17th March 2019
Social media has brought a lot of things to the table and a common one is the idea of nominating people to undertake a “challenge”. This is when a person on a platform such as Facebook or Twitter is asked to perform a task online and then nominate other people to do the same. The challenge then spreads as more and more people nominate other folk and such challenges become viral to the point where they even make headline news, especially when celebrities get in on he act. A classic example is the “post your first profile pic” challenge that happened a few years ago, where people where challenged to change their profile picture to the very first one they used when they joined social media, and then invite their friends to do the same.
Normally I am not a big fan of such challenges, as often I really can not be bothered with them, but one challenge that has happened recently is the “Seven Covers” challenge, where for seven days you post a picture of the cover of a book you enjoy with no explanation why. Each day you nominate a new person to do the same. I should mention that this was on the Twitter platform.
For some reason I loved this idea and really wanted to be nominated. I immediately picked my book covers out and everything. However, for several days I saw people nominating others within my Twitter circle and initially feared that I would not get a chance to show my book covers, but then I was then nominated “thanks James – he knows who he is!”. Great I could now post my first book cover and I felt excited for being able to join in with this “bit of fun”.
The problem was though that this fun quickly became a bit of a problem for me. What happened is that due to the way my Autistic brain works I began to worry about the nominating part of the challenge. “Who do I nominate?” “Will people be offended if I nominate them?” “Am I putting extra stress onto people if I nominate them?” “What if nobody accepts my challenge?” These worries also began to escalate too, so “will people be offended if I nominate them?” quickly became, “what if somebody I nominate unfollows me on Twitter and it’s a person I follow and really like?”, “what if they report me for harassment?”. These thoughts in hindsight are clearly not realistic but they did pop into my over-active head, unfortunately.
The other thing that happened is that people I wanted to nominate, who I knew would join in, were already nominated by other people which added a new feeling to the mix of frustration, as I had to change my nomination plan a couple of times. Arghh! I carried on though, and completed the challenge and enjoyed sharing my book covers. It was simply the nominating that was the difficult part. For example there were people I wanted to nominate but I knew they were going through some hard times in life at the moment. Therefore I did not nominate them as I didn’t want to add any pressure to them, especially knowing that their minds might work the same as mine, and cause them anxiety.
So after the experience should I go back to my usual stance and just ignore these sorts of challenges to save myself the worry? Well I don’t know. Like I said at the start of this blog, I have been nominated for loads that I just cannot be bothered with, but then a few like this one have really piqued my interest. I did get some positivity from doing the “Seven Covers” challenge in that it was fun posting my books, but also fun to see what other people were posting too. I tried to predict what people’s books would be based on what I knew about them. That was interesting and I can honestly say I didn’t get a single prediction right! Also it was an insight into people too. The saying “you should never judge a book by it’s cover” was certainly relevant here, with some of the covers people posted really surprising me.
As for the worrying? Well after the event I can say that the anxiety is just part of me really and the way that my Autistic mind over-thinks everything. If I take a step back, some of the thoughts I had such as “being unfollowed”or “reported for harassment” are typical examples of catastrophising, when a thought is taken to it’s worst possible outcome. The most that was really going to happen is that if I nominated a person then they would just ignore that Tweet, like I have done myself on past internet challenges that I didn’t want to take part in.
One of the people I nominated took up the challenge but simply added the words “no obligation” to their nominees. I think this is the way to go in any future nominating internet challenges that I might want to take part in. If I had thought to have added this to my Tweets I think I would have felt less worried, as this puts no pressure on anyone to take up the challenge.
So to conclude with what really happened for me with the “Seven Covers” challenge is simply that I over thought it. A lot of Autistic people I know say that they over think things and that it leads them to unnecessary worries and I certainly belong to that group.
These sorts of internet challenges are designed to be just a bit of fun. That’s all. And people can join in if they want to. This blog is just my own personal experience of what I have learnt from doing this one and it might mean the next one could be different again. I did enjoy posting my books and I am now taking that experience away rather then the negative aspects. I hope that anyone reading this is not put off internet challenges and if they know me don’t think “well I am never nominating Rob for anything!” as this is not my views at all. Join in if you want to join or simply observe if you want to just observe. The choice is up to you.