The terrible intimacy of @.

[seanan_mcguire]

I love reviews the way that I love snakes. I am glad that the world is full of them; I enjoy the company of a great many of them; I have been a snake keeper and I studied snakes in school; I do not particularly feel like snuggling up to every snake on the planet, thanks. Many of them have sharp fangs, deadly venom, and little fondness for hugs. While a bitey review won't kill me, I don't feel like hugging them, either. But—and this is important—I am genuinely glad that they exist. The only way to have something universally well-reviewed is to make that thing out of calorie-free vegan zero-cruelty Wonka Fudge that magically changes to taste like whatever it is you love best in all the world, and even then, I bet one person would pan it on the basis of "this has no personal integrity."

Negative and critical reviews are essential. They make people think about what they're consuming. They provide necessary information that a glowing review might skip over in favor of going "yay yay yay" a lot. They matter. Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to link them, because this is my space, and it doesn't mean I'm going to wander into the terrifying depths of the Amazon rabbit hole, where "this book contained the letter 'c'" is considered a legit reason to pan something. I have a vague sense of self-preservation, and while I may be glad those reviews are out there, I'm not going to go seeking them out.

But here is the thing. Many people @-check me on Twitter. "Just finished the new @seananmcguire," or "Wow candy corn @seananmcguire must be thrilled." And this is great, this lets me talk to people and see who's talking about what. I enjoy the closeness of conversation engendered by use of the @ system. Except...

Except some people seem to forget that the people you @-check can actually see what you're saying about them, because you're saying it to them. I've had to stop clicking review links on Twitter, because there are two conventions colliding when someone @-checks me on a negative review: the Twitter social contract, which says that "Thank you!" and other interaction is appropriate, and the writer/reviewer social contract, which says that I will not engage with a negative review in any space. I don't really want to thank people for negative reviews. It seems disingenuous. I also don't want to get flagged as an "attack author" for saying "Well, I'm sorry you felt that way" whenever someone links me to their one-star take down of my latest work. But at the same time, I feel like I was invited to the conversation; after all, including my Twitter handle guarantees that you'll show up in my feed.

I actually spend a lot of time feeling faintly awkward and unsure, because people will @ me the weirdest things. Someone decided to tell me via Twitter that they felt like one of my books had been phoned-in. Um. I'm sorry you feel that way? But I have no place in this conversation. Everyone's feelings about media are valid, period. Everyone has the right to like or dislike things, even problematic things, and not need to defend themselves. But there's a big difference between a negative review, or a conversation to which I am not invited, and walking up to me and announcing "I hate your work." I am not allowed to respond in any substantive way. It's not my place. I don't get to dictate how you feel about a thing. So it winds up feeling attack-y, in a way that a simple bad review does not.

I think it's important to remember that when you @-check a person, you are inviting them to the conversation, and you may consequentially be inviting them to respond. They have been tagged; they are a part of the discussion now. And it's a little unfair to invite them in if you know they're not allowed to join. It hurts.

I am powerless before the terrible intimacy of @.

Comments

[deakat]

I am so sorry that this happens to you. If you are name-checked in any of my tweets, it's because I'm telling someone how awesome you are, or actually sharing something with you directly.

Name-checking someone because you're complaining about them is very passive-aggressive, and I must admit that I have done it at least once in the past, but it felt horrid and I won't be doing it again.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

You've never left me staring at my screen going "I...I don't know how to respond GODDAMMIT."

You're good. :)

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

The @ is definitely weird because it's both a way to identify the person you are referring to on Twitter as well as a way to notify that person that you are talking about them, and you cannot do the former without doing the latter. I totally want to @ authors when I am saying nice things about them, but I wonder, hm, what if I am only giving a four-star review with some critiques? I do want the author to know I really liked the book but do I want them to see where I complain about their overuse of a particular word? I'm not going to @ an author just to pan him or her because that's just rude.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Except you can use # to say "I mean this person," and at that point, the person has to be actively searching or tracking to see that you're talking about them. @spectralbovine = "HEY SUNIL." #spectralbovine = "my friend, Sunil..." Or you could just mention them without either. "My friend, Sunil...".

