I think my least favorite thing of the things that happens when you have a large-ish account on Twitter... not the worst one on an objective scale, but the one that bums me out... is the number of people who reply to your tweets without actually replying to them.

Like if you have something to say about Dingus J. Doodyhead, a bad person doing bad things, you'll get people replying, "What a dork! STFU, nobody wants to hear from you!"

Are they talking to you?

Or are they using your tweet to talk to Dingus, who isn't there and can't hear?

And this doesn't *just* happen to people with bigger accounts, but the bigger your account is, the more people you don't actually know and who don't know you will see your tweets, and some of them will do stuff like this.

And the reason this one is my least favorite one is because it wears me down. People posting outright hate, actual abuse? Objectively worse. And a lot of people agree that it's bad.

But people who are "agreeing with" and "supporting" you by posting profanity and insults and sarcastic gifs and whatever that, in their mind, are clearly targeted at someone else but outside their mind are just a reply to your tweet... that's more insidious.

The amount of time and energy and brain cycles and morale it takes just to parse out all of the ambiguity on social media, the "Maybe they meant that in a positive way...", the "Maybe this person is a well-meaning ally..." stuff...

This kind of thing is exhausting and it used to be on a good day I would engage with the person and on a bad day I would block them and move on.

Somewhere along the line, those flipped without me realizing it. https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1387232770326466560

Because on a good day I have the confidence and clearness of purpose to block and move on, but on a bad day I feel like I owe it to J. Random Internetperson to clarify if they're intentionally being a jerk or were merely jerkery-adjacent by accident.

And the thing is... blocking creates good days, where trying to engage with people who are interacting thoughtlessly and carelessly creates bad days.

I know not many people are going to see a thread that's going up at 10:30 eastern on a random weeknight, but please. Please. Please. Let's get some basic communication skills.

I'm going to post three things that I think everybody on here should understand.

1. When you click "Reply" on somebody's tweet, whatever you type and any images or links you attach show up as a *reply* to the person you're *replying to* and their tweet. They will absolutely be read by that person in that way!

Are you addressing comments at somebody they mentioned or who was in a QT? Then go reply to that person, maybe? Or add some clarifying context to your tweet. Don't tag that person in to the thread, though. If you want to make sure they see it, go say it to them and leave OP out.

2. No matter how much you think it's obvious that you agree with someone, that doesn't go without saying. In your head you might think you're adding to their point but if you didn't address what they said, might it not read like you're arguing against it? Think about it.

Like, 7 + 5 = 12 is adding something to 7. But just saying 5 isn't adding anything to anything.

If I say I prefer Chicago's tavern cut pizza to deep dish and you agree in your head but what you say is "But Gruignardo's Deep Dish is the best pizza in the city.", you're arguing.

And if you read this thread carefully I'm not telling you that you can't argue on this website. I argue on this website. People can and will block you if they don't want to argue. (I get blocked for arguing!)

But do you WANT to be arguing? Or are you agreeing, without saying so?