Alison Cheperdak, founder of Elevate Etiquette, has written a book on modern etiquette amid digital communication challenges. Titled Was It Something I Said?: Everyday Etiquette to Avoid Awkward Moments in Relationships, Work, and Life, it releases on March 17. In an interview, she stresses the need for kindness online and awareness of generational differences in messaging.
Alison Cheperdak, with experience as a White House staffer, television news reporter, and attorney, founded Elevate Etiquette. Her upcoming book draws inspiration from the 1950s Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette, adapting timeless principles to today's digital world. She describes it as versatile: “I want the book to be something that you could read cover to cover or you could flip to the page that had the answer to exactly what you were wondering in that moment.” Topics include small talk, job interviews, supporting friends through loss, and digital interactions like posting, messaging, and livestreaming. Cheperdak highlights how online communication lacks cues such as tone, body language, and eye contact, leading to misinterpretations. “When you’re communicating digitally and you only have the written word, it lacks that warmth, and it’s more likely that miscommunications can happen,” she notes. She advises early-career individuals, especially Gen Z, to favor email over texts or direct messages when contacting professionals, as a professor reported students texting after receiving business cards at a career fair. Cheperdak supports purposeful use of platforms like Instagram and Facebook for connections, viewing them as scrapbooks while urging users to act as personal ambassadors: “you don’t want to be doing things or sharing things that you’d be embarrassed for your grandmother to see on the cover of the Washington Post.” On friendships, she addresses social media's role in perceived slights, like seeing uninvited brunches on stories, and references scholars like Jonathan Haidt on feeling 'ranked' in relationships. Etiquette, she argues, aids both high-stakes events and daily life, building confidence to speak up.