Violating Online Norms
There are so many different unspoken rules around how to conduct yourself on social media. But what happens when those rules are broken?
When tasked with breaking norms on social media, I felt a little nervous. I mean, they are norms for a reason. Violating them is seen as weird or wrong, and I wasn’t sure what kind of responses I would get by breaking one of them.
However, I braved the reactions and just went with it anyway. The social norm that I decided to break was commenting on the last photo of ten of my friends Instagram photos. This is a violation of social media norms because normally, commenting on someone’s last Instagram post usually means you were stalking them, commenting on the last post means you were a little too obvious with your stalking. This makes it kind of creepy. Commenting on Instagram photos is usually reserved to commenting on their latest photo that appears on your timeline.
So, I commented on ten of my friends’ last Instagram photos and waited to see how they would react. My comments were tailored to whatever my friends had for their last post, but it was usually something positive along the lines of “Great selfies!” or “I love this photo!”
The next day, I looked at all of the responses I got and wrote them down. Three people didn’t respond to my comment in any way, so I only had seven responses. Surprisingly, only four people called out the weird nature of me commenting on their last photo, while the other three just responded as if nothing was out of the ordinary for them. These friends thanked me for my comment or said something of that nature. I think that these comments came from a place where my friends were just happy to hear from me and see the nice comment I left for them in their Instagram, therefore they didn’t see anything too crazy or out of the norm for me to leave that comment.
I also think that to many of my friends that might have seemed like normal behavior for me, because sometimes I do things out of the social norm. In this case, how people reacted to my comments depended on their perception on me as well. It depended on whether or not that thought I was someone who would break a social norm for fun or if I would adhere to the unspoken guidelines.
Of the four that commented on my unusual behavior, three of my friends asked me a question in various forms.
One friend commented “Are you okay?”
Another asked, “Are you bored?”
My one friend texted me and asked, “Did your Instagram get hacked or are you just hilarious?”
Lastly, my other friend messaged me on Snapchat and said, “I see you’re creeping on my profile”.
I found their responses very interesting in the fact that they called out how my behavior was weird and was violating an unspoken social media norm. For instance, my friend who asked me if I was okay was pointing out the fact that my behavior was not normal, and that I was acting out of character by commenting on her last photo.
My friend who asked me if I was bored was pointing out the fact that people do not usually look through other people’s profiles on social media unless they are bored. And even if they do stalk someone’s profile, like I did, they do not comment on the last photo, because it would just be calling out the fact that I was stalking them.
My other friend asked me if I got my Instagram hacked, demonstrating how my behavior was violation the norm into her thinking that I wasn’t even myself. And finally, my other friend asked if I was creeping on her profile, confirming how by my violating the norm that it was seen as stalking someone’s profile.
Overall, the responses that I received made me laugh, even though to begin with I was nervous at how people would react to my strange behavior. It’s funny to me how something as simple as commenting on a photo has so many different meanings depending on where in someone’s profile it is located. The latest photo = commenting normal. The last photo = commenting strange.
It is incredible how such a simple act can cause people to respond in confusion or concern. This reveals that communication norms are relative. Some of my friends thought my commenting was strange, while other saw it as a welcome form of communication. I think that many of the people who thought my comment was nice might find it more strange if were not currently in self-isolation due to COVID-19. Many of my friends probably assumed I was bored and just wanted to scroll through some of their profiles. Others might have seen it as my way to reach out to them since I haven’t seen any of my friends in a while due to social distancing. It was also due to how my friends see me. Most of my college friends saw it as a little strange, while the majority of my friends at home didn’t see anything weird about it. It just depends on how my friends perceive me and what they think I would do on social media.
In this way, communication norms, online and in the physical world, are relative. It all depends on the situation and the background of the people involved. Different influences in the world dictate how we respond to behavior that may not always be seen as commonplace.
Ultimately, communication in any form, whether unorthodox or a norm, is vital to maintaining relationships, and I had fun interacting with my friends in a way that they might have seen as typical behavior or out of character. And it was fun to spread a little positivity in the process. Sometimes stepping out of our comfort zone can lead to fun results!
