When The Comments You Receive Are All Wrong

You start a discussion, maybe by posting a blog post or by saying something on Twitter. You have an agenda, of course – you want to convey a message, and you expect your readers/fans/followers to “get it.” But they don’t. As you read their comments, you realize that they have missed your point entirely, and – via their comments – have hijacked your discussion and are taking it in the wrong direction.

Example? Sure. Last month, I posted one of my “women’s magazines rants” on my personal blog. I post those once in a while, pointing at how problematic are the messages aimed at women by these magazines. I think this is an important discussion, especially when it comes to young girls and young women, who are especially vulnerable to these messages.

But when I posted a link to that blog post on my Facebook profile, very quickly the discussion turned from “What can we do to protect our daughters from these messages” to “What, you read magazines at the hair salon? Just bring a book/Kindle with you and you won’t need to read that stuff.”

“But guys!” I was thinking desperately, as each new comment, instead of discussing my main point (women’s magazines are dangerous to young girls), discussed the various ways in which one can avoid reading magazines at the hair salon. “You are missing the point I was trying to make!”

I thought about posting a comment telling them they are missing the point, but then it occurred to me, that this is just part of the open discussion in social media – you start a discussion, but once you open it to comments, you never know what direction it will take, and this is just fine! Just like art, where the viewer has the prerogative to decide what he wants to see and how she interprets the piece of art, in social media the readers have a right, via their comments, to take the discussion into whatever direction they choose.

Of course, you do have the right to respond and try to re-emphasize your point. You also have the right to delete offensive or hurtful comments. But it’s important to be prepared: once you put a discussion out there and allow comments, you do lose at least some control over the direction the discussion will take.