Results of “social experiment” on compliments aren’t news

A couple days ago, midway through my morning routine of checking all my social media platforms, I came across a Buzzfeed article. A young woman had started a social experiment, “Whenever a boy compliments you, agree with him.”

In many of the conversations she posted, the boy would compliment her on her looks, she’d reply with a “yes,” then receive ridiculous replies back. And by ridiculous, I don’t mean to antagonize these men, but it’s just flimsy logic when someone says “U are gorgeous” and follows with “I mean no u arent lol” after the woman agrees. From those examples, Gweneth Bateman commented that she couldn’t believe how it’s “perfectly OK for women to doubt a compliment they receive, [but] when they actually believe [it]…, they get shamed and branded as ‘vain’ or ‘conceited’.”

Now I know I might not do some of my best thinking in the mornings, but even while I was half-awake, I sensed there was something a little unreliable with the conclusion from this experiment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m also a female and I understand that guys are often sorely mistaken in believing that they are entitled to our attention. On the other hand, is this confusion about how to receive a compliment really only limited to romantic interaction? If I complimented my grandmother and said, “That’s a very nice dress, Grandma” and she replied with, “Why, yes dear, I know,” I wouldn’t exactly be pleased with the development of that conversation either –– and that’s not involving any element of romance or male-female power dynamics.

In my eyes, this social experiment is not the best way to prove that men feel uncomfortable with women’s confidence. If anything, this is an interesting study in the social phenomenon of giving and receiving compliments, but I personally don’t see it as a threat to the feminist cause.