I really do not want to moan and groan about social media nuttiness. But sometimes, things get a bit ridiculous.
I am a top stumbler - a Top Stumbler is, according to StumbleUpon, someone who contributes a lot to SU, through his discoveries, reviews, thumbs ups and tags. I do a lot of that, it is easy as I am always on the Net for work, and it is easy to open a tab where I keep stumbling and reviewing. That does not make me an expert on SU - or a super networker. There are people with 100 times more powerful accounts in SU.
But it makes me someone who uses SU a lot. Therefore, I see a lot of these guys below:
The Idiot Fan
My biggest issue is the number of fans. I have almost a thousand fans! That is no small number. In theory, it means that a lot of people like what I discover and stumble, and would like to follow my stumbles using the StumbleUpon toolbar. In practise, it means that people see my avatar in the top stumblers list, come to my profile and add me as a friend. They think that it would be great somehow to add a Top Stumbler as a friend, and he / she would add you back. Not so. But they keep doing that.
Now, I would add anyone back as a mutual friend, if I know they really like my stumbles. How do I know that?
I keep checking back on my discoveries and pages liked to see who all have thumbed up what I liked. If I don’t see your avatar among people who have liked what I liked, then how does that make you my fan or friend? Being my fan means SU would send my stumbles to people who use the toolbar, they would like my stumbles, and thumb them up too. So a fan or friend should like what I do. If you never ever thumb what I stumble, why are you my fan? Why join a political party and never vote?
SU Spammers
These are the fools who will send you messages that go: “hi, I have been checking / following your stumbles and I really think our interests match. Hope you will add me as a friend / check out this site of mine”.
Checking or following my blog? I can always check back to your profile. And I see you have never ever done that. Not a single thumbs up from you on any of my discoveries. Why, yout total stumbles are probably 20 or 100, the amount I stumble in an hour!
The spammer idiot thinks that you would add him back, check his website, thumb it up… I don’t know. Trust me, never gonna happen.
Bikini babes
Yea, that super-sexy blonde bombshell is certainly you, I believe that.
Someone told me this is pink-hat-SEO. Get you to visit them by showing you the pic of a girl in a bikini, legs, bums, big boobies or whatever.
Waste of time, I think.
I know there are a few who just like to have a pic of a girl in a bikini in their avatar. Fair enough.
But when I see you messaging me, then it won’t fool me. Bikini or nude, I would check your blog to see how active you are.
If you are active, you could wear a bikini or even Stumble naked, and I won’t care.
Psycho Thumb Downers
Suspect in his late teens. Will thumb down stuff because
- he got bullied at school
- girlfriend refused oral sex
- cop broke his skateboard
- does not like certain colors
Yea, say he does not like red; he would thumb down a site with a picture of red sky on Mars because he does not like red. Psycho.
Then he would thumb down a story which actually supports their point of view because someone quoted in the story opposed their point of view. It matters not to the Psycho Thumb Downer that the story thoroughly refutes and demolishes what that guy said. “Something I do not like appears in this story as a point of view, THUMB DOWN, BUWAHAHA” describes the philosophy of the Psycho SU user.
Read the effing story, dumb ass. Or better still, join Digg. They love you there. Reddit is too smart for you.
The Maniac Send To user
The send-to button is there to send stories to users. Fine. But how many do you send? The Maniac Send To user would send his site every morning, afternoon and night to you.
Now remember, the maniac can do this because he is already my friend. He is not without a brain, he knows his SU. Except for one thing: SU can track what you send. So if you are all the time sending your own blog posts, SU obviously knows you are marketing your own site - and will probably discount the stumbles on your blog.
Also, say I thumb your post every day. That is a pattern. Obviously, I would blindly thumb anything you send me. It is certain that any half-baked algo (yes, even Google’s algo!) would be able to catch it and discount it.
Why bother, man? Why waste my thumb-up by devaluing it - asking me vote your blog daily? Send it to me once a week, and you probably will actually gain a lot. In fact, if you send your blog posts only occasionally, the thumbs ups you get will remain valuable and send even more traffic.
Who is the least harmful of the above?
The SU bikini girl! She at least shows you pics of boobies.
Hey, no offense
And now to the honest SU user who still doesn’t have a clue. You are like me when I started. I mean, the Idiot But Will Learn category of user. Don’t worry, this is normal.
You are here for fun, or profit. Both are fine by me. SU rewards you with friends, brilliant stories to see and read, and even traffic to your blog or site, if you just take it easy.
Initially stumble a lot with the toolbar, learn the ins and outs, search SU or Google for some guides on SU, and make friends. Make friends here means you find some people you like, religiously check their discoveries and liked pages, thumb them if you like them - and just continue.
The more pages you stumble, the more credible you will become in SU - and you would make friends naturally.
Promoting your page on Day One, on the other hand, is the beginning of a big waste of time.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:57 pm
The ones that bug me are those who consider that “From the page: xxxxxx” constitutes a review. It doesn’t, it is pointless and unhelpful. Stop it.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
you suck -get over it. it comes with the territory of stumbling. Writing a crappy tirade won’t help a damnded thing budy. i hope you didnt submit this yourself
July 21st, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I personally haven’t ran into any of these problems so far, but I can imagine them to be some really big problems, may god help them.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Hi,
Totally agree with you on all of those.
