Social Sense: Social Media Etiquette

In this episode of Untamed Social, Laney and Anna take the spotlight in a hilarious and unfiltered discussion about the often-overlooked topic of social media etiquette. From the unwritten rules of posting photos to navigating the fine line between personal and public sharing, the duo dives deep into the gray areas of online behavior. They explore how different generations approach digital norms, the pressure to maintain a curated online persona, and the consequences of breaking these unspoken rules.

Whether you're curious about the "dos and don'ts" of social media, interested in influencer culture, or just here for the laughs, this episode is packed with relatable content and candid moments. Join Laney and Anna as they tackle the Wild West of social media and share their unique perspectives on what it means to be untamed online.

Discussion Highlights:
- Social Media Etiquette: What it is and why it matters.
- Unwritten Rules: How to navigate the murky waters of online behavior.
- Influencer Culture: The dos and don'ts when tagging brands and sharing content.
- Personal Stories: Laney and Anna share their experiences with privacy and public sharing.
- Pet Peeves: From oversharing to carousel posts, what annoys us most online.
- Consequences: What happens when social media etiquette is broken.

Transcript

Laney: Welcome back to Untamed Social. You're in for a treat today. A true treat because if there's anybody that is untamed on our team, it is Anna and I. Am I wrong?

Anna: You're 100% right there.

Laney: I'm like, when I saw the schedule of the podcast lineup and it was like Laney and Anna I was like this is a bad choice.

Anna: To have us be the first go on our own in the sea.

Laney: Right, in the sea, we should not be allowed by ourselves without somebody, like, supervising, for sure.

Anna: This is a test run to see if we can do this off leash, you know?

Laney: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're exactly right.Because God knows we have no etiquette. Speaking of etiquette, today we're talking about social media etiquette. And I just don't know again if we're the ones to be talking about this. And if it's appropriate to do certain things or not. I mean, when you think of social media etiquette, what does that even mean to you?

Anna: I think it's about how like now in the digital world, there's fully different social norms for like what's appropriate and what isn't for your behavior online, for your behavior in the real world, but then like you're filming it to be online and all that sort of jazz. And it's funny that you bring up like we're not the best two people because our social medias ourselves are so private. We like are not like, well, okay, besides your TikTok.

Laney: Yeah yeah yeah, not my TikTok. Everything else though, it's like lockdown.

Anna: Yeah, I'm the same way. Like I have like maybe five public TikTok like posts up, but then my Instagram's like locked down private. And so I think it's funny that like..

Laney: I’m not gonna lie, when I tried to friend you on Instagram, I thought to myself, I wonder if she'll even accept. Like if she'll even give me permission to look at her content.

Anna: I'm very picky about, I'm just like a paranoid person. Like the other day I Googled my name and so many pictures of my face from Strella stuff came up and I was like, oh my God.

Laney: Yeah don’t ever do that.

Anna: I learned it the hard way.

Laney: Sometimes when I Google my name, I'll find like blogs that have written about my TikTok content, which is wild. Yeah, yeah, you should look at it sometime and you're gonna be like, wait, what?

Anna: That’s crazy. It's really.. 

Laney: and most of the time it's like moms or teachers who hate me and they're like saying how I'm a horrible human being and...It's really crazy.

Anna: You should comment like “thanks” xoxo thank you

Laney: But yeah, I feel like there's like unwritten rules to social media, right? That everybody should know, but not everybody knows. And I don't know why everybody isn't on the same page.

Anna: Yeah.Like everyone has differing opinions based on like how they use their social media. And so if you have friends who have like a substantially bigger following than you or like a substantially smaller, they might be abiding by different roles and you can get into like sort of weird, awkward social situations because of that.

Laney: Yeah, and you know, rules do apply differently to different people.I think about like, I try to be like funny and like my content isn't like crazy, but my family follows me, whatever. If I say one thing that's like out of line for them, they immediately are texting, calling me. They're like, this was too far. You went too far. My cousin, she gets so wild on Instagram and her stories that I'm like, is she not getting reprimanded the way that I do? Or are people just like, nope, that's her, that's her. We'll accept it.

