Complimenting Women and Social Media

[the_std]

Hey guys,

I ran across an interesting article (I know it's Buzzfeed, but it gets the info across) about a woman who decided to run a small social experiment about receiving compliments from men on social media.

Gweneth Bateman had a problem that many girls and women experience online. If a boy messaged her with a compliment – on Twitter, Tinder, or elsewhere – and she didn’t reply, they’d criticise her for not replying. The 18-year-old said most of the boys who criticised her felt they were owed a response and that she should be grateful for the compliment.

“If a guy messages me I usually don’t reply because most of the time they are complete strangers to me,” she told BuzzFeed News. “When they don’t get a reply out of me it usually ends up with them calling me ‘rude’ or a ‘bitch’.

So she decided to run an experiment she’d seen on Tumblr: If a boy messaged her with a compliment, she would reply with a warmer, nicer answer, agreeing with and accepting the comment.

Check out the article for the responses she received. It's pretty sad.

As a woman who is very active on social media, and used to be very active on dating sites, I can say that the responses she received match my own experiences, and it makes me very sad. I've seen some responses on Twitter telling her that, because she replied with one-word answers instead of "okay, thanks" or other variants thereof, she was coming across as "curt" and therefore deserved the anger she got in return.

What do you guys think?

[Lace Neil Singer]

I do think that replying "yes" did make her sound a bit up herself, but then I read further down and saw that even when she replied "thanks" she still got called a bitch. Sounds like a lose lose situation.

Personally, I can't accept compliments of any kind cuz I have had body and face image problems for years and still see in the mirror the ugly girl. I've found tho that a lot of people get very insistant when I deny a compliment, tho.

[Gravekeeper]

I feel compelled to once again link this comic.

By agreeing with the compliments she's taking back the control/agency of herself in the dynamic. Because the compliments are not for her. They're about her. They're actually for the guy giving the compliment and when he's not rewarded for giving it to her its offending his percieved priviledge over her.

[Andara Bledin]

The issue isn't the compliments, but how, and where, they're offered.

Throwing out a random "you're pretty/handsome" at a stranger, unsolicited, just because you share a space with them is, to be quite honest, a bit creepy.

The only place where I can see that this should be acceptable and common at all would be a dating site. And even there, a random "you're pretty/handsome" with nothing else is still a bit creepy.

It really doesn't serve any useful function as an icebreaker as most people want to know more than if the other person approves of their appearance.

If you really want to compliment someone's appearance, don't go with a generic line that breaks down to "I approve of how you look" or even worse "you have the appropriate appearance for me to consider you a sex object" and go for something with substance that actually compliments the person, and not just their genetics, such as "You have a great sense of style" or "I love the way you've done your hair."

[Hyena Dandy]

I don't know about women, obviously, but when someone tells me I'm attractive, I'm at best confused. I don't know what's attractive about me, and it makes me feel less like they're noticing me, and more like I could have been anyone. Whereas "You have wonderful hair" or "You have a great coat" or "I like your tie," those I'm able to go like "Ah, yes, that DOES sound like me, thank you." Unless the person you're complimenting is like an inverse Mr. Hyde, you can probably think of a specific.

[Seshat]

Gravekeeper, thank you for posting that comic. In my view, that alone marks you as one of the 'not all men' (ie, as one of the men who are not like that).

It's very, very important for those men who are NOT part of the problem to become part of the solution: the men who are part of the problem, by definition, will not listen to women!


As for the original post: yep, had that happen to me, too. A lot. Part of why I refuse to be on open social media such as twitter and facebook, and only on moderated social media.

Also part of why I'm not really brave enough to have a blog, certainly not one with open comments.