Are You A Social Media Bull Ant?

One of the things I love about Australia is our unique wildlife.  One of the things I hate about Australia are mega venomous spiders – and Bull Ants!!

I mean – check out the sucker on the left – the ant, not the guy holding the slide – I grew up with these sods.  I learnt very early on that you don’t stick fire crackers down Bull Ant nests for a laugh.  It’s painful and terrifying as these guys are rated as one of the biggest, most primitive, dumbest, most  aggressive species on the planet!  In fact – if you see one – go immediately the other way.  Of course, if it sees you, expect to be chased by it.  It lives to bite.  After a Wildfire, and all the other forest creatures are deceased, bank on the Bull Ants to survive.  In the extreme survivalist stakes Bull Ants have one over cockroaches – an intact standing army!

The “Fight or Flight” mechanism exists in most Earth creatures.

Except Bull Ants.  When they took the course on behavioural science they only got as far as “Fight!” – and then flunked out of school.

In a moment I’ll get to the Social Media Bull Ant syndrome, but here’s a breif explanation on what a Bull Ant actually is.

Bull ants are large with long, straight, powerful jaws and a potent venom-loaded sting. Many species of bull ants have bright red or orange colours on the head or abdomen. There are about 90 species of bull ants in Australia with diverse behaviours and life cycles. Nine bull ant species have been recorded in Sydney, but there may be more as yet undiscovered.

As far as I know there is only one species locally in Melbourne, where I am, to be truly terrified of.  The big bugger illustrated to the left.  Probably has a scientific name of BiteYourAss MegaPainfulless.  I can personally attest to the pain issue.  On our 3/4 of an acre block there are numerous nests.

These ants can deliver painful stings and are aggressive. An ice pack or commercially available spray may be used to relieve the pain of the sting.

Enough With The Wildlife Doco – What’s A Social Media Bull Ant?

These days we live in a world of Social Media.  Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.  It goes on.  Social media has it’s own native fauna that run around, with out the “flight” mechanism, with large pincers to grip their prey, carrying venom sacks with which to inject us with.  Like the Australian Bull Ant this is a primitive species that first appeared millions of bytes ago – on UseNet.  While primitive it’s an adaptable survivor.  It’s survived the age of the NTTP server, the Dot Bomb Ice Age and is thriving deep in this modern inter-web era of RSS.

It’s a ferocious consumer that will “follow” you and attack if you get to near or if it sees you first.  Dropping a firecracker in a nest of them is devastating – to you! Attempting to squash them underfoot will result in a painful bite that may need more than an ice pack.  There is no commercially available spray for treatment.

Negative comments, ad hominem attacks just for the sake of it.  Welcome to Bull Ant 2.0!

All is not lost however.  Just like in the Australian bush (or my backyard) a lot can be done to avoid these encounters for both ourselves, our families and our software businesses.

1. Try To Avoid Negative People And Don’t Encourage Them.

To often we find ourselves obsessed with what is said about us or to us online.  Too many people don’t “unsubscribe” either the negative person or the service in extreme cases simply because they “gotta see”.  This is akin to walking up to a Bull Ant nest and poking a stick in.  Out they swarm – right on queue – ready to bite your butt.

2. Don’t Talk Religion

With the possible exception of Priests, Nuns, Rabbis, Imams and other career professionals who are generally more robust and better able to take idiotic insults from the Web 2.0 Bull Ant. Take it from an ex UseNet moderator of three Big 8 newsgroups with over a decades experience .

1. People will not change their beliefs no matter how well or logically you argued your point.
2. Don’t assume others around you hold the same beliefs as you do.
3. Religion includes debates on Creation vs. Evolution with both sides being capable of being zealots.
4. Keep in mind that people KILL over religious issues.

3. Don’t Talk Politics

With the caveat of “unless you are directly involved in politics.”

I do this – but I am directly involved and like it or not Social Media = Political Campaigning now.

But for the average Jack and Jill – and most software companies – it’s an absolute EPIC FAIL almost on the level of point 2 above.

Most people don’t truly understand politics.  Those that think they do are often the worst Web 2.0 Bull Ants.  Take for example Australia’s Preferential Voting system.  Try and get the average person on the street to understand how a rank outsider can get elected on preferences alone – and not primary votes.  Don’t get me started on the Australian media’s trend of covering elections like Presidential elections USA style – people think they are voting for the Prime Minister, but they’re not – it’s the party at the end of the day, parties elect Prime Ministers – and replace them, regularly.  We have the West Minister system here and the only similarity to the USA is in the name alone of “Senate” rather than “House Of Lords” as in the United Kingdom (that and we’ve always elected Senators, it’s not a birthright like the House of Lords used to be).

With the basics obfuscated it’s small wonder people get narky debating politics.  Stay clear.  From a distance carefully watch the political types (and politicians) screw up on Social networking sites.  Believe me – you aint seen anything yet!

4. Don’t Collect “Followers” Like “Beanie Babies”.

So many people collect “followers” as some kind of competition.  Totally in opposition to the core concept of social networking.  Be selective, follow or be followed by people who are on the same wave length as you, interested in the same topic as you.  Try to apply the same rules to Social Media and networking as you’d apply in real life.  A sane person who believes in religion doesn’t walk into a university paleoanthropology class and argue the origins of man.  Likewise a person subscribing to evolution doesn’t walk into a church service and do the same.  If you hate Lego and think Meccano sets ROCK then concentrate on people who like Meccano – and so on.

5. This blogs comments section is a classic example of what not to do!

Yep.  I have a small cabal of angry Usenet users, all developers, who for a variety of reasons took umbrage to being moderated.  Some are from the Business Of Software forums.  Some are simply people who crawl out from under rocks around the Internet.  While there are some great people who comment here I see a lot of negative numbskulls who post meaningless, unsupported negativity frequently.  That kind of person is a Social Media Bull Ant 2.0.   Most bloggers delete these kind of comments, but I’m fascinated by human psychology and let many of them through.

A final point.  Companies – and probably customers – are using social networking to “check you out”.  What will they find?  A decent citizen or a Social Networking Bull Ant?

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Thanks to the Australian Museum for the Bull Ant quotes.

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Scott Kane