Anna: Well and also, I don't know what they're teaching children in school nowadays about digital footprint, but when I was a kid, we used to have sit-down level assemblies of being like, I know it doesn't seem like it, the internet is forever. Like be super mindful of what you put on there because it will be there forever. And I feel like people specifically my age or maybe one or two years older get that and are a lot more private with their social media. And then I see people either like, 10 years older or 10 years younger than me, doing like the complete opposite and just like baring it all on social media.

Laney: Yeah, I mean you have to think like my generation we were, Instagram came when I was like in college. So for us it was like no holds barred. You do whatever it is that you want. There's zero repercussions for you. You just put it all out there for sure. So what are some things that you feel like should be like standard social media etiquette that people don't abide by?

Anna: I feel like the first one is like if you're going to post a picture, this actually came up in my friend group the other day, like if you're gonna post a picture with someone else, they have to like know of it beforehand or like have at least seen the photo and been okay with it, especially if you have like a public thing and it's maybe a picture of like just them. Like I have a friend who runs an account and it's kind of like a photography account of pictures she takes when we're all out on the town. And she sent us this message the other day, being like, by the way, I hope you guys all know that you have veto power for any of the pictures I take. I won't post them on social media if you don't want to. And I was like, I wonder if this came up with someone. Like I wonder if some people don't want certain things on there or some people don't care.

Laney: Right, that’s actually like a good friend.

Anna: Whereas to me, if I'm gonna post...Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. If I was gonna post a picture of someone on my main full...feed post Instagram, I would make sure that everyone sort of knew the photo or it was like automatically just a good photo. Like I would never post photo of someone doing something crazy and like never run it past them, you know?

Laney: Right, I mean, I didn't think of that, but that's actually very courteous. I mean, the only time I think about it is like kids. Like kids should never be posted without the parents permission. But like if it's a friend of mine or a cousin or whatever, I'm never asking permission. I failed that social media etiquette. So don't ever take a picture with me, Anna.

Anna: Now I gotta be ready and prepared.

Laney: Right, exactly. Like if you don't like it of yourself, too bad. That's really good though. But! One thing that I will say though, is that like, you know what I can't stand is when people tag brands or influencers or other people in videos or it doesn't even matter, it can be Instagram like a static post or whatever and that person is not in there they're just like trying to get a reshare or whatever and it's like why why are you doing that?

Anna: It just feels like such blatant pandering of being like, I want more people to see this, which is also an interesting part of social media, because the whole point is to get a lot of people to see it, but you're also supposed to make it seem like you don't want that. It's supposed to be like flawless and effortless. So it's like against social media etiquette to do that, even though the point of social media is to do that.

Laney: Yeah, it's so weird. Also like people, what I get all the time is like on my TikTok account, people asking for money and they will comment the same sentence on like 50 of my videos. Like, I'm so hungry, send me money. That sounds so bad for me to say, but that's literally what they comment. And it's like, that's not how you go about it. 

Anna: Yeah, well, it's also tough because it's not like in real life where you can like look someone dead in the eyes and be like, I'm so sorry, I don't have cash on me right now. It's like permanently embezzled on your video. And it's like, okay, am I either gonna be the rude person and like delete this or is it just gonna like sit here, you know?

Laney: I mean, I let them sit, but they're not going to hear back from me. You know what I mean?

Anna: Yeah. I feel like my pet peeve is like kind of similar to that, but it's when people post carousels of like the same photo shoot and it's all just picture like a picture of themselves, but in like a slightly different pose or angle, like five or six times they're there. And I'm like, you couldn't, that one just feels so bizarre to me of being like, did it need to be that many photos of the same outfit? The same location. Like if you want to post pictures of all just yourself, cheers, power to you. Did we need the camera roll scroll of like when you were taking these photos, you know?

