Online Chatting is like having a conversation with someone.There is same amount of investment of emotions, time and instead of voice you are belting out your thoughts on the chat window through a keyboard. Just like in a face to face chat there are some etiquettes and rules which need to be kept in mind on an online chat.
When I first started chatting way back in 2000, there were very few people who were into chatting and the people on my chat list was less than 10. The only person I chatted with on a regular basis at that time was my older sister who was living in USA. We did not need to follow any particular etiquettes, neither did we know any acronyms like LOL’s or ROFL. But we had fun chats which felt like actual conversations, we fought, laughed and shared our life.
These days with the explosion of internet in every corner of the world, my chat list is bursting at the seams. The rules have changed and chat etiquettes have been forgotten. Over the years, I have seen people bend rules and forget the basic rules of any conversation.
These are some of the things I learnt over the years from google and facebook chat sessions:
1) I am so busy: It is fashionable these days not to respond immediately to anyone’s ping for an online chat. Take your time to answer when someone pings you, especially when you want to show the attitude ‘I am so busy’. This is especially irritating for others when your status says you are available to chat.
2) Not to update status: Be online on Gmail/Facebook/Yahoo and let your status declare to the world that you are as free as a bird. When someone pings you, you answer ‘In a meeting/training, cannot chat’. Let the other person feel like a fool for trying to start a conversation with you. After the meeting ignore the person who pinged you earlier, no need to offer an apology, if he wants to be in touch that sucker will ping again.
3) Chat Requests: Send chat invites to people but do not bother to connect with them even once after they have accepted your request. If you ignore them, it shows your superiority.
4) No Sorry No Goodbye: When someone is chatting with you and you are bored , just stop answering, the person on the other end will wait for sometime for your response and then give up. Let him get pissed off, you can always give the excuse that you suddenly got so busy that you did not even have time to say goodbye(The same person is on your Facebook friends list and even if he/she can see that you have been uploading YouTube videos instead of completing the chat), it is just your choice you have no time or interest in other persons feelings. Saying sorry if you need to step away or goodbye when you end a conversation are all useless etiquettes.
5) Never ever be the first to ping someone, especially a friend you have lost touch with, cause that will show that you are so needy. It shows you have nothing better to do than disturbing people who are so busy and hard at work to have a friendly chat.
6) Block off people you don’t like, but you can always unblock them when you want their help. After all everybody is selfish, you can be too.
7) Going in an offline mode or putting your status as busy when you do not want to be disturbed is so not fashionable. People will understand on their own when you do not respond and will not ping you again.
8) If you accidently get logged off mid conversation, you can conveniently forget that the other person is still waiting for your response and move on to updating twitter or watching a YouTube video. Especially when the other person is sharing a problem with you and you have to actually read it, also when you do not get a chance to turn the conversation in your direction and make the other person listen to your problems.
9) You can completely ignore people you do not want to have a conversation with or if you are in a bad mood.
10) If you are pissed off about something the other person said use words like ‘Dude’, ‘Lady’ or ‘Babes’ and then verbally beat the crap out of them. These words all make it sound so nice and cultured.
I face such people on chat nearly everyday and I am left wondering ‘How can these people forget basic courtesy?’.
The thing is to remember that you can be as crude and rude as you want to be on a chat, after all the person on the other end is far far away and cannot show his anger or shout back at you.
There are absolutely no rules to follow and if someone gets offended he can very well go fly a kite. Who needs real breathing humans with emotions as friends when you can be happy tending to your virtual farm/fish/cafe and updating your facebook status with philosophical proverbs or stalk people on Facebook.
P.S: Please feel free to add to this list if I might have missed something. It could become a guide for newbie chat users.
I have written this post in jest. This is not targeted at any particular person. If you feel bad that you have done these things to me on chat you can purge yourself by tweeting this post :P
Me first? Or is moderation on?