Internet slang term
Reply guy is an internet slang term for someone who excessively responds to social media posts, often in an annoying, condescending, or overly familiar or flirtatious manner. Reply guys are often men, often have few followers of their own, and tend to respond to posts by celebrities, those with large follower bases, or women. The phenomenon has been called an example of benevolent sexism.
Origins.
The term "reply guy" has been used with less negative connotations at least as far back as 2012, when a social media manager for the Applebee's restaurant chain became known as "Applebee's Reply Guy" on Facebook for regularly responding to comments left on the page. By 2015, term shifted more toward referring to someone whose posts were perceived as annoying, rude, or as mansplaining.
US President Donald Trump is known to have so-called "reply guys" who comment under his Tweets with "insults, corrections, threats, memes, soundbites, self-promotion, or simply the same thing over and over and over again".
Actions by social media platforms.
In 2020, Twitter released a feature to allow users to limit who can reply to their tweets to only people who follow them, or to only people they mention in a tweet. This was described by "Vox" as motivated in part by a desire to reduce unpleasant interactions with reply guys.
In 2023, the Mastodon social network released an experimental feature to display a reminder when users compose a response to a stranger, or to a post that is over three months old. This was described by "TechCrunch" as an attempt to "tackl[e] ... the scourge of the 'reply guys'".
References.
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