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I was reading a blog post by Connor Wilson recently, in which Connors was opposed to the idea of a guy called Franky criticizing Matt Mullenweg regarding the issue of banning sponsored WordPress themes for the WordPress platform. In the post, Connor also said the following:

In the above quote, Connor said that Franky should not use the name of Matt in order to generate traffic for Franky’s site. That made me think: how can one be sure that a blog article really intends to be critical, and how can one be sure when a blog article was written simply to attract traffic? Is there a way to prove that something was written to be critical, or if something was written only to generate traffic? The same idea can be applied to Franky’s post; how can we know he really got affected by Matt’s decision on sponsored WordPress themes, since he is still using the WordPress software on the very site he criticized Matt on?

Some people criticize in order to be heard. Others criticize to get website traffic. Yet others combine the two to get both.

There is nothing wrong with producing quality content and expecting incoming traffic. That is why whenever there is a critical analysis about something, one of the questions that comes to my mind is “Why is he or she interested in this topic?” Similarly, when a post is not a critical analysis and is instead simply criticism about something, I wonder about the same question. Sometimes, people write articles simply to impress readers and generate traffic. Other times, people criticize others because they actually feel they are not satisfied with something.

Is there a way to find out when a blog post was written only to get traffic, or if it was written with at least a little bit intention of sincerely talking about some issue?

That makes me wonder if there is any good way to figure out when a criticizing article was written to be only a linkbait, and when a criticizing article was written because there was something useful to write about. Can I say that Connor was only trying to generate traffic for his site by criticizing Franky, or can I say that Franky was only trying to generate traffic for his site by criticizing Matt? Can they both be sincerely criticizing something they are not happy with? Or could they both be using different names simply to attract traffic? How can you be sure that this very post of mine that you are reading was not written only to generate traffic?

Is it ever possible to criticize someone else without being called a person who only wants publicity and nothing else?

Are stereotyping or misinterpreting writing which criticizes someone or something we value to be written only to generate traffic and for no other benefit? Is writing something to generate traffic always bad? How can we ever criticize anyone or anything without worrying that someone out there may think that we are criticizing intentionally only to get attention for our website? Is anything that is done to earn money or get something like blog traffic not good at all? What level of scale or analysis can be used online to find out the answer?

The answer can very easy or hard, depending on whether or not we have experience with such things in both the online and the offline world.

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1. Not talking about a job means you have no job

   Many people assume that if someone does not talk much about their offline job, they do not have a job, or they do not have a good job. These people probably cannot understand the fact, easily, that sometimes people simply do not want to talk about something in their personal life as it may be boring, or it may be personal and they may not want to share it with people who are not genuinely interested in knowing.

   I personally get to hear this every other day, since I do not talk about my offline work activities, or anything similar, on my site here or with others that much. Instead of asking, people assume things about my job. I get over 50 calls every day alone related to “work” that I do not get paid for, and I have to meet around 10 people every 2 days or so, directly, in private meetings, to do things related to work, round the clock; sometimes I have to meet people at 3 AM. That is why I am always finding it funny when some people do not ask me about my activities, but simply assume that I do not do anything other than to blog on this site and eat chocolate.

2. Never talking about your offline life means you have no offline life

   Some people assume that if you do not push your offline personal life into the online world, you do not have an offline life. That is why if you remain quiet in a conversation or try to talk about something, people will immediately assume things about you.

   I personally, rarely talk about offline life online, though if someone asks for it, I may answer in detail depending on the person and the situation. However, people will assume things like my relationships, hobbies, views, religion, sexual preference, etc. on an almost constant basis, because I do not talk about my personal life out of the blue in every chat window that can be opened.

3. The more aggressive you are, the more right you are

   This one is a classic. Many people will assume that if they are aggressive about something, they will appear to be right in almost any argument. It is as if the art of being pushy and aggressive and on the offensive becomes more important than the point being argued.

