Someone has challenged you over the next X days to post on some media platform pictures of:
- Your favorite albums of all time.
- The movies that were most influential on you.
- The books could you read over and over.
- The [some way of pretending to get random things] photo(s) on your phone. [1]
- The food you blah blah blah . . .
- The place(s) you would yadda yadda yadda . . .
- etc, etc, etc.
Let's be clear, I'm not opposed to these sorts of things. I most likely am interested in what you might have to share. After all, the reason we are ostensibly friends on whatever social media platform this is occurring on is because we both chose to be. Thus, I probably care some amount about you and am interested at least on some level about who you are, what you care about, and other parts of you life.
But here's the supposed kicker, you have to post them, "without comment".
Though I'm probably reading more dramatic emphasis into it than is really there, I always imagine it more like:
"I was challenged to post this, WITHOUT COMMENT!" [Dum, dum, dummmmmmm!] [2]
But the question is, why?
Why wouldn't you comment? What point is there to the whole thing if you don't comment?
Oh, here's some photo that seems important . . .
. . .but I've no idea why.
Hey look, they like a movie that 90% of people like . . .
. . . what a non-surprise.
They've read that famous book . . .
. . . that millions of other people have read too.
Complete non-shocker, and honestly, I don't care.
Of course if you were to comment then suddenly I do care. Because now I know that the reason you picked that photo was because of [something meaningful and/or interesting].
Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe you just like the way you look in that photo. Or you just want to show the world your cute kid(s).
Maybe you just like that movie because of that one fight scene. Or that one line. Or because of that hot actor/actress is in it.
And I suspect that's one of the real reasons people are so pleased to post "without comment". Because they have nothing to say beyond, "I liked this." Because their 10 things are completely banal and in truth uninteresting.
A second reason is probably that after posting and commenting on 1 picture of their kid/dog/self/whatever that fulfills the requirement of this supposed challenge, they would really have nothing left to say on days 2 through 10.
A third reason, and most likely to most applicable is that people are lazy.
So, before I wrap this up. Let me actually challenge you.
The next time someone "challenges" you to post pictures of whatever "without comment", I challenge you to completely ignore the lets 'o', 'u' and 't' in the word "without" and to post them WITH comments.
Because let's be honest. One of the main reasons you accepted this "challenge" is that you were hoping people will think the things you picked are cool/interesting/say something about you, and/or that you want people to talk with you about it.
There's nothing wrong with that, so skip the hoping someone will take the lame bait of a pic with no comments and start the conversation yourself.
I for one will be way more likely to:
- pay attention
- think about what you've posted for more than half a second
- post a comment
And if the person who challenged you complains about your changing the rules, just reply to them with a link to this post.
Challenged to Post "Without Comment": D-
[1] - This is "Pretending to be random" because: A) if the randomly selected picture isn't something you want others to see; or B) isn't cool enough; or C) you really want to pick some other picture, we all know your just going to pick whatever you want.
[2] - That's a bad attempt at dramatic sounding music.