I think if it's a positive review you want the author to see, that's cool. The "thank you" is appropriate. It's when the "thank you" turns into "well, I'm sorry" that it feels ishy to me.

YMMV.

[archangelwells.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting situation, because I think also many people use the @ to be, essentially, a link. "This is who I'm talking about, you can go check them out" type thing, rather than an actual invitation to conversation. To my understanding, a hash-tag (which might be the other option) won't link back to the person, thus not meeting the desired goal.

Or I could be totally wrong, as I'm mostly a social-media luddite who only ventures on Twitter every blue moon or so.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Twitter is shifting. It really did used to be that every @ was an invite to conversation, and maybe I'm just not adjusting fast enough.

[myfriendamy.livejournal.com]

aw yeah this is an interesting conversation because like you I see it as an invitation to respond or include someone in a discussion, a way of tagging them and making sure they see what you're saying. But I have started wondering if people were using it differently lately(as some of these comments suggest), as a way of reference to whoever they are talking to instead of for that person.

In any case, I will never @ someone unless I want them to see what I'm saying!

I really like this post, though, it's very fair!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay! I am glad to have accomplished fairness. :)

[zola.livejournal.com]

I personally suspect it's intended as a courtesy in many cases. The person is talking about you, so rather than tweet about you "behind your back" so to speak, they put in the @ so that you may respond if you wish.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Which runs us back to the collide. An @ on Twitter means "you are invited to discuss." A bad review means "if you say anything at all, you are in the wrong." Intentional or not, this leads to discomfort.

[athenasbanquet.livejournal.com]

As someone who has @ed you in the last week, I really hope I wasn't a contributor to this feeling. I love your work. I want to share your work with my friends. And when I comment on your books' disturbingness, it's with a significant helping of glee (in the YOU ARE NOT PREPARED kind of way).

At any rate: if I've tweeted at you in a way that makes you feel bad, I'm very sorry, and I'll keep it in mind in the future.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

No, not in the slightest! You are always lovely.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

This is one of the reasons I don't do Twitter -- I keep remembering what the root word of "twitter" is.

And there are lots of snakes that really love hugs -- pythons and anacondas, for instance. Of course, they like being the ones giving the hugs.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I love cuddling with pythons.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time with some of this, as well.

I think some people @msagara, as someone else pointed out, as a kind of pointer/acknowledgement, rather than an attempt to interact. Some people do it because it’s a way of letting other readers know that a particular person *is* on twitter - they’re doing it as a courtesy, not to me, but to people who might be interested in Michelle The Writer who are also on twitter.

I’m from the age of dinosaurs, where I was taught it was absolute poison to interact with reviewers/reviews *at all*.

But some of the reviewers who are younger - like the teen bookbloggers - weren’t raised in that culture; when they link their (mostly positive) reviews, they’re perfectly *happy* to have interaction. Experience with angry authors eventually turns them into the “stay away from reviews” reviewers.

So... I never quite know *how* to respond to positive reviews, because in theory, I’m not supposed to ever respond at all. (These would be the positive reviews with the @ tag. I don’t actually see any other reviews because I find they cause so much anxiety I avoid them. Maybe twice a year, I will put on the big girl pants and go to Google and look for them. Last year was such a stressful writing year that I did it in March. I haven’t looked again.)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I do wish people would remember that when you @, the other person will see it, whether you wanted them to or not. We're all humans here. We should be kind.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

*loves* Negative reviews and "constructive criticism" always feels to me like someone walked up and punched me in the stomach, and then expects me to like it. (My step-mother is a Narcissist, and her "criticism" really was intended to hurt and cause harm; it's taken me a long time to get to where I understand that most people don't actually intend that.)

Satyr reacts to negative reviews and other "constructive criticism" in a way I've never seen anyone else do before: he says "thank you". And then he will usually ask if there's something specific he did that gave them that impression. And then, if they're mistaken he will *sometimes* correct them ("Oh, actually, there IS an index in Deliria; it's six pages at the end of the book. I'm sorry it didn't work better for you") but more often not, and then he'll just file the information away, and make a mental note to make sure he's not doing that in the future.

