Ready Kids › Online Ready › Badge 2 › Lesson 2.2
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They already know what you like
Spot the parts of a friendly chat that were researched, and name what about you is findable in ten seconds.
1Look
The perfect first message
A first DM
A message from a stranger: 'no way, you like the same band, and you play the same game, and your team lost too, gutted'. Faint behind it, three of her own recent posts, one for each thing.
Read the message. Then look at what is behind it.
2The idea
It is not a coincidence. It is homework.
You have felt it: somebody new who likes everything you like and is angry at the exact person you are angry at. It feels like meeting a twin. Everything they know is on your profile. Reading it takes ten minutes.
You are not stupid for being pleased. Being liked is nice. It is just worth knowing that the liking came from a list, and that the list was your bio, your posts, your username and the comments you left on other people’s.
3The idea
The three things research is for
Researched chat does three jobs, and you can learn to see each one:
Mirror your interests. Same band, same game, same team. Instant twin.
Mirror your mood. You posted that you were annoyed; they are annoyed with you.
Take your side. Against the teacher, the friend, the parent. Especially the parent.
For every thing they know, ask one question: how would they know that? If the answer is ‘I posted it’, it is not a coincidence. It is somebody who read your profile and is playing it back to you.
4The idea
Watch it work once
Ravi gets a first message: same band, same game, and ‘saw your team lost Saturday, brutal’. It feels like a mate. He asks himself, one thing at a time: how would they know that? The band is in his bio. The game is in his username. The match was his post on Saturday.
Not one thing they know about him came from him telling them. That does not make the person dangerous. It makes them somebody who did homework on a thirteen-year-old before saying hello, and that is worth a second look before it is worth a reply.
5Your turn
Find the research
Spot the homework
A friendly chat, twelve messages long, beside a mock profile page. Tap every line in the chat that could only have come from the profile. The card lights up the matching post for each one as you go.
There are five. Most people find three.
6Decide
They say: 'saw your post about your mum, that sucks, mine was the same'. What is this line doing?
Pick one to carry on.
7Watch
The twin
Meeting your twin
Split screen. Left: her profile, posts about a band, a game, an argument with her mum. Right: a stranger typing a first message, glancing left after every line. It ends on the cursor over Send.
18 secondsThe right-hand side is the part you never see.
8Find them
Which of these could a stranger find about you in ten seconds?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
9Say it
The question to ask about every coincidence
Say it flat, like you are checking a receipt
“How would they know that?”
You will need it the next time somebody new turns out to like everything you like.
10Do it
Before you leave this page
Open your own profile. Say out loud one thing a stranger would know about you within ten seconds. Then say what they could do with it.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
Coincidence is rare. Research is easy.
Next lesson: Somebody who listens more than your friends doBadge 2 · Who You're Actually Talking To
2.1It's slow on purpose2.2They already know what you like2.3Somebody who listens more than your friends do2.4Let's talk somewhere else★Badge Challenge