Laney: Yeah, I'm with you on that. Like, at least mix it up.I mean, if you've got multiple shoots, just pull from different shoots and then do a separate one with the different shoots. Let's go that route.

Anna: Put one on your, you could do that whole Instagram story collage thing where it looks like it's your camera roll and there's like all five of them right there, like do something creative instead of just making me be like, is something else going to happen or is it the same photo but like this one your eyes are looking to the left, this one your eyes are looking to the right, like.

Laney: Yeah, exactly. And that kind of like goes into, I mean, maybe this is my opinion, not other people's, but it just feels so narcissistic sometimes, like social media in general feels super narcissistic to me. But like that with the multiple photos and the same shoot, but also like posting a hundred stories a day and documenting every move that you make, it feels like desperate for validation. And to me, feel like you should respect your followers enough. Like, give them a break. They don't need to see you every second of every day. You know what I mean? Like, you violated etiquette.

Anna: There is a point where it's like, do you have a journal? Do you have a pen? Like, is this maybe a journal thought? Or is it an Instagram story thought, literally? Or a friend with a listening ear? Like, there's some point where it's like, I love that people, I love reading all those things. That is where I'm like hypocritical about it. It's like, I would never do that because I would think it was socially like improper to do so and like too invasive. But if someone's like posting like a hundred post story, it's like screenshots from their ex or something, I'm reading every single word. I'm sat. I'll do it.

Laney: If you're just walking your dog and like going to the coffee shop, I don't really care about that part. We're so mean. I get that. I feel like this podcast should be unhinged--Unhinged social.

Anna: We’re really putting the untamed in untamed social.

Laney: Right. That's so...It's so bad.It's so no, but you know who is unhinged is I mean, this is like kind of old news now, but Lilah Gibney with the wedding.I just she makes me cringe. Did you watch her apology video?

Anna: I think I made it like a minute and a half in and then I was like, I don't know you or care. Yay.t's just one of those things of like, apparently from what I heard of the story of like Kouvr and Alex Warren's wedding was that they had signs about like not having your phones out or some kind of like the message was relayed. Like do not videotape this, do not post this before we do. And to just blatantly ignore that I feel like is the key point here.

Laney: And the best part about her apology was that there were two things that she said that stood out to me. The first was that she said, there's no wedding influencer rule book. And I just started laughing at her immediately. Like girl, no, there's not an influencer wedding rule book. It's just like normal etiquette. It's not even social media etiquette. It's just normal etiquette. Like I don't understand that. But then she also said that there were no signs. So. I think she was so like into her phone and capturing anything and everything she could. She literally missed the sign and probably a lot more if I had to guess.

Anna: Well, it's also representative that she, maybe her connection to these people is not necessarily one of friendship, but is one of like digital networking. Like if you are literally looking towards this event as being like, 

Laney: Yeah

Anna: I'm gonna get such good content, I'm here with all my other content creators, I'm gonna expand my reach, as opposed to being like, my friends are getting married. This is a beautiful ceremony. Like depending on the outlook you're going towards it with, it'd be so much easier to disregard those etiquette rules. 

Laney: Yes!

Anna: It's also, there's no etiquette handbook for anything ever!

Laney: Right!

Anna: Unless you're like going to grandma's house and picking out a dusty old book that's like what side to put the silverware on the plate. You know what I mean?

Laney: Right. Did your grandma have that?

Anna: Yes!

Laney: Did you read that? I feel like what are those classes? Cotillion? You probably went to like Cotillion, didn't you? You did!

Anna: It wasn't properly cotillion, but it was like dancing.

Laney: Yeah!

Anna: It was like you learned how to be asked to dance and yeah, like what side to put your fork on and how to fold the napkin to indicate you're like ready for the next course. But see, we used to teach etiquette like that. Now we don't. Now you're supposed to be instilled that like through your social experience. And it doesn't always like that feels like such a fickle comment to make of being like there's no influencer wedding handbook. There's no handbook ever. You're supposed to just pick these things up and like be kind in your heart and in your soul and then you figure it out.

