Sure, the old “how to” post is great. It’s a staple. We see so many of them, though, that sometimes we want a switch-up. One way to educate while being a little different is to write a “how not to” post. I write a lot of these. Why?Â
- It fits better with my sense of humor. It’s easy for me to write tongue-in-cheek when you’re trying to instruct people by telling them how to do things the wrong way as a sort of reverse-psychology.
- It gives a different side of a subject that a straightforward “positive” how to post misses.
- It’s constructive venting of a pet peeve without coming off as a complainer.
- It instantly stands out from the noise in an RSS reader.
- It attracts clicks because others will share the same peeve as you, and we all love to gang up on a bad example.
This post, you’ll notice, is not a “how not to” post. That would be too much recursive irony, which might accidentally open up a wormhole, and who knows where I’d end up if that happened?