By Adam Clark
January 7, 2016
Top 9 Reasons to Stop Posting Quotes (so much)
Thanks social media. I used to love a good quote. Now I generally dread them. Seriously, my feeds are full of them (I need to do some weeding). If you post them yourself, just take a break from that...NOW. If you re-tweet them, favorite them, or encourage the use of them, do so with extreme caution. PLEASE. Probably 90% of quotes are useless and shouldn't be posted on social media.
I don't care if they work to get you followers, re-tweets, or favorites. Just stop it. It's dumbing down the internet and showing your complete lack of sincerity and effort.
Need specific reasons? Fine. Here are 9 reasons why quotes typically are the terrible things to post on social media:
1. They lack context You quote something you cut and paste from a quote list somewhere else. Those quotes were almost certainly made in some context where the surrounding words were important in terms of helping the quote be useful and non-generic and too general. If you leave out the context and just use the quote, you run the risk of using a quote in a way it was never meant to be used or lose its entire meaning. If you don't take the time to clarify and provide context yourself, then you have not identified a good audience, and the best quotes always have a defined audience when they were originally made.
2. They are actually bad advice or are so vague as to bring no value.
Really? So, whatever you are...How stupid is that?! That is the most non-committal to a sense of goodness that I've ever heard. So should Hitler have had no shame because he was what he was?! haha...this is a useless quote. It is so general in nature, that it does no contextual good for anyone. I'm pretty sure that if you are a criminal, or an abuser, or a racist, or a long list of other things, you should have shame for what you are doing, and stop being that. Sigh.
3. They are attributed to the wrong person
How many quotes have you seen where you were like, "um, there is no way that person said that." Yeah, well, the internet is full of quotes like that. Especially for very famous people like Abraham Lincoln, Einstein, etc.
Example?
Just google the quote and you'll find nice references like the one over at Mental Floss (love Mental Floss) that can help you know your quote is misattributed.
Sadly, this one was posted by someone with over 700k followers. and 14 retweeted it the same day alone. Sorry Abe, you'll have to own it a bit longer I guess.
4. You post WAY too many of them.
I don't know what the number should be or at what exact point that I can tell you it is too much. I am not totally against a good quote that serves a purpose (beyond serving yourself). However, here are two signs you use too many quotes: 1) you regularly use the #quotes/#quote hashtag, and 2) If I go to your twitter page and all I see (without scrolling) is quotes.
No one needs that many quotes. really.
5. They are nice, but not practical.
Quotes are nice, but most are generalizations and have no practicality to them. I mean seriously, what are you supposed to do with quotes like...,
"We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier ~ Walter Savage Landor"?
Thanks Walter. I feel bland just for putting that quote in my post here. Does it have some meaning and value? Maybe, but honestly, what are you going to do with that?
Plus, let's be honest. No one can internalize or make practical more than about 1 quote...during their entire life. Ok, maybe 2. How many quotes do you see and think, "wish I was that way" or "I should adopt that", but the practicality of it gets lost in the mess called real life?
6. One quote you post contradicts another.
One of my favorite abuses is when someone is so in love with quotes is that they abandon all their own reasoning and values. One day, they will post a quote that is directly contradicted the next day...but they don't see it. The quotes in some ways replace our own thoughts, and ability to communicate. It ends up dulling any meaning in our own thinking. And how many times do you see anyone saying, "um, that quote is worthless!" or, "that's just not true", etc.? Yeah, pretty much never. Most of the time it's like too much sucralose and love and likes and retweets, and well, you know what I mean. I would like to declare a #refutethequote day once in a while.
7. You quote someone when you don't even know who they are or why you would quote them.
My controversial example (feel free to disagree)? Che Guevara...quit giving life to his words. He was a murderer, couldn't stick with anything, and caused more trouble than he was worth. And he was racist (sorry, but he was). Seriously though, stop quoting terrible people.
Or how about the quote I mentioned earlier from Walter Savage Landor. Please, tell me, before you quoted him, do you even know who he was, when he lived, etc? I doubt the person who posted it failed to even look up anything about poor Walter. At least you can do the courtesy of knowing who the person is that you are quoting.
8. The non-original quote
Let's see...Matthew 16:25 (yes, the Bible):
"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." - Jesus
Seems similar, right?
Side rant warning (you can skip to #9 if you want now)...
One of my favorites is to see quotes that Jesus or another biblical personality said first, but is being quoted from another person. Why is it that we are so scared to give credit to the original sources of the wisdom? It's like saying, "It's more true when Ghandi said it," even when it was said more beautifully and earlier by Jesus a LONG time before. What, is Jesus not cool enough to quote? Wisdom is wisdom. Yet, show me a frequent quoter who quotes Jesus. haha, right.
And so we get to the final one on our list....
9. They don't serve a clear purpose, don't engage, and don't serve their brand.
One twitter guy posted 6 quotes (and that's all he posted) in a 24 hour period of time. His profile descriptions says,
"Helping Salespeople, Managers & Business Owners increase sales. The greatest skill is the ability to listen. Auth SHUT UP! Stop Talking and Start Making Money"
Huh? How is posting random quotes all day 1) helping anyone sell better, and 2) listening? He has more than 8k followers, but almost no re-tweets and no favorites and no replies, etc. How is that engaging? How is that at all aligned with his purpose? It is doing his brand no favors in my opinion.
Well, there you have it. My top 9 reasons for not posting quotes (so much). I feel better now.
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