Laney: Yeah, well, you want to okay, this is sidetrack. Here we go. This is why you don't want Anna and I on a podcast together. But speaking of Cotillion, okay, so growing up in elementary school, I was like the poor one, right? Like, and my family has zero cooth. We're not going to etiquette classes. Okay. And all of my friends, like they were rich, they were going to Cotillion, whatever, whatever. So there was like this final Cotillion class dance. I don't really know what you call it. And my boyfriend in the fourth grade, yes, he went to Cotillion and the day of the final dance, his mom called my mom and was like, hey, would Laney like to come to this Cotillion dance? And I think she probably felt bad for me. She was probably like, let's get her some experience here. So she invited me and like my mom took me to like Belk or JCPenney or something and got me a dress and I went and I had never felt more uncomfortable in my life. All of these fourth grade kids are like sitting there properly with like their utensils in the right order and they're tucking in their napkins and I was just in there like, this is wild, where's the pizza? 

Anna: Turn up the tunes, let's get to dancing.

Laney: Why am I in a country club right now? But that was surely a side track. We're going on a different route there.

Anna: I see the connection because the society we live in now is not as rigid with etiquette and with those sort of social rules, whereas in the past, totally were. It was like, you were gonna be a part of this society with this many eyes on you, you needed to behave a certain way and it would be specifically taught to you. And then social media is like the Wild West in that sense because it was like, here's this tool to be seen by millions of people, behave however you want. 

Laney: And we’ll just make up the rules as we go.

Anna: We’ll make up the rules as we go, and now it's just sort of dictated by public opinion. And then there's even disagreements in that. Like it's thrown all guide out the window because you could do, like we were talking about in our last podcast, the craziest thing known to man. And some people will still be like rocking with it. Some people will still like it. Even if it's not acquired etiquette or whatever.

Laney: Even if they're opening doors with their feet.

Anna: Exactly!

Laney: Like, is that etiquette? Do you consider that to be?

Anna: Yeah, do we call Rage bait the intentional breaking of social media etiquette?

Laney: Okay, okay connection.

Anna: I went to college. I have my bachelor's degree. If you couldn't tell.

Laney: Oh my gosh. I like what you did there if you haven't seen episode one of Untamed Social go check it out. Just a shameless plug there.

Anna: We’re both on it, it’s pretty fun.

Laney: But also so talking about Lilah Gibney and you know her like missing out on the wedding and I'm pretty sure that the sign what did you say that it said? 

Anna: I’m not sure.

Laney: It said something about like be present. Oh it said be present.

Anna: And then maybe in like smaller text it was like put your phone away or something. I don't know.

Laney: Yeah, and what's funny is that like her whole apology, well it wasn't an apology first of all but her big point was that like the way she shows love and gratitude is to create videos of her experiences. That's literally what her entire apology was.

Anna: That just does not seem authentic even in the slightest.

Laney: No.

Anna: Like if that's how you're trying to show love to people then you would like tell them beforehand. Like that just seems so shallow. This is clearly about you wanting more money and clout and attention.

Laney: Yes.

Anna: Like don't try to say that that was an act of love.

Laney: Because we all know it was selfish love. She also caught the bouquet.Did you see that?

Anna: I think I saw it in her video.I think that's the only part where I saw it.

Laney: Yeah, I mean, you know Alex and Kouvr are sitting over there like, are you joking? I'd be pissed. Oh my gosh!

Anna: Well, it's also because like wedding etiquette is already its whole thing and then you start having influencers getting married and it's like, okay, everyone who's gonna come also has a social media following. We all have the same priorities at the end of this day.

Laney: Right.

Anna: But like because it is our day, we should be able to set that boundary and like trust that our friends, I think that's the weirdest thing about it is like, when it comes to so many other parts of relationship boundaries and etiquette and things like that, you trust the people around you to follow it unless something's going on in the background you know.

Laney: Right.

