Today I was checking Facebook and a FB friend reposted his friends post and it was basically "There are people who are homeless and have cancer in the world so if you complain about the weather or anything else, I will block you. They aren't complaining about anything and you shouldn't" so there were some responses that it is in essence rude to call people out like that. I commented that it may have been better to just quietly defriend them or talk to them in private. The original person who posted this post blasted me over it saying she is from Colorado and a lot of people lost their homes in fires...
I assume it is pretty rude to call people out like that. Etiquette wise I assume in the future I need to just not post and ignore it myself, take a step back, because sometimes you cannot win an argument. It seems rude in general to argue about who has it worse.
It seems like in a situation like this there is a cycle of rudeness. When you keep pointing out other peoples rudeness.
There are a few notes about etiquette that get talked about pretty often around the forums.
1) Instructing someone about their rudeness is rude. (If an adult doesn't say "please", I don't get to say "and what's the magic word?" to them. If I'm passing a person on the street, and they're chewing with their mouth open, I don't get to say, "Close your mouth, you're like a cow chewing cud.")
and
2) Retaliatory rudeness is just as bad as an original rudeness. (Someone doesn't hold the door open for me when I'm right behind them, I don't get to wait around and slam the door in their face when I see them next.)
They're discussed and debated to varying degrees, but I think that in general they're a good starting point.
I completely agree that there would be a never ending cycle of "you were rude for such and such" "but YOU were rude for such and such and also rude for calling me out" "but you were a rude hypocrite for calling ME out just then".
Plus, as mentioned, there'd also be a cycle of who on Earth has it the worst. That's not a fun game to play.
There are a few things going on with that woman's FB post.
First of all, I don't think the person who posted the "warning" was in the right. She could have, and should have quietly defriended or blocked people if they were annoying her. But, her goal was clearly not just to stop
seeing the complaints. Her goal was to LOUDLY SHOUT TO THE WORLD HOW DISAPPOINTED SHE WAS AND SHAME ON PEOPLE WHO SHE DISAPPROVES OF AND I HOPE YOU ALL READ THIS AND FEEL BAD FOR COMPLAINING! She achieved her goal of announcing her feelings to the world. That's Facebook for ya. She can post whatever she likes on her page.
However, the beauty is that everyone who read her tantrum and rolled their eyes or clucked their tongues could just as easily have blocked her feed... or defriended her... or even laughed a bit and continued doing what they love to do with their own Facebook pages. Because no matter how disapproving this woman was, she really can't change what others do with their time. And so what if she blocks them? What do they care?
What would have spoken volumes is if everyone else quietly blocked or defriended her, and she ended up wondering why... That would have been poetic.
