Ever Wonder What Our Kids Will Think of Twitter? Me Neither.
Look out! The O-bots are coming! Er, I mean they're already here. En masse.
Even if you don't use twitter, and I think you might be weird if you don't, you have probably heard all the hullabaloo that has been going on with it lately. First there was good ol' Ashton Kutcher managing to connive CNN into playing along with a ridiculous contest, and then there was Oprah. Oh, Oprah. Without even tweeting a word, she had hundreds of thousands of followers.
Personally, I don't get the whole "follow a celebrity" thing. I tend to think that the Boring Folk actually tweet some of the more interesting tweets that have been twatted. I mean, I literally laughed out loud when CranberryPerson wrote, "Promised my kids Happy Meals if they behave at Costco but the joke is on them because McNuggets are highly detrimental to brain development." That's WAY funnier and more interesting than Demi Moore's tweet, "I really liked E P L the mid section was a bit slow but the info humor & honesty were very uplifting." As an added bonus, CranberryPerson's tweet was in a language I actually understand.
But, whatever. If people want to cyber stalk boring celebrities, more power to them. Just don't clog up my timeline with your messages to them. It's kind of like you walking down the street yelling, "I LOVE YOU BRITNEY!" It's going to get on my nerves eventually, and I'm going to go find another street to hang out on. (Or unfollow you, because that's a heck of a lot easier.)
Anyhoo, it's not so much the celebrity stalking that has started getting on my nerves in the past few weeks, it's the O-bots.
Yes, the O-bots.
In case you haven't noticed, ever since Ashton sat down with Oprah and told her all about the twitterverse, there has been an explosion of new twitterers. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm seeing upwards of 20 new people a day following me. Except, they aren't "people." They're O-bots.
O-bots are easy to spot. They are the twitter users who have posted maybe five tweets, are following way over 1000 people, and have words like "expert," "optimize," "marketing," and "monetize" in their Bios. They are on twitter to pimp something and will follow absolutely anybody in hopes of getting you to click their little links and have over some cash. Some say they are there to help you "learn to use twitter the right way." Others say they can help you get thousands of new followers. Yet others are there to solve all of my "male performance problems." Funny thing is, I don't think there is a "right way" to use twitter, I have no interest in new followers if they aren't going to manage to entertain me, and I don't have a penis.
At least I don't think I do.
I do have a need to hide from the O-bots. They aren't just annoying, they are starting to scare me. What if the Free Laptop O-bots and the Internet Marketing Guru O-bots get together and make tiny Free Laptop Internet Marketing Guru O-bot babies? That can't possibly end well. It might even cause the universe to implode.
If you are an O-bot, please leave me alone. If you're not, and you want me to follow you on twitter, you had better send me an @ message because I can no longer see you in the sea of O-bots. Mostly because I've got my head buried in the sand so that the O-bots don't destroy me.
And if you don't yet use twitter? Beware the O-bots. They will eat your soul.
Neither of them uses Twitter, but I wonder what it will be like when Alexis is old enough to tweet. Will it still exist? Or will the O-bots have taken over the universe?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Reader Comments (30)
Word to the wise: don't follow anyone who calls himself "guru" ;-) Because it is my expert guru opinion that the O-bots are totally ruining Twitter :-( Off with their (cyber-)heads, I say. Or, you know, something that makes sense.
This is a great post. I've learned to look at every profile following me (a real pain!) and I liberally block people. The ones that creep me are the ones following mostly people named Amy. I've had that half a dozen times. BLOCKED! freaks
Thank you for this post! Those O-Bots are so annoying. It took me a little while to figure them out, but There are so many of them following me, its ridiculous.
No worries, I will take my son's trusty lightsaber and slash em to pieces.
How do you know @jamesbainbridge isn't a very clever o-bot gathering information to send you boxes upon boxes of Snuggies® and ProductDuJour™?
I know for a fact that @JameBainbridge is an O-bot not so cleverly disguised as a crazed gooberhead. He's funny, though, so he gets to stay. ;-)
Totally stumbled this, lady. GREAT POST!! Down with the O-Bots!!!!
