Gweneth Bateman reveals what happens when she responds to compliments from men online

WHEN Gweneth Bateman began a social experiment replying to compliments she received from men online, she had no idea the reaction it would cause.

What happens when women accept compliments

WHEN Gweneth Bateman began a social experiment replying to compliments she received from men online, she had no idea the reaction it would cause.

The British teenager said she started responding to compliments she received via social media after receiving criticism for not replying to them — and for not being grateful for the attention.

The 18-year-old told news.com.au she got the idea from the same experiment she originally stumbled across on tumbler user Claire Boniface where men posted compliments to women.

So she thought she would try it out herself and share the results with her Twitter followers.

When she received a compliment from someone on Twitter or Tumblr, most often who she didn’t even know, she would reply with a nice response.

But even she was surprised by the negative responses she received when she did accept and reply.

She then shared examples that she and other women, including Ms Boniface, (who shared their images on Tumblr) received when they started accepting the compliments.

social experiment: whenever a boy compliments you, agree with him. pic.twitter.com/rb8S4VQMCj

— gwen (@spiritualvodka) January 11, 2015

Ms Bateman said she didn’t realise her experiment would blow up so quickly, and was surprised by the majority of negative responses she received online.

Some of the responses she received included calling her a feminist ugly ****, while others even went as far as to saying she had no friends, or accused her of being vain for simply saying thanks.

“I think this is mainly due to the fact that when people are faced with new information that they do not like, their first reflex is to spew hate,” she said.

“It was also shocking to me how negatively some men acted when confronted by a confident female.

“Surely they should be happy that a woman has such inner confidence however with some this was not the case.”

She added she believed some men felt they were owed a response as they felt “women should base their self worth off of the compliment that they feed to them, thus believing that women owe them a response.”

why is it okay for you to tell a girl she's pretty, but as soon as she believes it she's "full of herself" and "vain"?

— gwen (@spiritualvodka) January 11, 2015

@SilentHitoshura @spiritualvodka In every example she posted I saw males acting insecure at a woman agreeing with them and taking it back

— ♪salir victoriosa♪ (@Alouette_Jolly) January 12, 2015

@SilentHitoshura @spiritualvodka There are a lot of insecure males out there who are under the impression that they are men. That's real

— ♪salir victoriosa♪ (@Alouette_Jolly) January 12, 2015

Ultimately she said she thought men would be happy that a woman had such inner confidence but as this experiment showed, it was clearly not the case.

The student from Birmingham also said she thought it was bonkers that simply accepting a compliment could cause people to think they are vain and women couldn’t win either way.

@spiritualvodka don't forget the "if you ignore it you're stuck up"

— Derek Nye (@redman1401) January 12, 2015