When someone replies to a message with a mysterious image macro, or with a sentence too ambiguous and terse to parse, what they’re saying is, “you should ignore me, because I couldn’t be bothered to take the time to express my opinion clearly enough for anyone to understand it.”
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Replying to @perrymetzger
Disagree. It’s saying “I spend most of my time in a subculture with shared assumptions you aren’t familiar with. You’d have to do a lot of work to understand me.” I credit my willingness to do that work with a lot of the things I know.
2 replies 0 retweets 6 likes -
Replying to @s_r_constantin
I have worked on occasion to unpack such things. My conclusion, after learning what was meant, has almost always been “you made no effort to be understood, and perhaps not coincidentally, you weren’t worth making an effort to understand.”
2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @perrymetzger @s_r_constantin
It takes some skill and intelligence to learn how to communicate clearly. It’s not an accident that people who can’t communicate clearly are more likely to lack those qualities.
2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @perrymetzger
It does take skill to communicate clearly. It’s also a generically cooperative activity — it helps all who are exposed to it. If you only pay attention to people who are trying to be understood by you, you will know nothing about the people who are acting adversarially.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @s_r_constantin
There are hundreds of millions of people online. I cannot make time to learn what all of them might be trying to communicate. I don’t even have time for all the people I know are worthwhile to listen to.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @perrymetzger
It’s not, like, a duty. “Listen to the most worthwhile people” like a job or something. If you ever get curious what makes someone tick, you’ll read more of their stuff. If not, not.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
I occasionally get people who feel misunderstood by everyone else considering me to be understanding. That’s enough to make me want to read a lot of people’s archives and learn their slang. Might not be for you!
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