I thought of you just now when I got followed by @ROFL. At least that one's got some funny RT stuff in there.
As always, kid, you cut right to the chase and crack me up in the process! XOXOXO
oh yes...the o-bots. i went through and got rid of all of them in my followers. i was just accepting all followers but now, i'm a LOT more picky!! no o-bots following my twats...
Ugh the O-bots ARE annoying! And really, why tweet to someone famous? Like Oprah is REALLY going to read what EVERYONE writes to her. Come on now! LOL
LOVE that picture! :)
@Mommy to those Special Ks--What? You don't think Oprah stays up all night reading every single tweet ever twatted to her? Heh.
Huh - never knew they were called O-bots more like A-ho--wait, sorry, never mind.
Thanks for the Stumble, btw. ;-)
this pic is amazing! it's so sweet!
Everytime an O-bot follows you, God kills a kitten. ;)
Somehow I missed the Oprah/Ashton mess, but that didn't stop Miley Cyrus from finding me. WTH?! And for some reason Becky is not a Twit. It's just not all that in the teen world.
Oh I KNOW. It's just awful. I'm not getting nearly as many as you--but the 5-10 a day are getting really irritating.
I said this on flickr but I'll say it again: I LOVE that shot. It's absolutely beautiful!
I recently told someone I was on twitter before twitter was cool:) Celebs and bots are ruining it for the rest of us!
I don't get the whole twitter thing. Guess I better get with it.
I could have been taken over by an O-Bot already and would never know. Scary!
I was recently thinking about how I really need to get back to twittering again, but now I'm rethinking. It was fun, and I enjoyed it for a while, but once I started with FB, I had to give something up. Just not so worth it with the O-bots now.
The only celebrity I can think of worth following on Twitter is Stephen Colbert. Cause he is so freaking funny. And he was on it before most celebs and uses it right.
I just did a post last week on a tweetup. Shut up! I know! A tweetup. I went to one accidentally without ever having heard the term before. I thought I was attending a fundraiser organized by moms for moms in Kenya, and it was actually a tweetup. OMG. Suddenly I learned the word "monetize" and strangers were following me because I innocently consented to wearing a nametag. I've spent the better part of the week blocking strange followers.
Help me. I've wandered astray from the safer pastures of PTA meetings. Would have thought a PTA meeting would be a safer place to be?
I tweeted before Twitter was popular and then I whacked my account. Disconnection has its' perks. O-bots? O-Gah!
I ADORE that photo.
I'm one of those sad people who doesn't use twitter. mostly because if I'm on blogger and on facebook- are there really more hours in a day to be on something else too? I'm sure there are, but I never bothered to figure the whole twitter thing out. Hopefully that at least puts me on step ahead of the o-bots!
*blush* I coulda been a contender!
Oh, and this is why my tweets stay private. I fear the outside world of the interwebz!!
That's why I'm "private". I got sick of being followed by random people and now I can determine if they are people or bots and block them or let them in. I have fewer followers, but they are real people.
I follow you...and I don't think I'm a bot...I'm certainly not O.
Ugh. I can't stand 'em! Today I had some woman follow me that had her boobs in my face in her avatar. Double ugh!!
i haven't been back on twitter since i was almost "discovered" by irl people. i'm skeerd.
You used the word penis on your blog! You're no better than the rest of us!
I have noticed that I have been blocking more folks lately...I blame Oprah:P I am so with you on the celeb front. No, I am not in the mood to be lectured by you today Ashton and Demi:P
I believe, madame, you DO have a penis, you just don't have to personally carry it around all the time. And, legally speaking, you own a full half of it. Remind your husband of this regularly.
Using twat and penis in the same post when talking about social media makes you a top followee in my stream.
heh... stream...
If it weren't for the O-bots I'd have no followers at all, and then what would happen!
(okay not really, I let them follow my inane drivel but don't follow them back. Ha! Take that O-bots!)