Callout

A public act of addressing, criticizing, or drawing attention to a person, group, organization, brand, or behavior typically occurs on social media in a direct and often confrontational manner. Callout is the term we use to refer to this. And while the word 'callout' may not have a positive ring to it, it can be a useful term for what many still argue is a necessary part of holding people (and sometimes, as we've seen, the people holding others accountable) accountable for their words or actions.

We can make the argument that calling someone out can range from mild and constructive forms of feedback to the talk we sometimes have when we are really walking the line of using public shaming as a tool for punishing someone who has said or done something awful, as we'll discuss more when we get to what makes someone a 'hypocrite. ' When we talk about callouts in the context of social media using these terms, we're also talking about how to use callouts as a useful mechanism for repurposing the word 'publicity,' which can have positive as well as negative connotations. And as we'll see in this section, not everything about callouts on social media is bad.

Jerry Useem (2020), for example, has argued that reputation on social media can function as a kind of social currency, or social 'asset,' that can be useful for individuals as well as brands.