I don’t rant much, at least in public. Even in private I tend to temper my comments because you never know what’s going to escape into the world.
But. Even I have a pet peeve or two.
There’s nothing about on-line etiquette I dislike more than people who pop in and out of email lists with a phrase that says something like, “I’m coming out of deep lurk with back-to-back deadlines to let you know I’ve sold yada yada” or “my book (insert title here) is on sale today.”
Drive-by promotion? Poor etiquette? I don’t know, and I’m not judging the motives of others. I’m sure these writers are very busy and truly do not mean to come off as being rude, but I can’t help but cringe every time I see an email like this.
BTW, this doesn’t go for just writing loops. I’m sure the “pop in and share good news then disappear” syndrome goes on in virtually every on-line community.
I’m busy. I have five kids and deadlines. If I get so busy that I can’t participate in my on-line groups at least occasionally, I’ll drop them before I’ll resort to “popping out of deep lurk” to announce something about me.
Which brings up another pet peeve. I really hate the phrase “It’s all about me.” Really, really hate it. I really take to heart the 11th commandment “Love your neighbor as yourself” so maybe that’s why the “it’s all about me” attitude irks me. It also reminds me of some of the girls who used to work for my mother when she was a retail store manager. They thought they deserved to get paid because they actually showed up. “Work? You want me to do something other than stand here?” Oh, don’t get me started!!!!
My other big pet peeve about on-line communities, at least some of them, is the negativity. It’s gotten to the point where I’m thinking about dropping some groups. NOT when people have bad news and want to commiserate or get a pep talk. I’m all over that, that’s one of the reasons I love my groups. But the deep, general negativity about everything from readers, to publishing, to books, whatever. It’s a disease that’s spreading and I’m not happy about it. I’m not a negative person. Shit happens. Life can take some bad turns. But by and large, I can find something good about my life or family. I’m a glass half-full person. I always have been, and I pray I never see the glass half-empty. Life is too short to focus on the negative. Enough bad things happen in the normal course of life, why create more?
Hmmm. Ranting is kind of fun. Gets all the gunk out so I can go back to being my usual happy self.
And I am happy. I’m almost to the halfway point in my revisions of SPEAK NO EVIL and they are going very well. I’m really excited about this story. We bought a new car, an Excursion, so now the entire Brennan clan can go places in one car instead of two. I think we found the last new Excursion in Sacramento County (they stopped making them last year, except for special orders, we were told.) And because no one wants to pay for gas on the huge SUV, we got a really, really good deal (thank you hubby!)
So what about you? What’s your big pet peeve about the Internet? And what’s one good thing that’s happened to you recently? Big or little, it doesn’t matter, as long as it made you smile. 🙂