Please Stop Ranting On Social Media

Being a millennial that grew up in the world of social media, I feel that I can safely claim myself as an expert in the field of social media do’s and don’ts. Now that we’ve established my expertise, I am qualified -- if not responsible -- for bringing attention to an issue that simply needs to be addressed. Friends and family, good people of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and whatever else: Please, for the love of all that is holy, and Mark Zuckerberg, just stop going on rants on your social media.

I sit, day after day, scrolling down my multiple timelines, only to be interrupted by my own involuntary cringes and eye rolls at every other post I see. Come on, people, I know I can’t be the only one. It is the absolute most annoying thing to be going through Facebook and run into a post that is basically a short story.

There is a time and a place for expressing your feelings, and it is not on my Facebook feed. It is in your room, alone, in your diary. I definitely won’t support your GoFundMe page to help you achieve your dream of becoming a professional drag racer, but I will buy you a diary to support my peace of mind. Yes, unfortunately, this is an actual post I’ve seen. I actually did take the time to read it because I thought it might turn out to be a drawn out, really funny joke. It wasn’t.

Aside from the fact that your rants are extremely annoying, they are also extremely pointless. If you post three paragraphs about how rude your customers were at work today, do you actually believe that people will take the time to read it? If you have been living your life up until this point believing that, this is where it ends. I promise, no one will read it because no one cares.

Rants like this are also pointless because it isn’t changing anything about the situation. Will posting those three paragraphs about your rude customers make them less rude? Will it take you back in time to the beginning of the day and magically give you nice customers? No, but if I see you post about it one more time it might be enough to make me find where you work and purposely do everything you complained about in your post.

Yes, ranting is annoying and pointless, but you may be thinking, So what? I don’t care how my posts make you feel. Excellent point. Counterpoint: it also makes you look bad to every single person who follows your posts. No one is going to see an unnecessarily long rant about your issues with the Starbucks red cup controversy or Hillary Clinton running for President and think, Man, he seems like a cool guy. I wish we hung out more.

Now, I feel like I need to address the irony of this article. By writing about ranting on social media, I am in fact going on a rant that will be eventually posted on social media. So, technically, I am also guilty. This is why I would like to suggest that, if your desire to share your thoughts is so strong that it cannot be satisfied with a private journal, submit your rants to online publications and at least give people the choice of whether or not they want to click the link and indulge your opinions.

On that note, thanks to all those reading this article that chose to indulge my opinions on the subject. And I’m sorry if this was a little harsh. If you need somewhere to complain about it, please refer to that diary I mentioned earlier. Rant over.