Saying Thank You

When thou does thy social interactions, be not as those who love to stand in the corners of the internet and publicly announce, measure, and track their interactions, that they may be seen and extract value from others. I say unto you, they have their reward.
— The Bible, somewhere

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Eric Bailey recently wrote a wonderful piece about saying thank you

Thank you emails are private, and their goal is as earnest as it is direct. They don’t come with UTM tracking codes, quid pro quo schemes, or linkback spam.

YES!

I’ve got a “Reply via email” link at the bottom of my posts. I don’t get messages regularly, but when I do they are nuggets of gold for all the reasons Eric outlines. Something I wrote resonated with someone so much that they took the time to sit down and write me a little note? That’s neat! Thank you for reading.

As Eric alludes to, firing off a private email — and the friction it entails — is not a social mechanism easily conducive to tracking or measurement. There’s something awesome about that.

A thank you email feels like a personal and selfless act in a web that feels increasingly built to not facilitate this kind of interaction.

Related: I saw Muan on Twitter commenting on this same idea.

while we are at it- normalize sending random strangers an email to compliment their websites like “wow your house is beautiful thanks for letting me hang out here” it’s the polite thing to do.

Agree 💯