Today on the Internet, I watched photographers draw analogies between a retouching technique and using nerve gas in warfare. While I stared, aghast at the immaturity, I began to wonder: “What would a customer think of this?”

I rarely frequent Facebook groups for photographers anymore, mostly because they always seem to devolve into ego trips and unsolicited rudeness. I’m in a few smaller ones with close friends, but outside those, I avoid them. And yet, today, I received such a stark reminder of why I generally avoid them that I felt compelled to write about it.

Someone posted an unsolicited rant about a certain technique and directly called out another member, and 515 comments (and still counting) later, there was a litany of personal attacks and pettiness to scroll through, very little of which had anything to do with photography techniques. Keep in mind that this was in a group of 10,000 people; I wouldn’t exactly say this happened behind closed doors.

It’s no secret that the Internet generally enables a disposal of etiquette and basic regard for fellow humans that most people wouldn’t dream of in person. Maybe it’s because we are secretly more caring people and the relative anonymity of a screen makes us forget that, or maybe it’s because said anonymity actually enables our true colors. I hope it’s the former. 

What surprises me is not the behavior, but the seeming lack of awareness of the real-life consequences it has beyond the confines of Facebook groups. Sure, I can allude to a few individuals in the industry who reached a critical mass of prominence and loud-mouthery that finally caused the pendulum to swing the other way and essentially ripped the rug out from underneath them overnight, but I’m referring more to everyday consequences. These are what I think a lot of people are overlooking.

I’ve said it before: “Unsubstantiated opinions are a worthless currency most often wielded by the unexperienced, the uninformed, or the overly jaded. They are the lowest hanging fruit.” I was wrong, though, because personal attacks are the lowest hanging fruit. And while I’d love to make the moral argument against them, tackling the Internet’s rudeness problem might be beyond my powers, so let me make the financial argument. Higher-end photography is a small world. And I’ll be honest: nearly every person I know who is truly at the top in terms of both creative and financial success is one of the nicest people I’ve met, unflinchingly generous in giving their time and knowledge to those who ask. And that’s good, because we all rely on each other quite a bit: photographers need retouchers, people recommend each other for jobs they’re either unsuited or unavailable for, etc. 

So, when I see behavior that should have been left behind in high school on the Internet, it perturbs me. I consider myself a pragmatic person and therefore a relatively good barometer for how people react to such things, and my reaction to such petty, rude, and wholly unnecessary is universally “I will never hire or recommend that person.” 

Now, I’m just some guy in Cleveland. What do they care what I think? Fair point. So, I reached out to some other professionals and simply posed the question: “Would someone’s behavior on the Internet influence your decision to outsource work to them or recommend them to a client?” Here are some of the answers I received (I’ve redacted their names):

• “Absolutely. Social media affords us an insight, or peephole, into how people think. I mean, if someone can’t show enough restraint on social media to avoid a flame war, to me it speaks volumes about their potential character. Not to mention how they might do business.”
• “Absolutely. There are several creatives in town that are talented at what they do, but that I won’t work with or refer clients to because of how I have seen them behave and thing I have seen them say online. When I refer someone to another creative, that person’s behavior reflects back on me as the guy that vouched for them.”
• “Someone’s behavior on the Internet gives me a good idea of what they are like as a person. If the behavior is questionable and makes me worry about whether they’ll behave in professional manner, I’ll never send them work and chances are that I won’t work with them. I don’t want the drama. Whoever I recommend reflects back on me, and if I don’t feel like I can trust you, I wont send work to you.”
• “Yes absolutely, what you put out on the Internet safely behind your screen reveals about your true character!”

There seems to be an overwhelming theme here that such behavior does indeed have a very detrimental effect on one’s reputation and business prospects. And even if the argument that one doesn’t care what other photographers think is made, there’s still another issue: online lives are a messy, interconnected web and rarely, if ever, are they entirely divorced from our clients. Most photographers are Facebook friends with at least some of their clients, and if you think that behavior doesn’t get back to them, are you willing to trust your business to you having set Facebook’s ever-changing privacy settings correctly? Have you checked that that group of 10,000 is a closed or secret group? If colleagues are wiling to be that petty, do you trust all 10,000 of them not to screenshot it anyway and put you on blast? Because that’s exactly what happened today. Call me crazy, but I’ll take good business and a sound reputation over engaging in Internet ego battles that no one ever wins anyway. There’s also the whole “be a nice person” argument too. 

Even if you’re right as can be, it’s almost never worth it to engage in a flame war. Many of us rely on the Internet and our online presence a great deal for our work, and given how easy it is to tear those down in one fell swoop, shouldn’t we give a little more care to our reputations and behavior?