"If you think the internet is the wild west nowadays, you'd have been thoroughly scandalised in its previous iterations. When I was coming of age and on the then shiny new platform Facebook, we said things with our whole chests. We would publicly declare our love for people, air our dirty laundry and - best of all for the nosy among us - have whole entire fights via status updates and comments."
"Over on Bebo, you could dethrone your 'Other Half' in your (also public) list of friends and let everyone know you had fallen out. It was the ultimate rebuttal to a situation or something someone said. As the internet has evolved, so too have the means of calling somebody out online, with two perfect examples of 'clapbacks' that had us clapping in admiration."
Early social networks enabled users to make highly visible personal statements and disputes. Users publicly declared affection, aired private matters, and conducted arguments through status updates and comments. Platforms like Bebo made relational changes visible, allowing users to remove an 'Other Half' from friend lists as a public rebuttal. Such features turned interpersonal conflicts into performative, social spectacles. As the internet continued developing, the methods for calling someone out evolved into more pointed responses. Contemporary examples include sharp, public 'clapbacks' that attract widespread attention and social approval for clever or decisive retorts.
Read at Independent
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