   I see arguments online regularly, where someone will be very aggressive in questioning something, and they will assume that just because they are aggressive means that they will be able to make the other person look bad. Usually, if one is paying attention, it seems that acting aggressive has nothing to do with being rational or logical. Some times people get aggressive even while asking a question, which makes me wonder: “if this person is so tense while simply asking a question through text and over a topic this person does not care about, how easy will it be to control and affect this person’s moods in real life?“

4. The act of acting weird will go unnoticed

   Some people think that since one can hide in the online world, one can do weird things and go unnoticed. This includes copying others, acting weird like blocking others on instant messengers simply because one feels jealous, one talks to someone else only to ask for advice, etc.

   I think it is very easy to both hide and get noticed in the online world. Noticing someone copying ideas can be tricky, but it does not go unnoticed. I notice people copying my writing and other styles all the time, and I also see people taking ideas from the comments they receive and posting them as their own on a regular basis too. These people basically assume that other people will not care in the online world. On the contrary, people do care a lot in the online world if they feel they are being cheated.

5. Inquiring about something means your knowledge is limited

   Many people think that if you ask questions, you do not know anything about some topic. When a person tells me about a feed reader or some new technology, I listen attentively and I ask questions. That act of asking questions makes many people assume that I do not know anything about the thing I am asking about. I personally have a character where I will ask questions even about things I know, since I want to know more and I want to hear about things from other people’s perspectives a lot.

   Sure, when you ask a question, you may not know something about the element that is being asked in the question, but you may know generally about that something. For example, I have rarely been talking about making money online as of today, but I have made a lot of money online through online businesses in the past. That is why it is funny when people approach me and start assuming that I do not know how to make money online, instead of asking me about it. I am guessing this is one of those things you need to brag about so more people can know, including potential employers.

So there you have it. That is a list of 5 random things that many people assume about others online. Can you think of some other things that people assume? Can you relate to something here, or do you have any opinion about any of these points or about assumptions in general?

Thank you for reading.

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And I think my “ass” felt threatened. The woman started saying that she would kick my “ass” if I didn’t disappear. I just wanted to talk on the phone. I didn’t care about my freedom to go away at that point. I didn’t care about my freedom to drive at that point. I didn’t care about freedom to say stuff at that point. All I cared about was the freedom to talk on my god damn Kyocera phone, and the freedom to sit in that exact spot. Besides, the last time I checked, I paid the freaking taxes for the bench I was sitting on.

The screaming woman didn’t care; she kept yelling that she will beat the crap out of me, and she kept repeating that at the top of her lungs. Some rubberneckers started to stare at me. They were probably wondering who this guy was that could infuriate a lady so much. I got tired of standing. Screw this woman. I sat back down. For a moment, I felt like Rosa Parks defying a screaming lady’s demands.

“HEY YOU ASSHOLE!! YOU GONNA MOVE???” I looked at her with a serious face and nodded a no. I was talking on a cell phone. To heck with this lady, since I wasn’t bothering her directly at all. As a method of retaliation, she started picking up her papers and started throwing them on the other side of the bus stop. Her retaliatory methods encouraged me to keep sitting.

Finally fed up with this woman, I decided to embark on a case of hired mayhem. I ended up hiring a robotic-armed woman as my secret agent to silence the screaming woman who had a fetish with the spot my ass was parked on. How did I achieve such a feat? Read on….

The screaming woman, furious and crying like a little baby, yelled (even louder than before), “WILL SOMEBODY GIVE ME MY SPOT BACK? HE FUCKING TOOK IT!”

There were other people sitting on the bench, and I had changed my bench spot several times by sliding from one end to the other. She simply had a problem with me and my cell phone existing in this part of the universe. The homeless woman with the robotic arm came around again and asked if I had some change. I smiled a sorry face and nodded a no, and then I had an idea! I motioned the one-armed woman to come back and took out a $5 bill, and pointed at the yelling woman, who was still yelling, and made some figures with my hand to show that she was talking a lot.

“Get this woman off my back.” I implied with my gestures and figures.

Then, while I was on the phone, listening, I pointed at the one-armed woman and made a zipper type gesture on my mouth. The robotic lady computed for a few seconds, looked at the other woman, and then smiled with a huge grin and then looked at me and whispered “More.”

She had understood what I wanted, and she wanted more money. I looked at the screaming woman; she had taken out her cell phone and was doing something on it, while still screaming like crazy.

