What our negative comments and consumer gripes on social media reveal about us

A supermarket starts stocking hot-cross buns^[1] straight after Christmas. A cling-wrap brand^[2] shifts its serrated cutter bar from the base of the box to inside the lid. The maker of M&M’s chocolates changes its marketing. Each time people take to social media to complain^[3].

Why do people get so angry about things that seem so trivial?

We’ve examined the issue of consumer anger on social media because, as marketing academics, we’re interested in how companies handle the excessive toxicity that comes with corporate social media engagement. But our research also helps explain the causes of this culture of complaint.

Our findings point to this behaviour meeting two basic psychological needs.

First, complaining is a mechanism for social connection.

Second, it’s an opportunity to boost self-esteem through what psychologists call “downward social comparison^[4]”. Given social media feeds can be rife with opportunities to feel inferior, complaining about brands is an easy way to feel better about ourselves.

How we did our research

To figure out why people complain so much on social media, we analysed negative posts on Facebook about brands caught up in media controversies at the time.

We focused on six companies – a clothing brand, a supermarket, an airline, an e-commerce store, a department store and a beverage company.

Each had a Facebook page with more than 1 million followers. The controversies included alleged employee mistreatment, unethical business practices, bad customer experiences and a poorly received advertising campaign. We analysed hundreds of comments posted on these companies’ pages. We followed up with interviews with 13 social media users who said they used Facebook at least daily and interacted with brands on social media at least weekly.

We asked these 13 people what they posted about and their reasons for posting. We also asked them to speculate about other social media posts regarding the same brands. This enabled us to draw our conclusions.

Shutterstock Complaining to bond with others The most common reason for complaining online was paying for something that didn’t arrive or failed to work in some way. This was our least surprising finding. More surprising was how many who joined in posting negative comments, without any firsthand experience. We saw this complaining used as a bonding mechanism, with users tagging family or friends in posts about malfunctioning equipment with questions such as: “Has this happened with yours?” Complaining has long been “a pervasive and important form of social communication”, as psychology professor Mark Alicke and colleagues noted in a 1992 study^[5], published before most people had even heard of the internet. Social media has amplified this, enabling us to not only complain to friends but also to create a type of social connection with strangers. We could give you dozens of examples from our research, but you can probably think of many from your own experiences. Read more: Does social media make us more or less lonely? Depends on how you use it^[6] The people we studied got a kick out of debating strangers, particularly when they felt they had the upper hand. One interviewee told us: I kind of like it, because it shows that at least I’m having an impact. If I’m talking about something someone’s so angry about that they write something back, at least we’re having a conversation. Such responses speak the social dilemma of social networks. Our increasingly digital existence contributes to real-world social disconnection. To compensate, people look for whatever attention they can find on social media, including through complaining and arguing. Downward social comparison The second major psychological reward from complaining on social media was to boost their self-esteem. As one participant told us: This is kind of that negative thing, but it’s more in a funny, sarcastic, trolling negative thing. This pay-off came through strongly when we asked our interviewees to speculate on others’ complaints. “Maybe they’re bored and lonely at home,” said one. “The fact he’s obviously looking down on the people is elevating his position,” said another. Read more: New research shows trolls don't just enjoy hurting others, they also feel good about themselves^[7] Boosting self-esteem by looking down others is known as “downward social comparison”. This idea was articulated by American social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954^[8], who suggested humans were hardwired by evolution to compare our value against others.