It is past time to set some guidelines for how to treat beer, breweries and the people who make it for us. Right now there is way too much entitlement out there and it is spawning ugly behavior. People seem to think they are due rare releases, that they are due to be sexist, that they can spew crap on the interwebs because it is due to them.
So, here is an easy set of rules to follow:
Rule A (from which all other rules flow)
If you would not like to receive the e-mail, Tweet, Facebook post at YOUR place of business or at your home, then you should not send it to someone else’s. Seems clear but most people seem to think it is within their right to abuse people online. If I could, I would re-route the obscene message sent by the trolls and CC their immediate supervisor and kids. (Maybe I should ask the Anonymous Hacktivists to get on this)
What you are allowed and encouraged to do is clearly state your issue (with beer release, beer event, beer in general) and recommend possible solutions while acknowledging the difficulty that a brewery may be working under.
Attack e-mails with Trump-d up accusations are to be thrown into the unsent bin from which never to return. Attacking a person personally who works at the brewery is also verboten. Why? (Well, it should be obvious that you treat everyone with respect but that doesn’t seem to work with some people, so….)
Sub-Rule 1
You are not entitled to ANYTHING. Remember that you are a special & singular snowflake. Just like EVERYONE else.
Sub-Rule 2
Seriously, you are not the fulcrum on which craft beer pivots. (please re-read Sub-Rule 1)
We all have opinions. But getting to an actual discussion is harder when everyone else is yelling. And most of the time people are yelling because they think that their opinions smell like freshly bloomed roses when in fact people are swatting away the proverbial flies from the manure. If we can listen, we can hear and appreciate people’s opinions and from there you just might not be a dick to other people
I want this to happen because I want to be active in online craft beer discussions but I avoid it now like the plague.
I want this to happen because brewery employees spend too much time responding to the S*%#& when they could be doing real work.
I want this to happen because craft beer should aspire to be better.