Anna: Like if you took all your friends to dinner and one of them started acting really crazy, you'd be like, are you okay? It's check -in time. And I feel like when you break social media etiquette, it's immediately defensive being like I can do what I want on my social media page.

Laney: Oh 1000%.

Anna: There's a different kind of backlash than to someone doing something in real life that breaks etiquette and breaks your social boundaries.

Laney: Yeah, I mean that's so true on so many levels. Like I literally think about my cousin's social media all the time. I love her to death and it's so entertaining, but she doesn't care at all and every family function that she goes to, she's recording everything the entire time. And I literally think to myself all the time, you are so not present and you're missing out on so much and she's like, no, I'm going to rewatch it. She's like, I'm going to watch it later.

Anna: I have known one person to actually watch it later and it was my friend who was really obsessed with this band in high school and she got to go to the concert and she made her dad film the entire concert on her iPad. And then for her birthday, we watched the whole concert. 

Laney: Stop it.

Anna: They projected it on a screen in the backyard and we sat, watched the whole thing filmed by her dad on the iPad for the whole concert.

Laney: Like shaking, terrible quality.

Anna: No, I don't even remember the details of what the quality of it looked like, because I think we were all talking over it anyway, but I was like, man, you see everyone with their phones out at concerts, and I finally know someone who got the value out of it they wanted.

Laney: Okay, but what concert was it?

Anna: It was Twenty One Pilots.

Laney: What?

Anna: It was Twenty One Pilots. You know who Twenty One Pilots are.

Laney:  I'm about 14 years older than you.

Anna: Laney, that doesn't matter. You know who Fall Out Boy is?

Laney: Yeah yeah yeah!

Anna: You know who Panic at the Disco is?

Laney: For sure.

Anna: Then you know who Twenty One Pilots are. It's spelled like top.

Laney: I mean maybe I know a song.

Anna: You would know a song. And I'm not about to start singing.So you can Google that after.

Laney: Okay.. we're not going that untamed today. Darn. You're like, come on, let's hear it. Okay, let's do something fun. Let's read some Am I the Asshole posts to see if social media etiquette was broken or not.I gotta turn off my heater though, because I'm sweating.

Anna: You go do that, we can flash--

Laney: Okay. I'm good now.

Anna: We can flash it up on the screen so you guys can just read it for yourself. But basically the gist of it was that there was this 16 year old boy and his parents were influencers. Not like huge and famous, probably ones you wouldn't know. He doesn't name them. But they were kind of not being entirely truthful about their lives, which you could expect from..

Laney: Anyone

Anna: I expect that of all influencers at this point. But. He then was feeling kind of frustrated about this, especially because the things they were posting were about like money and how much money they had, but that wasn't entirely accurate. And so one day he makes a TikTok on his own personal page being like, look, this is that one $400 sweater that my mom has and is posting on social media. But like, cause she bought this, here's what I got for Christmas. And it was like a kid's art set or something. And so he made this TikTok like kind of quote unquote exposing him on his really small. Like he wasn't an influencer himself. Didn't think it was gonna get traction. But then maybe apparently it did and that his family was really mad and upset at him. So we made this Reddit post being like, am I the asshole for doing that? And everyone's been like, no, but I think it brings up the question of being like, what is appropriate in terms of interpersonal conflict and things like that to bring to the internet?

Laney: Yeah.

Anna: Like exposing, cancel culture, kind of things like where? Where do you draw that line between what's appropriate? When is that actually useful to bring to the internet? And when is that selfishness? When you need that validation from strangers because you're not getting it in your real life.

Laney: Yeah, I feel like to me it would be acceptable for him to do that if he had, like you said, if he had had that conversation with his parents beforehand and like tried to get through to them what he was feeling and nothing came about, then I would say go for it, expose him. But I'm also crazy wild.

Anna: I have conflicting feelings about it because I'm like, one, I feel like children especially, if they're being put in a situation that they think is unfair, they'll tell the grocery clerk about it.  You know like kids don't care who they tell. So I couldn't hold a child to that expectation.But say this was between two adults and it was something small and petty like that, that feels like a huge breaking of your real life social etiquette. And is that .worth it for like to damage that relationship you have.