I have eight thousand or so pages stumbled but ive only contributied very few of them as i dont find new websites myself,
just thought you might wanna know
xD
now back to my lonely life off stumble-ing
July 21st, 2008 at 9:19 pm
i thumbed down you, douche
July 21st, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Great post. I am a huge fan of SU and have run across many of the nutcases you have listed here. I think we are all guilty of at least one of these at some point or another. I started off just trying to build my SU network by adding friends but I have come to the same conclusion as you. I regularly go through my contact page and remove people I no longer hold an interest for, then I can add new people in.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:15 pm
My least favorite is the manic “Thumbs Down” person. I’ve encountered some of those…
July 21st, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I am a new stumbler and happened to stumble across this page. I have begun stumbling so I can become more visible myself, but have actually gotten lost in the fun… I can’t believe how much great stuff there is out there that I would never have seen without SU. I have had to ration myself… I start stumbling and could be there for hours or days. I get hungry and stumble faster, hehe.
Thank you for this info; I will try to become a respectable, responsible member of the community… which I’m beginning to love
July 21st, 2008 at 10:51 pm
This is shit, you take SU too serious.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
SU nutjobs in a nutshell
July 21st, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I’m a psycho, thumb downer, maniac with nice legs. Be my friend or else!
July 21st, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Hey I stumbled this
figgered I’d give a shout to ya. I”m more or less a quiet stumbler (meaning I don’t comment on sites I thumb up simply because I don’t like to). I was once asked how could someone have thousands of stumbles yet no comments. I replied with: simple really, hit thumbs up and say whether it’s adult or not and hit submit. Meh works for me lol. Anyway nice post I found it entertaining.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:58 pm
THUMBS DOWN!
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:07 am
STUMBLED!
This is probably one of the better posts I have read on StumbleUpon. I usualy get half a dozen of those messages from someone saying they love my stumbles and to check out their site, blah blah blah.
Good read and yes I really did thumb you up.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:19 am
I got news for you - and even though i agree with some of the points you made - you did moan and groan, and even sounded like the people you accusing. Kind of funny that way.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:29 am
you forgot another one,
the person whose on stumble just to see good websites and isn’t interested in this whole friends crap because he can go outside when he’s finished on the interanet… (sorry for the arrogance of the title i just liked it, honestly no offence meant)
I just honestly don’t know what the point is with all the other stuff on stumbleupon, i got it for the webpages, not to make friends and i don’t care that i have the same web interests as some one else, actually knowing myself i’d rather not know who the other people are out there. And as for the frineds making bit, there are a million other better services out there , i.e facebook, myspace etc.
Having said all this i don’t intend to start an argument here just giving my opinion….. and yes i gave you a thumbs up
stumbler: easypants. peace out and if you wanna add me as a friend of send me messages feel free, it will go completely unnoticed and i will continue on my merry way, lol
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 am
Wow, you are stuck up your own arse! it sounds like you think your famous or something and its SU, not an essential requirement of life
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 am
no funny and not interesting. thumbs down to you…
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:55 am
Ever since I added the option to stumble other SU users, I started seeing these guys all the time! Great post!
~jw
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:40 am
Who ever can take SU so seriously? It’s only for fun, for resting, for seeing interested, funny, stupid, irritating etc. pages. I don’t require my friends have same interests. Why would be? Totally shit!
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
Douche is an apt description. Stumbling while at work? What an idiot. I gave this meaningless tirade a big thumbs DOWN! LOL
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 pm
I haven’t used StumbleUpon much for quite a while
now but I did like the stumblings… I’ve discovered
some cool sites that way and made a few friends.
Some of them still keep in touch with me even so
I’m not active anymore… I’ll probably get back into it
one of those days.
Anyway… back to the subject.
I’ve been pretty lucky, I suppose, as I never really met
the people you’ve mentioned (well, apart from the bikini
girls, but I didn’t mind them) but I’ve heard about it
quite a few times… Has it got worst lately then?
July 25th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I WAS an idiot. Until I discovered how neat SU actually is in its own right.
Thank you for the pointer. Your straightforwardness has not only helped me to understand the true meaning of SU, but also to understand how to make TRUE SU friends.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:57 am
# bob Says:
July 21st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
“you suck -get over it. it comes with the territory of stumbling. Writing a crappy tirade won’t help a damnded thing budy. i hope you didnt submit this yourself”
I’d like to take just a moment to apologize to the human race for the sorry excuse for a moron quoted above.
This is as far as we’ve come folks. Get used to it.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:09 am
O hai,
You, sir, are the messiah of Stumblers. It has been a long time, but finally you are here to guide us.
I thought I might help you add to the list though.
Here’s one you missed:
Narcissistic Douchebags
We all know SU is about sharing our bookmarks, and introducing our network to sites we found interesting. To flesh this out a bit Stumbletron lets us write blogs, PM each other, and discuss our interests in the groups section.
Some people excel at this, opening intellectual doors for their contacts, widening their horizons and shifting their perspectives. But that’s not how it works for everyone.
Some stumblers, see the enterprise as a popularity contest. They thumb links they know will be popular: pictures of seaside cottages, gifs of faeries, the latest Apple product, and never take the time to add content or reviews that make people think.
These people, due to their genuine blandness gain great popularity in the community, because they take great pains to never say anything that would upset another user, and thus damage their popularity. They love the thought of themselves, their mass of fans, and the spooging reviews they generate.
They’d never dream of ruining this position by saying something controversial on their SU blog. So instead they write it anonymously, and then get a trusted shill to add their commentary to stumbletron lest anyone disagree.
It’s very important that the pretense of benign benevolence doesn’t crack, or all that attention they pretend to hate may disappear, leaving them alone and lonely, with only their mundane day-to-day existence intact.
People like the author of this article. You, sir, are the cancer that killed SU.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Awesome categorization - a variety of GOOD stumblers