people and businesses make mistakes and they can be resolved without getting the public at large involved. Being a continually swirling vortex of hostile negativity doesn't make you edgy and interesting, it makes you whiny and exhausting.
This column could not have been written without the help of online friends on Twitter, and especially people on Facebook who contributed great insights in this thread. You can still find even more there that didn't make it into the column.
Got other ideas or disagree with some of these points? Let me know in the comments.
Here are some of the Twitter responses from the initial question:
