Wow, people really think they deserve stuff often, even when they were never told to expect it or even in direct opposition to what they've been told to expect.
I should know this, obviously, as someone who spent six years in customer service. People come in believing they are entitled to a discount, a product, or a perk, and even if they are shown where the mistaken belief came from--even if they accept it was completely their own fault and completely preventable--they will still believe you should do something for them. If they wanted it and didn't get it, they deserve SOMETHING.
So it shouldn't have surprised me that I saw this in two wildly different contexts recently.
ONE:
Okay, so I get a lot of mail. I get it in a variety of places too, from blog comments to soulful e-mails. Today I answered a mail from someone I hope will be a new friend, and I had taken a very long time to reply to him. He'd sent one message making it clear he'd love to hear from me but not pressuring me to answer, and then there was a follow-up a while later not in any way prompting me but adding some more thoughts to his reaction to my content online. When I did write him back, I thanked him for not approaching me with entitlement, and realized how many people I have sitting in inboxes who will now go unanswered because they snotted at me for not replying fast enough.
I had a falling out with an acquaintance over this, and it turned into a huge deal--after she was furious with me for not replying to her un-time-sensitive e-mail within two hours, she cursed me out and called me "a liar" and told me never to speak to her again, only to follow up a couple weeks later begging me for forgiveness. I actually forgave her the first time because I thought she'd just been through something traumatic, but a couple years later SHE DID THE EXACT SAME THING AGAIN and this time I decided to stop being her friend even though I also told her I could forgive her. She wouldn't stop pestering me to talk to her again, for literally years, and she stalked me online for more than half a decade, dropping crappy comments "anonymously" on my content every time I ignored one of her begging mails for too long. This was an extreme case, but it's a good example still: sometimes, people inexplicably think I'm on their schedule and that I have some obligation to prioritize communication with them.
Mostly, though, this happens with people I never get close to because they reveal this expectation early in the game. I get a nice message I was GOING to answer and then the guy follows up with "so do you want to have a conversation or not?" Or I get some nice commentary and don't have time to reply until THE NEXT DAY, and when I log on there's a long paragraph about how I have clearly misrepresented myself as someone approachable and friendly or else I would not simply cast off very good people like HIM. (This particular person loaded up the e-mail with guesses at why he'd been ignored so cruelly for those less than 24 hours since the last time I wrote him, up to and including the accusation that I imagined I was far too smart for him.)
The very best way to get me to stop talking to you is to imply that I owe you my time, or that I am failing as a human being by not centering my communication with you in my life at all times.
TWO:
Weird switch of subject but OK. I like the show Steven Universe. It goes on hiatus a LOT. Commercials have been hyping us up for weeks now saying the show will return with weekly new episodes on December 17th. What aired on the 17th was an episode that most hardcore fans had seen because it had been released through the Cartoon Network app and at a convention, but had never been on TV.
They aired that episode first since it was the TV debut, and it probably was new to many casual viewers.
Those of us who were NOT casual viewers (hi, hello) already knew it was not going to be a new episode to us because we looked at the dang airing schedules. We knew what was coming, we knew why it was simultaneously a new episode and not a new episode, and we accepted that for us, "new" episodes don't start until December 24.
And yet still, there was a HUGE DISGUSTING OUTPOURING OF HATE for Cartoon Network from the fans. Every single place where they promoted the event online has DOZENS of people in the comments using swear words, calling the network "liars," saying they're going to hunt down and kill the creator for "trolling" them, and posting memes and reaction GIFs suggesting that Cartoon Network was delighting in torturing people.
If you didn't view this episode at the convention or on the network's app, you saw it illegally.
The majority of the hardcore fans online have seen this episode illegally.
If you saw it in one of the legal, approved ways, you were made aware it was a special release. So everyone losing their wig over this is pretty much somebody who didn't pay attention, stole the show's content, and then shrieked about how cheated they felt because they didn't do the proper research.
I'm really disturbed by how MANY people there are in these comments (or making individual posts about it) having huge shit fits that sound violent and express how ripped off they think they were by being forced to get excited about the show's return only to see an episode they've seen come on. They are framing it as "a rerun." (It is not. It had never been on TV at all before last night.) They are framing it as if the network drew them in and tricked them for simple evil pleasure. And even though they were presumably tuning in because they love the show and want more, some are even promising that they are DONE WITH THIS SHOW because REBECCA TROLLED THEM.
Uh. . . .
Wow, stop.
No one owes you anything, first of all.
And second, as mentioned, you were given all the tools to know what was coming, and the only way you could be ignorant of this is if you consumed the content in a pirated form. You know what you did, and yet you have no qualms about announcing to the world what you believe you deserved, that someone else denied you. You, who took the show for free and gave nothing back, but still feel that your status as a fan entitles you to content. And you know what? I'm not even mad if some people just plain made a mistake and didn't realize the episode was not going to be new to them. That's cool. Just, like, maybe also just accept that you had a misconception and be quiet about it?
Man.
Entitled people really irritate me. And more often than not, those in a position to satisfy the entitled people will be less interested in doing so if they express ungrateful fury over what they didn't receive.
I assure you I am never going to answer an e-mail in which someone shames me for failing to respond. I will not apologize for failing to do something I never said I would do. Same goes for network decision-makers, though I very much doubt those upset "fans" and their impotent rage will even be a blip on their radar since they know they released the titles of the episodes they'd be airing and they know they are not guilty of misrepresenting themselves.
Bleh. Just shut up, people.
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