Did I say the wrong thing?

[Sherlock77]

A comment on one of my Instagram photos regarding a local vigil I attended for the Christchurch situation and photographed...

First comment: I wish I had known. I would have gone.

My response: This vigil was mentioned on the news all day Friday, that's where I heard it

Moments later, a response back: I wasn’t saying it wasn’t. I worked extra on Friday and didn’t see it but thanks for the unnecessary and snotty response. [Huh!? That was not my intention in the response I wrote ]

A response again, doing my best to be apologetic: I didn't mean the response the way you said it, that wasn't my intention, it was very short notice to organize the vigil, within one day of the shooting, I did not organize it

One of the issues of social media, people twisting words, I'm just confused by this, should I be? I don't feel I did anything wrong, or maybe I broke a social rule media I should know? I have no clue and feel like I've suddenly lost my focus...

 

[Pats]

I don't see that you said anything snotty. You were being informative. But that is one thing about writing anything - you never get the tone which sometimes makes all the difference. He read it defensively - you can't feel bad for that. I find myself apologizing a lot for either myself misinterpreting intent or someone misinterpreting mine.

 

[Clueless in Canada]

I would not have interpreted your response as 'snotty' and even if I had suspected it was meant to be I'd have given you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that wasn't your intention. She should have replied to you saying something about not having expressed herself clearly and what she meant was that she didn't get a chance to see the Friday paper.

Anyhow, my take is that you didn't say anything wrong

 

[Sherlock77]

I don't see that you said anything snotty. You were being informative. But that is one thing about writing anything - you never get the tone which sometimes makes all the difference. He read it defensively - you can't feel bad for that. I find myself apologizing a lot for either myself misinterpreting intent or someone misinterpreting mine.

I would not have interpreted your response as 'snotty' and even if I had suspected it was meant to be I'd have given you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that wasn't your intention. She should have replied to you saying something about not having expressed herself clearly and what she meant was that she didn't get a chance to see the Friday paper.

Anyhow, my take is that you didn't say anything wrong

I guess my struggle is that this person often looked at photos on my account, and I'd hate to lose that, since I don't have all that many followers... Not that I should care, but I do care about the impression I leave with people (in general)

 

[Major Tom]

Seems like just a misunderstanding by whomever was the person who replied. I wouldn't take things like that to heart. Just my take.

 

[asperagus]

I prefer to limit the bulk of my social media to Web 2.0 (forums, etc.). @Sherlock77 your post was fairly narrative. You didn't express empathy, but you didn't say anything offensive.

• If the goal were to throw in some emotional support to the person you were responding to, you could have wrote "sorry to hear, I heard of the vigil in the news on Friday. Had I known, I would have flipped it over to you"
• If the goal was to post what you knew of the vigil, not addressing the other person's feelings, then you did just that
• If the goal were to offend, well no need to give examples, there's a plethora of options for that

Keep in mind that this was Instagram, a social media platform that brews drama. You are free to post what you want. You said nothing offensive. There was no explicit expectation to show emotional support.

 

[Fino]

He seems to have read it as:

"This vIGil was mentioned on the news ALL day Friday, that's where I heard it..."

He may have automatically read it negatively because he was upset about the thing and missing the thing. He also seemed to have been worried that people might think he was accusing them of not telling him and so it was important for him to clarify that he was not saying it was their fault, just that he wish he had gone. I'm guessing he felt like you were "calling him out".

Like everyone else here, I didn't read your statement in this way, and after I read his response, I had to reread yours many times to figure out the inflection he must have read it in in order to be offended.

But I have had many similar problems and not just due to inflection because it was in person. People don't like things pointed out like that. I think they feel insecure, like there's something wrong with them for not seeing it if it was on the news and you're pointing out how dumb they, or something like that. Now I try not to point out facts unless I think it will be beneficial to them or complimentary to them.

 

[Sherlock77]

I prefer to limit the bulk of my social media to Web 2.0 (forums, etc.). @Sherlock77 your post was fairly narrative. You didn't express empathy, but you didn't say anything offensive.

