That’s just one example. I have more.

And as for tweeting about appearance, it depends. I was bored watching my kids gymnastics class and I observed that several small children were wearing pants with words across their little butts. That offends me so I tweeted it. Did the kids know I was tweeting about what their parents allowed them to wear? Unlikely. I wanted to vent and see if other people felt the same way so that’s what I did. I think that kind of observation is relatively harmless.

I think of Twitter as a tool. It’s nice for socializing, it’s good for keeping abreast of local news and goings on and it’s good for evening the playing ground between business and consumers and holding businesses accountable for the way they are run.

Before you criticise someone, walk a mile in their shoes. Because then you will be a mile away from them and you will have their shoes.

Criticism of ACTIONS is one thing, (e.g. I got bad service at Olive Garden, here’s why). Such criticism can be offered acceptably and in a constructive way that may improve said actions in the future. Having said that, I would say that the BEST of all possible routes in such a scenario is not to post anything that you wouldn’t say to the offending individual directly . . . if I’m gonna complain about my Olive Garden service, you can bet that I will have shared my concerns with the server directly before I left the restaurant. And then I’ll probably change the location or lightly fictionalize the account online to make it more generic, since that’s where lessons get shared and learned.

But criticism of IDENTITY is another thing entirely, as people can’t necessarily change who they are or what they look like. You may say “Yes they can, they can make better fashion decisions,” but that may not be economically or educationally or culturally viable for them, and those constraints are every bit as real as physical ones.

You can tell other people that my writing stinks (and, believe me, I’ve heard that A LOT over the years), and that’s fine, it’s an ACTION, and I actually often tweak or adjust things based on reader or editor feedback. But to make nasty comments to others about my appearance or how I smell or what my skin or hair or clothing looks like is an attack on IDENTITY . . . and I never see a case where that sort of online, public commentary adds any value at all to the discourse.

I think we all know deep inside when we’re being mean to other people or offering affirmation to other people. It’s just a matter of whether we think that the mean stuff is acceptable (or necessary) or not. Given the choice, if I can find a way to affirm in my writing, rather than being mean in my writing, I’ll generally try to do so.

She even announces it to me, “ok, I see it’s time to go through my friends list again…”