X mutual who likes EVERYTHING

September 1, 2023 1:48 PM

I know how petty this sounds, but really, I bet there are some of us on X/Twitter who feel this way: This nice guy is a mutual (we follow each other), but he lurks all day and gives me a Like -- many times the only one -- on almost everything I post. I'm sick of it. Reasons. The only thing to do would be to block him ... but this is a last grasp for any other strange option you know of. Muting doesn't prevent you seeing their Like in Notifications, and that's the cringe.
posted by noelpratt2nd to Computers & Internet (20 answers total)

What about removing the person from your followers?
posted by iamsuper at 1:50 PM on September 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I don't want to be rude. He would see that he's not following anymore and know it wasn't his doing...
posted by noelpratt2nd at 1:52 PM on September 1, 2023

To address your concern with iamsuper's suggestion, Twitter has been known to randomly drop followers—a few big accounts I follow have posted about it over the past few years asking people to re-follow, and that was before Musk bought it and decimated the various dev and support teams.

Also, while it's very kind you don't want to be rude and hurt other people's feelings, you also have the right to manage your feed and followers. We don't owe our social media engagement to anyone else. I regularly drop followers that look a bit sketch to me as both trying to contribute to general social media hygiene by not giving bots and scammers access/views into to my very modest network, but also because I get to decide who I want to be posting to.
posted by smirkette at 2:08 PM on September 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: As I understand it, you have two options: either politely ask them to stop because it is making you feel uncomfortable, or block/remove them from following you. Either is perfectly within your rights as a social media user and you shouldn’t feel bad about it.
posted by AndrewStephens at 2:12 PM on September 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

I'm not aware of any setting that lets you mute likes or hide them, overall or from specific users. If I understand right there's a good chance Twitter is going to remove the ability to block, too.

The only thing you might try – and I don't really recommend it – is an update like "isn't it annoying when someone likes just about every single one of your tweets?" And hope they get the hint.

If that sounds too petty to do, maybe accept that it's a weird little side-effect of social media not having a shared etiquette. The user who does this probably thinks they're giving you a little encouragement. (Maybe they do this to all the people they follow? Maybe they've decided you in particular are just really cool?)
posted by jzb at 2:13 PM on September 1, 2023

Response by poster: Right. Thank you all. Just prolly going to DM politely (he's not a bot or enemy) and let come or go what may. I think he does do this to more than myself, but he should know how embarrassing it is to see him as the first or only Like, me not having a large account.
posted by noelpratt2nd at 2:16 PM on September 1, 2023

Best answer: Bear in mind that many people on social media use the like button as a form of support and click it on every single thing they read (sometimes even on things they don't read). They don't find it embarrassing in the slightest and your request would be considered antisocial.
posted by meowzilla at 2:31 PM on September 1, 2023 [46 favorites]

Sounds like y’all have different internet cultures, and I would approach it from that standpoint. I would not find this behavior notable, but would understand if someone else didn’t feel comfortable.
posted by Bottlecap at 2:39 PM on September 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: If everyone did it his way, he'd blend right in! haha
posted by noelpratt2nd at 2:41 PM on September 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You can just soft block him. Block him then immediately unblock him. He'll be removed as a follower but won't see the block if he looks at your profile. If he wonders what happened, well, maybe he accidentally unfollowed you or there was a Twitter hiccup.
posted by acidic at 3:15 PM on September 1, 2023 [12 favorites]

I’ve run into at least one person who uses "like" as way to remind themselves what they’ve read. Either way, asking him to stop seems reasonable.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:27 PM on September 1, 2023

I’d go for the soft block. The silver lining of Musk making such a mess of it all, is that you can keep doing it if he keeps refollowing you and it’ll just look like some kind of weird glitch.

