My golden rule for social media: talk trash to your hearts content, but do it in private – The Guardian

Some friends of mine, a couple working from home together, have reacted to the boredom of lockdown by turning their hairless cat into a workplace antagonist, muttering darkly about his behaviour from the other side of the room. The impulse to invent enemies runs deep. And now that our entire social lives have been reduced to the domestic and online spheres, theres a lot of dark energy going around. And it has to find an outlet somewhere.

For the most part, this has taken the form of being unpleasant to people on social media. Twitter, especially now that theres a new feature that allows you to see if youve been retweeted by a private account, has never felt more rancorous and fogged in paranoia. This is fuelled by a lack of real-world gossip, as well as the way in which social media functions as a kind of public-private forum where intensely personal and confessional material (which can be grating) lives alongside endless discourse about politics (which can be objectionable).

But the hidden backstory to these unedifying disputes on the timeline is whats going on in private chats such as those enabled by WhatsApp: where stupid opinions and embarrassing disclosures are screenshotted and sent to friends or taken apart on locked accounts. Im talking about bitching. Its a practice thats as old as time itself, but Ive recently been considering it anew. And it may be something that is far more healthy and social than you might think.

The idea that bitching, something that necessarily takes place behind the subjects back, is cowardly and unpleasant is deeply ingrained in our culture, from Shakespeare (Iago was the original fake friend) through to hip-hop and reality TV. If you have a problem with someone, we are told, you should tell them to their face. And certainly this may be true if the person is someone you know well, and whatever fault youve assigned to them is serious. But the internet is suffering from a surfeit of people saying exactly what they think, and often to strangers over trivial slights. It is awash with pointless drama and petty beefs.

Perhaps we need to embrace the idea that, rather than being cowardly, bitching an ideal way to let off steam can be considerate. If someone on the internet says something embarrassing, choosing to mock them in private is an act of great mercy.

Theres a narcissistic pleasure to imagining you have haters, but social media, like the world at large, is mostly indifferent to all of us. That said, I know there are people who dislike me. It would be affecting a bravado I dont possess to say that I dont care when I get slagged off. In fact, I care so much that I would rather not read it or hear about it (while acknowledging that, as a writer, my work is fair game for public criticism). What people say about me in private, Ive realised, is none of my business. So to anyone whos ever made fun of me in a group chat, thank you for being so considerate of my feelings. If youve ever quote-tweeted me on a locked account, on the other hand

But what about the idea that bitching is bad for yourself and the culture at large? That it is unhealthy for the ego and corrosive to the soul? Its true that bitching can be motivated by bitterness and jealousy (Im sure, for instance, this has been the case every single time someone has criticised me behind my back). It may also be the case that bitching about someones online brand can make you dislike them without really knowing them. It can encourage a kind of prejudice based on limited evidence. This is where it can play into more tangibly harmful behaviours, such as shunning, ostracism, or the formation of exclusionary, gate-keeping cliques.

But its possible to separate disliking someones social media presence and disliking them personally. Of course, one can bleed into the other, but its possible to bitch at the level of abstraction, in such a way where it isnt really about the subject at all.

And besides, even if we are to accept that bitching is a moral crime, its still better to do it in a way that doesnt hurt anyone. In a culture where we are increasingly prone to react to what we see on the internet, bitching behind peoples backs is a form of harm reduction. The goal is to bitch without being a bitch about it.

The say it to my face school does have one thing right: if you have a genuine problem with someone, the best course of action is to approach them directly. But if your only issue is that you find their social media output embarrassing, then going out of your way to tell them this would be bizarre: Hi, I thought I should let you know I thought the risotto you posted earlier looked absolutely disgusting. Anyway, hope youre well! Xx If your sole issue with someone is that they post too many twee photos of quarantine baking on Instagram, its probably better to text a friend.

Bitching in private starts to look much more palatable if viewed as an alternative to the kind of harassment that social media encourages, acting as a release of the same energies a kind of cultural criticism among friends, where the material under review is everyday life. There is, these days, often a conflation between thinking someone is irritating and thinking theyre fundamentally toxic. We should be more accepting of the idea that its fine to dislike someone, not because youve decided they embody some profound problem, but simply because you find them annoying, or even because youre jealous.

If we were more honest about our motivations, wed be likelier to opt for the kinder option bitching about someone in private instead of feeling the compulsion to denounce them in public. Ethical bitching is about acknowledging when youre being a bad person, rather than trying to convince yourself that youre leading a moral crusade.

To use social media today is to feel constantly surveilled. As such, there is a libidinal pleasure to being catty in private. Its not noble or productive, but unless youre indulging in slander, its difficult to see what harm there is in taking the piss out of someone. The kind thing is to ensure they never find out.

James Greig is a London-based journalist who writes for Vice, i-D and Huck

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My golden rule for social media: talk trash to your hearts content, but do it in private - The Guardian