Cookie mentions are a social media form of cookie-seeking — ie, seeking attention and approval from feminists for one's feminist ally work. A cookie mention is a social media interaction where a cookie seeker @-mentions a feminist on Twitter or +-names them on Google+ or equivalent in order to generate an alert to the feminist and then to get a cookie (recognition for ally work) or other attention.
Avoiding cookie mentions
- In general, avoid promoting your own ally work, whether it's a piece you've written or an argument you're involved in, directly and specifically to women feminists or other marginalised activists.
- Don't make your first interaction with someone ever be nitpicking or querying or concern trolling their posts.
- Selectively interact with feminists who never initiate conversations with you, since this is a sign that they aren't developing a conversational relationship with you.
- If you want to engage a feminist in conversation on social media, check her bio and pinned and recent tweets and similar for any kind of statement about whether and how she wants such conversation. Also check the overall content and tone of her social media. Does she discuss feminism there? Does she discuss it with allies? Some feminists avoid activism on social media. Many limit their interactions to fellow marginalised people. These people generally do not want to converse about feminism with allies in that forum.
- If engaged in a conversation on social media that already involves a feminist, keep an eye on your inbox/mentions and her stream generally for requests like "I want to stop discussing this now" or "please drop me from mentions". And then either end the conversation or drop them from anything further you add to it.
- If engaging with an anti-feminist, eg a troll or harasser, do not add mentions of feminists to your posts so they can see you defending them! If the mention has been added automatically (eg because you are replying to a message that the troll wrote to them), remove it.
Avoiding cookie favourites
A related phenomena is going through a feminist's own work and making it clear to her you've read it all or have an opinion on it all, byfavouriting or +1-ing or liking every piece or post. Because favouriting on Twitter and similar actions on other sites have two functions — saving a post for later reference, and notifying the post's author — this can uncomfortably resemble stalking behaviour. It can also seem overly intimate. Retweeting and sharing can also expose them to constant attention from your own followers who may not be sympathetic. To avoid cookie favourites:
- selectively favourite or re-tweet or share things from any one person. (Your own followers will thank you too. If they want to know about everything that person says publicly, they can follow them themselves.)
- if you would like to save many of a single person's tweets or posts for future reference, consider using a bookmarking service that is private to you, so that the author is not notified every time you save a new tweet or post.