I looked at the one-armed woman, and then took out another $10. The one-armed woman said “More“, so I took out another $20. She immediately took the $35 with her menacing robotic claws, put her index finger on her lips as if telling me to be patient or silent, and then walked off in the other direction.

I was stumped! I thought “Wow, $35 given away for nothing!” I myself wanted to scream at the robotic lady, wanting to tell her “At least do something before walking off with my money to buy a stainless steal cleaner for your robotic arm!”

Then…

The iron-arm secret agent strikes!

I was sitting, looking in the other direction, almost starting to become moody as the lady kept yelling all sorts of profanity at me. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a huge “AAAAH” scream, from some female. I heard some people scream too. I looked in the direction of the screaming woman and noticed she was on the floor.

“What happened?” I thought in ignorance as the robotic woman jumped on the threatening lady and proceeded to beat the crap out of her.

The screaming women started pulling hair and kicked my robotic savior, and the two started shuffling on Shattuck street between Center & Allston, stopping the oncoming traffic from Center.

Many people started running towards them, some trying to get them off. The one-armed woman had fulfilled her promise; she had shut up the woman for $35, though I never imagined it would be through a fist fight. I wonder if I missed the actual action scene, with the iron-fist hitting the screaming woman from the side, while she was still screaming. Who needs to go see action movies in a movie theatre when I can direct my own, action-packed movie for only $35. Talk about reality TV.

The two women were finally separated from each other by some nearby people, and the robotic woman started walking towards me. Some guy tried to stop her from simply walking away and she yelled with her iron arm pointing at the guy, “YOU WANT MY DAMN ARM UP YOUR ASS?” The guy backed off, scared.

The screaming woman started to push and hit others around her, so people started wondering if everyone in the universe was crazy. As the iron-clawed woman approached me, she started saying out loud, “Put down the fucking phone and walk away foooo’” She started sprinting and it was an epic scene; have you ever seen a woman with a robotic claw hand running down on Shattuck street, or any street in the world? I knew I had to move now, no matter what. I couldn’t just put the phone down, so I started walking towards Fed-Ex again. I stood outside it for a few minutes, watching the chaos that Bes had just created from across the street. After the important phone call finished, I went into Fed-ex and started faxing the things I wanted to fax. I kept checking outside every few minutes to see what was going on. The police had arrived, and they were probably asking different people different things. No one was pointing towards me, which was good. Within 20 minutes or so, the street was clear again and there she was, the screaming woman, sitting at the same spot. Some people never learn.

I left FedEx Kinko’s and started walking towards my car. I got into the car, wondering about what had happened. That was probably the 7th nice incident that had happened to Bes on that same day, so it was noted in Bes’s memory for future reference. If only Bes could write a book, it would be awesome (I’m accepting pre-purchases).

I started driving down the street and had to stop at the red light. The light was one light before the screaming lady’s bench area. I heard the same lady screaming again, so I thought she had spotted me and was alerting everyone again. I looked in her direction, surprised. She had not spotted me. She was yelling at some girl who was sitting at a bench near the bus stop. The girl didn’t have any cell phone on her, but she did have a terrified look on her face as she got up and started walking away really fast. I wonder why the screaming woman got mad at her. If only that terrified girl had thirty five dollars.

Perception ruled almost everything

The screaming woman viewed the whole scene as being able to be solved by her yelling at me, without perceiving my situation. I had looked at the situation considering the idea that anyone can sit at bus stops, and that I was not bothering anyone, and that the woman was not homeless. Many homeless people have territories in the Bay Area, so if you invade that space, they can get upset. The screaming lady was surely not homeless, so I thought the invasion of territory shouldn’t be significant. The one-clawed woman/male/something assassin had looked at the entire perspective based on how he/she/it could return some value to me for the $35 I gave to the iron claws, and hitting the other woman seemed the only way for her to achieve some useful results. The imagined or perceived perception of everything resulted in three different characters causing a chain of events that the universe observed.

Who said one-clawed people were evil and not trustworthy? Chaotic, yes. Extreme, yes. But trustworthy, I think. Or at least this one-clawed human being was.

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