Needless to say, he was on the receiving end of a LOT of "constructive criticism" from fans while he was at White Wolf, and he ended up deciding that this was the best way to handle it--it makes the reviewers feel *heard*, and it defuses what could blow up into Internet Drama of DOOM.

Which doesn't mean that it's easy. He still lays awake at night and torments himself, and rants to me when he feels that what they're saying is unfair. But it has made him a better writer, and he has the reputation of being accessible and of valuing his fans.

(Note: this only works with rational critics. Irrational ones? Ignore 'em, especially the ones whose "reviews" are threatening... after you report them, if you're willing.)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Satyr is...remarkable, and has been incredibly lucky, maybe because RPGs are slightly different. A lot of reviewers would go "I AM ATTACKED" if someone responded that way, and I am not in the mood to be at the middle of that shitstorm.

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

I still have no idea how to navigate this one. When somebody reviews my stuff and @'s at me, I feel like they expect me to acknowledge them--why else would they be talking at me? Isn't ignoring them rude?--but there's so many conversations about safe reader space going on, I'm starting to feel that I shouldn't reply.

Fortunately I have not yet received that hate @, which would just confuse my coping mechanisms to know end.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[wednesday]

I am in a very different position from yours. That said, I block and mute strangers constantly, because they feel @wednesday is the embodiment of a weekday rather than a person. Even if I wanted to engage with, say, the people who distribute mock RTs saying horrid things, or the ones who had a very bad day, or the frothing hordes of pop star fans who get upset when a video is delayed, I can't -- locked account is locked. (I seem to get the same things on @miercoles, which is open, but I speak no Spanish.) Twitter offers no recourse for this. The attacks aren't personal, see.

So, I'm incredibly sympathetic to having fracas in the mentions.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

<3

[sanacrow.livejournal.com]

I almost @ed you earlier today. Not from a review thingy - but because having a reports about zombie fungi and vampire microbes come across my desk always makes me think of you. In a good way, of course.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

You can ALWAYS @ me horrible shit that Nature does.

[spiffikins]

I do not grok twitter. However every so often I go poke at it, because I am a tech geek, and keep thinking that perhaps I am missing something?
Prior to this post, I would have assumed that twitter was like lj, where it feels like if yo are talking about someone, it is only polite to reference them with their "local" handle. I would not really have considered that @ing someone on twitter would shove my post into their face. And yes, knowing that, it makes absolute sense to me that it would put a person into an awkward position!
I am glad you posted this....I learned something newabout a technology that has evaded my comprehension!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[anne_d]

That seems rude, and approaching internet bullying. Some people have No Nice Manners.

*sends hugs and cat snuggles*

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

YAY KITTIES.

[erinwrites.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen the "celebrities read mean tweets" videos from Kimmel? (I don't watch the show, but I see these when they make the internet rounds...) At any rate, I'm never really sure if the intent of the people who do these things is maliciousness, or simply thoughtlessness

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I have. They make me want to hug all the people.

[ben wolfe (from livejournal.com)]

I've absolutely been guilty, many times, of the "Wow candy corn @seananmcguire must be thrilled." (as well as pushing a certain amount of caffeine / pumpkin / cat-related silliness your way on twitter). I have to admit that I'd not fully considered what it would feel like to have a continuous flood of @-mentions bearing down on me with everything from positive reviews to silliness to vociferous disagreement to inchoate ranting.

I'm with you on the terrible intimacy of the @-mention - there's something almost disturbing about how open twitter really is, compared to much of the rest of the internet. I've had a lot of good conversations with people on twitter, but the reality of twitter is that anyone can respond to what I say there. I'm not particularly comfortable with this idea, and I've only had a handful of interactions on twitter that I was unamused by. I treat twitter very differently than I treat other social media (which I've locked down long since) and even differently than I treat the one blog community where I post under my own name. The inherent intimacy of twitter is, to some degree, a feature - but it's also twitter's greatest bug.

