Last week Kelly Sturcke noticed a lot of vitriol coming from the popular neighborhood social media site “Next Door.” “It seemed like anything that was posted caused a fight,” said Sturcke. “Sometimes, it appears as if the post was meant to cause a fight. Maybe people are so lonely or bored they are posting things just so a fight or disagreement starts and then they can follow the evil banter like a soap opera. I just find it hard to believe that people would be so naïve to think posting some of these things wouldn’t start a fair amount of disagreement. Maybe not what the intended purpose was for ‘Next Door.’” Sturcke knew she wouldn’t be able to make comments on any of the “argument posts” that would end the conversations in a positive way, but thought she may be able to make a change by making her own post that everyone could get behind.
“I figured I would post something innocuous that people couldn’t disagree on and also may come off in a positive way,” said Sturcke. “So, I posted, ‘the sky is blue.’ I figured, everyone has to agree with that, and in a way, the idea of blue skies can be a positive one.” The post ended up being what will be a great example of the social media world we live in today. “Some people, of course, ‘thanked’ me, and made comments saying simple things like, ‘sure is,’ or ‘great day,’ said Sturcke. “But, then came the dissenters. We clearly have trollers on a community site, or people who have a disease where they have to argue. It caused all sorts of chaos. I couldn’t have imagined it.” On the ‘Next Door’ post, argumentative comments could be seen such as, “how can you say that? Looks gray to me,” and “you are rude,” and even “this is the exact reason I hate this site. Because of people like you.” The comments thread went on and on, according to Sturcke. “I wanted to delete it, but I admit, morbid curiously as to what and why people were commenting on such a benign post got the best of me. People were responding to people responding to people responding. I inadvertently started a hate string. It was pretty crazy.” Sturcke says her experiment is complete, and she has no intention of replicating it. “I have no interest in ever using Next Door again unless it is for an emergency. And honestly, I can’t imagine what that would be.”