Laney: Yeah.

Anna: Because I feel like if I ever was in that situation and any of my close personal friends mentioned anything about like in depth about like what our relationship was like and like the negatives and the highs and the lows I would feel so hurt and so vulnerable and I probably would never speak to that person again.

Laney: Right.

Anna: And so it's like is that is that a line of etiquette that we draw being like, you can cross this line, you will get the validation looking for, but it comes at the cost of probably your real life relationships.

Laney: Well like that's my thing. I'm like him doing this he had to know it was gonna tick them off and that he was gonna risk a lot by doing that it sounds like it was worth it for him like he was like, I don't care I'm doing it!

Anna: Isn’t that what being 16's about is like not thinking that that decision will be a big deal and then it happens and you're like, screw it. I'm staying at my aunt's house

Laney: Right.

Anna: You know, like it's it's not the worst at that like lower level, but I think it just brings up that interesting like we see now with like the Reesa Teesa like Who the F Did I Marry series? There was literally one today about like Liv and Sedona from TikTok where she just like kind of exposed their entire relationship and like I eat it up every time.

Laney: Oh yeah!

Anna: I wanna know, I like it, but then it is also like, I don't know, I feel like that kind of stuff is always put under this umbrella of people deserve to know who you are behind the scenes. We should be exposing these things, we should be bringing them to light. And my question is, should we?

Laney: Should we? Should we though?

Anna: I like it for my entertainment. Am I necessarily making my decisions on who I think is a moral person or not based on like exposing part one series?

Laney: Yeah, well that's really funny that you said that because, okay, this is like, again, going a different route, but I've been doing a Bible study recently about covering people's shame, and it has been on my mind so much that we as humans should be covering people's shame, and I feel like with social media, it is the complete opposite. 

Anna: Opposite, mmm hmmm.

Laney: We are all about exposing shame.

Anna: Yeah! And I like, see it having use in some instances, like the Me Too movement. Do it. Free for all. But then I also see it in other segments of being like, especially at like smaller scales, I'm like, you're just throwing away like a relationship you have with someone. Like you're just bringing things out into open. And like, I've never, I don't know, I feel so conflicted about it. Cause like, I wanna know, clearly this person sounds like a bad person. So you wouldn't care what this might mean for their status or implications, but like I, as a human being, I could never feel comfortable doing something like that, ever, ever, ever.

Laney: Well, I'm glad I have you on my side as a friend. And I promise to treat you the same way.

Anna: I'm gonna get on my TikTok tomorrow and be like, who the F did I start working for? Laney Goff edition.

Laney: And then everything you expose people are gonna be like, oh my god, actually we expected that of her. Oh my goodness. Well, I feel like even though you and I have zero etiquette together, we did a great job on this podcast today!

Anna: Wrapped it up in a nice little bow, I think.

Laney: I think so too.And I had lot of fun with you and I feel like I don't know who we're gonna be with next time. But they have a lot to measure up to.

Anna: I know, we're raising the bar consistently, every day.

Laney: They’re gonna watch this podcast and be like, y 'all are the worst.

Anna: Anyways.

Laney: Anyways, everyone just needs to keep in mind that there is social media etiquette at the end of the day. And maybe you should question whether or not you're crossing that line or not.

Anna: And talk to your friends about what they think social media etiquette is and what you think social media etiquette is. Because I think if you're around people who are on the same page with that, you're golden. You all have the same expectation. It's when you have people with differing opinions on what's proper

Laney: Yes.

Anna:  and what isn't to do on social media, then you start to get into just a muddy area.

Laney: And you have lasting consequences, for sure.

Anna: Internet is forever.

Laney: The internet is forever. At least that's what Gen Z learned. Anyways, we hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thanks for tuning in and we will see you next time. Goodbye!

Anna: Bye.