I try to treat twitter the way I'd treat actually interacting with the person behind the twitter handle in the real world - if they're a fellow cat person, I'm probably going to still show them cat pictures, but I'm going to try very hard to be a pleasant person to interact with.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yeah but see I LOVE it when people @ me things they'd say to my face. We are a COMMUNITY. It's when they @ me things I can't respond to without violating social conventions that I get upset and confused.

[aiela.livejournal.com]

I never did like the change Twitter made, at first you only got notified if someone put you at the beginning of their tweet. That way someone could reference someone without them having to read every single mention of them.

I guess some people are too self-centered for that to last.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I wasn't on Twitter when it worked that way. That sounds much more sensible.

[emerald-ibis.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you posted this. I don't use Twitter much, but I'd like to. This perspective on the use of @ is helpful.

Unrelated to Twitter, I have wondered whether you liked the Pumpkin Spice candy corn that Brachs released this year :)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of scared of it.

[pamela d (from livejournal.com)]

This is definitely a big problem with how Twitter works. I have just dealt with it by only tweeting authors when I like their stuff. If I write a negative review, I don't use an @. I am mainly just posting it for my followers. I don't feel authors need to know every single feeling I have about their books. I am not their publisher/editor/etc. :)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

And see, that makes ABSOLUTE SENSE to me! Tweet all your reviews, but only invite the writers into the discussion when it's going to be fun for everyone.

[bill silvia (from livejournal.com)]

I always feel a bit awkward submitting a negative review of a novel. A film, fine. It's the work of dozens, if not hundreds of people. It's harder to take it personally, and if I'm particularly angry, it's hard to get personal when any particular aspect is affected by a dozen or more people. If I hate Actor in a movie, I can always say "I wonder what Director told them here" and it still comes down to "I don't like this collaboration." But to me, when I write a review it's more to the author than it is to the readers. That's not to say that I feel authors should live and die by my word or that I in any way discount the people who are wondering whether or not to buy the book, but my moments of joy as a reviewer come from the "thank you so much for telling me what you thought of my book, and for showing me what you struggled with as a reader." Ask any of my friends, those moments when an author (or agent, editor, etc.) makes me feel like my review did something to influence the artistic direction of the world are the ones that put me in a good mood all day and I just can't shut up about them. At the same time, I've been in the position where "I liked this book, but I don't think it's for everyone" resulted in authors and their fans making snide (or outright aggressive) comments toward me and left me in the position where I have to find a way to respond (because looking like I left the room in a tiff because of their comment when I respond to every other comment on the blog would be almost as bad as being nasty myself) without being in the same position as them: someone acting nasty because someone didn't like their work. And, unlike a film, for an author it is their work.

That said, I feel dishonest if I don't address the author and I know how. If I can tell you to your face that I love Book A, I'm not going to go behind your back and tell our mutual "friends" (substitute friends with followers, readers, casual passers-by, what have you) that Book B was terrible. It's a huge load off my conscience to say, "hey, I didn't like Book B, and if you care to say why, here's the link". Of course, if I find I have nothing nice to say to somebody at all, I simply won't speak to them, because that's putting us both in an awkward position. There are some authors I hope never to meet if and when I become published, because of how I feel about what they write. Still, given the opportunity I would still tell that person's editor or agent "these are the problems I had with this work" in the hopes that the feedback will be translated into something that makes a difference.

I can definitely understand how being put in this place is problematic, but I've also been in situations where somebody talked about me on Twitter without tagging me, assuming that because of a piece of work I did I was a drunk driver and deserved to die in a fire. It would have bothered me much less if they had opened a dialogue with me, in which I could have explained "yes that was dumb, no I didn't drive drunk, and you won't see anything like this in the future". Similarly, I am reviewing a piece right now where the author's portrayal of the aftermath of sexual abuse is rather upsetting to me (anybody here who knows me don't look for it any time soon, it's for a blog that is not open yet and is being added to the backlog once it is), and I would feel much more comfortable about the book and my review of it if I got a comment from the author saying "wow, I didn't look at it this way, I wish I had done some research on this type of abuse as I have no personal experience in it". It wouldn't make me like the book, but it would make me respect the author and buy the next thing he wrote.

