That annoying trend on social media!

I've been noticing this a lot more often. It's always bunch of kids brand new to snake keeping and having the need to jump in and educate people how to look after their snakes, but have zero knowledge or experience with the species.

The more unfamiliar they are with the species the more vocal they are on how the keeper should look after said species because they think all snakes are fed the same and make very generalized assumptions about husbandry.

I noticed this has become much more common on places like Instagram especially. Probably wouldn't annoy me as much if they didn't try to get all preachy and give random (and incorrect) advice that the original posters never asked for. Or my personal favorite; they don't even own a reptile.

I get those kinds of comments on my instagram about daily or every other day LOL. I think instagram is just the world's largest compilation of people who think they know everything, for some reason especially prevalent in the reptile community.

It's especially detrimental since the advice they give is incorrect or inaccurate, which is 95% of the time. If another new keeper sees their advice and follows it, they're only putting their animals at stake. All in an attempt to look knowledgeable on the internet!

i just find it hilarious that brand new keepers on insta immediately try and turn every post into some type of "informational" or "educational" post, like their one lived experience and one other internet post they found invalidates decades of researching this hobby, and they now know everything.

today i saw someone post "who says snakes can't share? blah blah" or something like that with a photo of a TINY baby bearded dragon in a bath tub with a ball python. clicking through their page they proudly share they have the dragon, ball python, and a baby corn snake all living in ONE ~50gal enclosure.

WHAT.

it took everything in my power to just move on...

If I could give you a thousand thumbs up for this Misster, I would.

Absolutely 100% annoys the hell out of me. What's ironic is a lot of the care instructions they reference have been written and refined over years on sites just like BPnet. After 15 mins of reading, everyone is a self proclaimed expert.

I'm so glad I don't use social media...I've heard this before & it's really a shame that they give/get bad info when there's forums like this around that
can really be helpful...:( I feel bad for their animals mostly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

I'm so glad I don't use social media...I've heard this before & it's really a shame that they give/get bad info when there's forums like this around that
can really be helpful...:( I feel bad for their animals mostly.

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....you'd be surprised, some of that bad advice occasionally crosses over from new users who think they have learned everything

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KevinK

....you'd be surprised, some of that bad advice occasionally crosses over from new users who think they have learned everything

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Sadly, I wouldn't be all that surprised. :rolleyes:

I will never understand people who try to give advice on species that they have no experience with. Or like you said, people who don't even own a reptile. My knowledge is limited to ball pythons so I would never dream of giving advice on other species.

When I first got my ball, I had several friends (with exactly zero experience or research) try to convince me that I have to feed in separate feeding container otherwise she will bite me whenever I stick my hand in. The same friends tried to convince me to feed live because it "has more nutrients than frozen and is more natural". Sigh...

I am glad of how large of a platform I have on tumblr honestly, because it used to be filled with new reptile keepers who regurgitate information without knowing the "whys' on the information. They would generalize with every species and it got to the point of where the 'advice' was borderline dangerous for the animal. Now I have been able to tell people to listen first, and only speak when the information has an actual reason instead of "I was told this"

I don't know what is worse. This or the elitist keepers "with years of experience" and a holier-than-thou attitude.