Learning from your mistakes is an important part of the growing process. But learning from other people’s mistakes is a lot less painful.
With that in mind, it’s worth checking #textmsgsthatmakeyoumad (text messages that make you mad), a hashtag that made trended worldwide on Twitter Thursday.
Even if you’re certain you would never send a message worthy of the list, you can enjoy a good laugh at the social cluelessness of others.
If you hope your text messages will help you win friends and influence people, the first rule is simple: Never ask for nude pictures of people. Especially not @Drakes_beard, who awarded make-you-mad hashtag to the phrase “’Can i get a nude pic or something ??”
Better yet, don’t ask for pictures at all. The exact phrases “send me a pic” and “when someone ask[s] you for a pic” were both tweeted or retweeted multiple times.
Abruptly short messages of all types found lots of criticism. J. Winston Roberts put it best: “[A] short, abrupt message in general. You may as well be like ‘I’m not interested in this conversation, bye.’”
There’s also lots of specific hatred for the single-letter text message “K.” Triple question-mark text messages raised hackles as well: To wit, “when people send “???” after you didn’t answer them. Shut up, I’m not answering for a reason.”
Some messages annoyed recipients not because of the message itself, but the time it was sent. Questions like “”Wat u doing?” Oh at 2 in the morning? I’m white water rafting STUPID! IM SLEEPING!” and “3 am…..‘is you up?’” presumably would’ve been better-received had they arrived 12 hours earlier or later.
Text-message spam is no more popular than its email variant: “chain messages – ‘If you don’t send this to 15 other people by midnight, you don’t love your family’” or “those chainletters that says ‘you hate god if you dont send to 10 people’” both made the list.
It’s also a bad idea to send messages that makes you sound self-centered, like “was that tweet about me.”
In general, it’s safe to say that the text messages most likely to make people mad are pretty much identical to the real-world comments most likely to do so.
Photo by Damn You Auto Correct