Just my (slightly rambling) two thoughts, and hopefully the viewpoint here will make it a bit less uncomfortable next time you are linked to such a review.

While I'm commenting here, I've been working on a NaNoWriMo project that your posts on here indicate you might have some interest in, but I imagine you're entirely too busy for people to say "can you comment on my book that's not even written yet?" to you all day. If I'm wrong and you would like to discuss it, I'd be glad any time to stop what I'm doing and send you an outline.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

And see, when someone directly @s me a negative review, I feel actively hurt. I feel like someone, somewhere, is going "ha ha I can ruin her day by getting her to look at this." I would never, and have never, question someone's right to write a negative review, but putting it in my @ feed makes it feel like you're shoving it in my face. It's not a happy feeling. It's actually a really shitty feeling. It doesn't help that right now, the culture of reader/reviewer/author says that if you post a negative review, even if it's one where I want to go "wow, that makes so much sense," I can't. Even if you went "wow, she listened," someone else would go "ZOMG ATTACK AUTHOR," and I don't have the energy for that dogpile of horrible abuse.

Sadly, I really am entirely too busy, but I wish you all the luck.

[deire.livejournal.com]

I never tag reviews to you, but I will tweet at someone when their conversation amuses me in some way, and I know I have done that to you. I apologize if that was intrusive.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

No no no. Tweeting me is NEVER intrusive. It's saying "here is a shitty review let me point it out to the author" that gets intrusive.

[beacharmed (from livejournal.com)]

You make some good points. Twitter does lead to a overinflated sense of intimacy and people don't always stop to think about what they are saying or doing when they @ a person.

I've @ed you with positive reviews and I don't @ authors with reviews that are negative or only meh. I figure you all can find those on your own. :P

I appreciate the fact that you sometimes reply when I send a tweet your way. Your tweetstream must be crazy busy so it's nice when one of my tweets makes it through. :)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I think that you have a very good balance! :)

And yeah. I'm not going to feel rooked if someone @s me three positive reviews, I visit their site, and see eight negative ones. I'm going to feel like wow, this person cares about my feelings.

Still confused, but appreciate the detailed data-point

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

I (mostly) use @s as an identifier, but with the clear understanding that the person in question is quite likely to be aware of what I've done. That said, if the person I'm reviewing has an active web-site I use that as the identifier instead, because my primary goal in linking to the writer/creator in question is to make it easy for my readers to find the people I'm critiquing.

I'm relatively new to Twitter, though, and my default setting is that any mention of someone in my feed is more of an open door than an active invitation: I'm letting you know I've said something about you, but I don't expect a response.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

This makes sense.

[frith_in_thorns]

Just felt like dropping into this post to tell you that I picked up Rosemary and Rue last Monday, and have since then devoured all of the October books in as few sittings as I could possibly manage. I enjoyed them so much! Thank you for writing them! :D

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay!

Very welcome!

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

I use @ both if I'm responding to someone or if I'm talking about them, but I would never do it if I were writing something negative about someone's work--which I don't do anyway, since I rarely want to talk about things I dislike, but the thoughtlessness of it is mind-boggling. I'm sorry you (and presumably just about all authors) have to deal with that.

I didn't know Twitter used to separate those uses until I read the discussion threads here, and I wish they still did it. :/ It just seems to make sense, on top of minimizing the kind of unpleasantness you're talking about.

Either way, I try not to @ you that often, because you don't know me and I get really anxious about flooding your mentions. ^^; (Which, to be absolutely clear, is totally my own anxiety issues, not an implication that you've ever said anything to make me feel that way!)

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

It seems like it would be more useful to have an explicit symbol-A means I'm talking to someone, symbol-B means I'm talking about someone. Apparently part of the problem was that the situational matching had some issues and could lose some of the talking-to ones as talking-about ones.