• If the goal were to throw in some emotional support to the person you were responding to, you could have wrote "sorry to hear, I heard of the vigil in the news on Friday. Had I known, I would have flipped it over to you"
• If the goal was to post what you knew of the vigil, not addressing the other person's feelings, then you did just that
• If the goal were to offend, well no need to give examples, there's a plethora of options for that

Keep in mind that this was Instagram, a social media platform that brews drama. You are free to post what you want. You said nothing offensive. There was no explicit expectation to show emotional support.

It's possible, the perception of lack of empathy, but then I am very much a facts person, it happened and I tend to have few emotions about it, at least that I express... Last night I was circulating the crowd with my camera looking for photos, for ways to capture the one hour of vigil... In the moment I have almost zero emotion and kick into "work mode", even though I don't have to...

 

[tlc]

Keep in mind that this was Instagram, a social media platform that brews drama. You are free to post what you want. You said nothing offensive. There was no explicit expectation to show emotional support.

I agree. You can't please everyone, especially when it comes to social media. You're a photographer, not a psychologist. They were upset that they missed it, and probably would have taken any response (or no response) badly.

 

[Progster]

That sounds like a defensive reaction that has more to do with his internal emotional state than the way you phrased your post. You gave facts - you just told him how you knew about it, and had no intention to accuse or make him feel bad, and you can't be responsible for how anyone might choose to interpret those facts. You did the right thing in explaining that you didn't mean it to be taken that way.

I get misinterpreted all the time, and it's usually because people tend to assume that I'm doing something, when I'm not. A lot of social communication is to do with communicating emotions to others, the exchange of what I call 'ememes' - an emotionally loaded message to the other person, in order to manipulate how the other person is going to feel. We tend not to do this, and not to be aware when other people are delivering and ememe to us, and this is the cause of a lot of our social communication difficulties.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

First comment: I wish I had known. I would have gone.

Thes kinds of comments are quite common.
You interpreted it literally.

The metamessage (his real intent running underneath his words) was more likely 'please empathise and make me feel better about myself in this social context'

The guy probably knew ( a fair chance) so :-

1. He was lying
2. He came up with a way to demonstrate he wasn't lying,also representing socially that he cared.
3. You had to do your job and join in with the deceit by making him feel better.

He saying words to eliminate a social faux pas,in other words. So he can walk away with his 'pretend' character intact.


I think one of the major things we miss is taking things literally.
They takes things socially and often aren't aware of the difference either.

In the social world,as others have mentioned your response will often get that kind of response.
Even, if the response is silent and it is just a character judgment made.
The mystery deepens when you don't get to hear of it.

A lot of social communication is to do with communicating emotions to others, the exchange of what I call 'ememes' - an emotionally loaded message to the other person, in order to manipulate how the other person is going to feel.

Source

 

[Otenba]

I can't see anything wrong with what you said. It seems like they were having a bad day or something, and decided to take your harmless reply the wrong way. Hopefully they'll be okay next time you comment at eachother. Moods shift about unfortunately and make people confusing, so how others are is not always something worth taking personally usually.

 

[Bolletje]

Your post may be interpreted as you telling the other person they could have known, because it was on the news all day. I know you didn't mean it that way, but that was my first perception of the post as well.

 

[Iamnotarabot]

I'm always on defense mode I guess, I would have read this message like this" you obviously lie about the fact that you didnt know since it was mentionned on the news all day."

the "all day" make this message looks like a reproach , I mean, I am usually paranoid I think, but here IMO this is normal to see this message as such.

You didnt mean to be mean but this is how the message can be read and it's logical to read it that way.

But yeah we all make mistakes and it's impossible to always say what we want to say in a way that doesnt end up changing the meaning of what we originally meant.

 

[Tom]

Your post is easy to read as casting doubts on the posters sincerity. As in 'how could you not have known about it? It was all over the news, etc'.

 

[Fino]

So many interesting ideas! I always forget to consider the possibility of dishonesty.

 

[tducey]

People can take things too personally sometimes, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

[Dias]

My feeling was that the person felt like she was being called dumb, distracted, negligent, that's why she explained she was working extra hours and therefore had no time to check the news or whatever it was.
She was protecting herself from the negative image people might form about her.
It didn't occur to me she was lying