FWIW, I get the impression that a lot of younger people (by which I mean millennials and down - ha - younger than me!) particularly do this on Instagram - they just scroll their feed at speed, tapping every single pic/vid as it passes (which gives it a like). Maybe he’s an Instagrammer who hasn’t really twigged the different culture on twitter.
posted by penguin pie at 4:31 PM on September 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

If this isn't someone you know, then DM'ing them to stop doing this seems weirder to me than just doing the soft block/remove from followers.
posted by bluedaisy at 4:37 PM on September 1, 2023 [20 favorites]

Response by poster: I haven't in four years encountered this. I don't think he's read my nice DM yet, this it's still happening as of an hour ago. I myself have a balance in what to do with things like this, but not everyone has the balance to go with the goodwill. It'll work out. If it looks like he's deliberately effing with me, I'll certainly soft-block. Weird too because he also likes me replies to others we follow even when they're really kinda personal-type replies. The guy obv peers all day...
posted by noelpratt2nd at 5:07 PM on September 1, 2023

I’d hesitate to read too much into what you think you know about this person and their online behavior.

I have to agree. I understand how it could feel weird if you're female and a man is liking everything you post. But I also think it's good to remember that everyone approaches social media with different expectations and ideas about what's normal.

Someone I know publicly called out a man (without naming him) the other day on FB for liking all her posts, but then the very next day complained about how some people she's friends with never like any of her posts. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Is it possible to see if this guy is liking everything posted by other people he follows?
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:26 PM on September 1, 2023

Idk if this is allowed, but I'm honestly curious what you expect from social media engagement? If this person is the only one liking, that means no one else is engaging in your posts and it's more about the fact that you don't have anyone liking your tweets at all. So does that mean you're using it as a personal diary and don't want any likes?

At this point you should just do the soft block. It sounds like this person is just notified immediately of their Twitter feed and just likes everything.

It's very weird to ask someone to stop liking your tweets. Very weird. You might as well have 0 followers and it sounds like that's what you should do.
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 9:01 PM on September 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

I think it's creepy and I also think grey-rocking is the best approach. Soft block, repeat if necessary.
If he responds to the DM I'd consider a breezy "no worries!" if it appears a response might be appropriate.
posted by M. at 1:24 AM on September 2, 2023

you following him back is what gave him the confidence to like what posts he likes without fear of it being weird, he was exhibiting very normal behavior for someone who is online all the time and sees posts in real time. you can’t simultaneously keep him as a mutual and complain that he’s, what, a reply guy who doesn’t even reply? the idea of the reply guy complaint is that those guys can’t even read the room to see that the fact they aren’t mutuals means nobody wants to hear from them. here, it is you who cannot read the room. following someone back communicates to them that low-level undemanding nonconfrontational interaction like pressing the like button is welcome.

the commonly accepted way to signal what you wanted to signal would have been to unfollow. escalate to a block if he never stops. messaging him to stop liking your tweets while you’re still following him is hostile and weird.
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:49 AM on September 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

Soft block is the way. What he's doing is absolutely against the social norm of reciprocity. The fact that some group of people somewhere else might mutually engage in that behavior is irrelevant. You aren't liking all his posts back, and none of your other followers are liking all of your posts. Either he's observed this and doesn't care, or he isn't moved to consider the impact of his behavior. Either way, he's doing what makes him comfortable. You should feel extremely entitled to do the same!

It's an appropriate and often desirable thing to be "antisocial" with someone you don't want to be social with.

I went through something similar with a family member. I was fine with the theoretical knowledge that they could see all of my posts, but being continually informed that they had seen all my posts made me feel surveilled. So now they can't see em.
posted by umwelt at 9:50 AM on September 2, 2023

I'm surprised at the number of people who seem to think that "cringey" is a reason not to do something. Planting a flag and stating your boundaries is often "cringey" and that fact has kept people, particularly women, from setting hard boundaries for many years.

"Oh no, the person who is pushing my boundaries might find it awkward if I asked them to stop" is a terrible position to support.

You may think the OPs position is incorrect and that seems fair. But inaction due to "cringeyness" is not a good policy.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:09 AM on September 4, 2023