I think DMs get added thoughtlessly to every new platform but if I was starting one in 2025 I wouldn't. From Skype to Instagram I think they make all platforms worse.
I have a list of "expressions of hostility" that to train my agent for in social media profiles and one of the most common is "no DMs", "I will block you if you send me DMs if you don't know me...", etc. [1]
DMs attract all sorts of cringe like that behavior from Musk but particularly the "Romance Scams" where you get some message like "Hey!" which is probably an attempt to do something really terrible to you. As a photographer I would love to convert interest in my profile to gigs but I'd have to receive hundreds of cringegrams to get one message I want.
[1] Unlike the others (e.g. "no MAGA") this one doesn't result in a "do not follow" classification in that it is so common and I don't believe associated with negative emotional posts
Agreed, I find platform DMs completely unnecessary. If I want to solicit messages from people I don't know, I'll just publish an email address. A semi-disposable one if I'm worried about too much volume. On the occasion I've received a DM on Twitter, it generates an email to notify me that I've received a DM, but I can't reply to the email to reply to the person. Wastage.
I remember when this sort of treatment was disparaged as incel behavior. We're not making nerds any less socially inept by teaching them that it's okay to offer unsolicited impregnation to random people online.
That's kinda unfair to the incel. (Musk has like 12 kids now, doesn't sound like an incel to me!)
If you are neurodivergent and were bullied in elementary school, dating in high school is a retraumatization where nothing seems possible and you might find that when you "grow up" there aren't any places to meet people your own age (e.g. go to a "rock concert" and you just meet boomers)
Feminist scholar Eva Illouz points out that many women chase men they find "easy to love" who have no interest in committing to them because they don't have to
I dunno, the responses my statement garnered beg to differ. I'd hope we know better, but it seems like that self-consciousness has bled out of the tech industry.
It doesn't appear to be random. I once made that offer to a woman who hardly knew me, joking not joking, and she took it as a compliment, as intended, but alas she declined. I assume that my batting average would be better if I were very rich. Or if I had social skills. Or If I wasn't repulsive.
But as I am socially retarded I'm not clear on when and why such an offer is not OK. I am willing to be educated. In terms of the golden rule it seems to pass validation, as I would be honored (and shocked) to be asked to father a child for a stranger.
Allow me to explain why such an offer is not OK: all women have had at least one experience of turning down a man, and receiving threats, insults, or violence. That's especially true when the offer is explicitly sexual in an otherwise non-sexual context.
You may know that you intended to take her declining with good humor, but she does not unless you are already a friend. Even if retaliation is not immediate, it may happen later. So the offer itself makes her apprehensive.
Men are much less likely to be the target of that kind of assault by women, so you can be pleased with such an offer. But to give you a sense of it, would you be so pleased if the offer of sex came from a homosexual man?
The analogy is imperfect, as all analogies are. You may be bisexual, and thrilled with an offer like that. But you can inquire with straight friends, many of whom would feel threatened to have an offer of sex from a male stranger.
It takes something that humans find genuine joy and fulfillment in (romance, building a home, bringing in a child) and cheapens it, likening it to something purely transactional. In this case: it's an offer purely for Musk's selfish goals with little consideration to the emotional and physical costs his broodmare will have to bear.
In a world where sexual and sex-adjacent male-on-female threats and violence are horribly common - you making that offer is a valid reason for a woman to view you as a threat.
I'd suggest that you not make that offer in the future, nor any similar offers.
I think DMs get added thoughtlessly to every new platform but if I was starting one in 2025 I wouldn't. From Skype to Instagram I think they make all platforms worse.
I have a list of "expressions of hostility" that to train my agent for in social media profiles and one of the most common is "no DMs", "I will block you if you send me DMs if you don't know me...", etc. [1]
DMs attract all sorts of cringe like that behavior from Musk but particularly the "Romance Scams" where you get some message like "Hey!" which is probably an attempt to do something really terrible to you. As a photographer I would love to convert interest in my profile to gigs but I'd have to receive hundreds of cringegrams to get one message I want.
[1] Unlike the others (e.g. "no MAGA") this one doesn't result in a "do not follow" classification in that it is so common and I don't believe associated with negative emotional posts
Agreed, I find platform DMs completely unnecessary. If I want to solicit messages from people I don't know, I'll just publish an email address. A semi-disposable one if I'm worried about too much volume. On the occasion I've received a DM on Twitter, it generates an email to notify me that I've received a DM, but I can't reply to the email to reply to the person. Wastage.
Related to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43701379 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43707470
Link to the cited WSJ article: https://archive.is/BR4Y8
I remember when this sort of treatment was disparaged as incel behavior. We're not making nerds any less socially inept by teaching them that it's okay to offer unsolicited impregnation to random people online.
That's kinda unfair to the incel. (Musk has like 12 kids now, doesn't sound like an incel to me!)
If you are neurodivergent and were bullied in elementary school, dating in high school is a retraumatization where nothing seems possible and you might find that when you "grow up" there aren't any places to meet people your own age (e.g. go to a "rock concert" and you just meet boomers)
Feminist scholar Eva Illouz points out that many women chase men they find "easy to love" who have no interest in committing to them because they don't have to
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Love-Hurts-Sociological-Explanati...
meantime a lot of guys who have challenges get bitter and sucked into toxic social movements.
I mean, it very much still is. Basically no-one would think that this was normal or acceptable behaviour.
I dunno, the responses my statement garnered beg to differ. I'd hope we know better, but it seems like that self-consciousness has bled out of the tech industry.
It doesn't appear to be random. I once made that offer to a woman who hardly knew me, joking not joking, and she took it as a compliment, as intended, but alas she declined. I assume that my batting average would be better if I were very rich. Or if I had social skills. Or If I wasn't repulsive.
But as I am socially retarded I'm not clear on when and why such an offer is not OK. I am willing to be educated. In terms of the golden rule it seems to pass validation, as I would be honored (and shocked) to be asked to father a child for a stranger.
Allow me to explain why such an offer is not OK: all women have had at least one experience of turning down a man, and receiving threats, insults, or violence. That's especially true when the offer is explicitly sexual in an otherwise non-sexual context.
You may know that you intended to take her declining with good humor, but she does not unless you are already a friend. Even if retaliation is not immediate, it may happen later. So the offer itself makes her apprehensive.
Men are much less likely to be the target of that kind of assault by women, so you can be pleased with such an offer. But to give you a sense of it, would you be so pleased if the offer of sex came from a homosexual man?
The analogy is imperfect, as all analogies are. You may be bisexual, and thrilled with an offer like that. But you can inquire with straight friends, many of whom would feel threatened to have an offer of sex from a male stranger.
It takes something that humans find genuine joy and fulfillment in (romance, building a home, bringing in a child) and cheapens it, likening it to something purely transactional. In this case: it's an offer purely for Musk's selfish goals with little consideration to the emotional and physical costs his broodmare will have to bear.
It's asshole behavior.
In a world where sexual and sex-adjacent male-on-female threats and violence are horribly common - you making that offer is a valid reason for a woman to view you as a threat.
I'd suggest that you not make that offer in the future, nor any similar offers.