The people you meet on social media are a veritable melting pot of humanity: mostly good, sometimes puzzling, occasionally infuriating. It takes all sorts, eh?
A while back I listed ten types of people you meet on social media. These were:
1. The Obergruppenführer (dictatoria aresholia)
2. The tease (attentionus seekus)
3. The abbreviator (cutit shorta)
4. The comment bomber (bloggus ubiquitous, sometimes also known as copius pastus)
5. The troll (trollus trollos)
6. The joker (humorous excessivus)
7. The spammer (spamma posta)
8. The social media expert (hootsuito tweetdecko pro)
9. The pedant (paidagogos overperfectus)
10. The starry-eyed fan (sychophantidae sychophantidus)
Here are ten more. Do you recognise any of these?
1. The 24/7er
Species: Perpetualus omnipresentus
No matter how much time you spend on YouTwitFaceInstaPinPress, these are the people who make you feel like a part-time shirker.
If they’re not churning out five blog posts a day or writing reviews about their eleventy-five half-term days out, they’ve also commented on every post you read while maintaining a full-on assault on every social media channel you know (and a whole lot you didn’t even know existed). Heck, they probably still have an active MySpace page.
You’ll know if you ever meet one of these, as they’re the ones with stumps where their fingers used to be before all that typing wore them down.
2. The armchair critic
Species: Crapidnae critica
Nothing you do will ever please these individuals, who are closely related to the ‘pedant’ (paidagogos overperfectus) but are distinguished by the mean streak down their back.
They consider you inferior for daring to have an opinion different to theirs (because there is only one ‘correct’ opinion: theirs). They call you a terrible writer as they gleefully point out the one typo you missed in a 1,000-word post by means of a comment littered with errors. And they are the master of the passive-aggressive, not-personal-but-really-very-personal insult which they claim isn’t meant to be an insult at all. It’s totally your fault that you don’t understand what they’re saying, of course.
3. Mr/Mrs/Ms Perfect
Species: Perfectus superiorus
Everything about their lives is perfect and *so* much better than yours.
They have the perfect job, the perfect children, the perfect house – and they’re more than happy to offer you their banal home-spun wisdom (it’s actually something they’ve copied word-for-word from something they read on Pinterest) to help you improve your pathetic life. And did they mention how perfect their life is recently?
4. The joke thief
Species: Humora copia
An individual who falsely portrays themselves as Laurel and Hardy, Eric Morecambe and Russell Brand all rolled into one, but funnier.
When they see a good joke on Twitter, instead of just retweeting it like anyone else would, they copy it into a new tweet and pass it off as their own. And post it on Facebook. And then create their own pinnable image for Pinterest.
When challenged about their plagiarism they will feign ignorance, even though their tweet just happens to be time-stamped exactly one minute after the original, which was tweeted by someone they just happen to follow.
5. The argument finisher
Species: Ultima worda
This type of user cannot leave an argument without having the last word so that they can claim victory and the moral high ground.
There are two distinct subspecies of the argument finisher. One is a troll (trollus trollos), while the other is the type of person who unwittingly gets drawn into a never-ending argument with a troll (victimus innocenti).
6. The angriest (wo)man in the world EVAH
Species: Ragius ragii
Some people are just spoiling for an argument and can be offended by the most innocent of comments.
They constantly take umbrage at anyone who says anything that could in any way be interpreted by them as offensive, which is basically everything they come across: “hello”, for instance, especially if not followed by at least five smiley emojis.
Everyone they come into contact with is incompetent, racist, sexist, misogynist and various other -ists that they’ll invent when the occasion suits. Any attempt to calm them down is met with the accusation that you’re being blatantly angry-ist.
7. The Queen Bee
Species: Bitcha majora
Despite the name, this species has both male and female forms. They consider themselves to be the ruler and ultimate arbiter of their little corner of social media (and secretly believe the world would be a much better place if they were given total control over policing the web).
Woe betide anyone who challenges their authority, as they will be slapped firmly back into place for daring to point out that social media is so great because it’s democratic and allows everyone an equal voice. The bitcha majora will acknowledge this but claim that some users are more equal than others – specifically, them.
8. Mr/Mrs/Ms Literal
Species: Verbalis literalis
A sister species to ragius ragii, this type of person takes everything literally and is incapable of detecting irony, sarcasm and any other form of humour unless accompanied by 15 exclamation marks and a line of emojis.
Even then, they’re still not sure.
9. The know-it-all
Species: Knowitallus rex
Knows everything about everything. Adept at Googling facts and then posting a sarcastic comment such as “Did you not know that? Thicko!”, as if everyone should know that the Eiffel Tower is 301 metres high.
I know that because I just looked it up on Wikipedia and then cross-checked it via Google. Duh.
10. The chain-mailers
Species: Memeus prolificus
We all like a good meme, but this type of user will share every one circulating around social media, even ones that people who don’t have internet access and live in a cave on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific have already seen 17 times.
Most are harmless, but a small minority (memeus overreacticus) also suffer from a hormonal imbalance that renders them insanely angry if they tag you in a meme and you dare to ignore it.
Do you know of any other social media species who should be put on the endangered list?
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