Seven Ways to Make Twitter Suck
There's this thing that has been happening lately which has crawled under my skin, festered, and now has me contemplating acting like a complete jerk--I've been getting grief for unfollowing people on twitter. Here's the thing, if you tweet something like "I knew @burghbaby was too much of a *redacted* to follow anyone who isn't super popular," you're kind of validating my decision to hit that button. (Yes. That happened. Really.) Bear with me while I rant a bit . . .
My approach to twitter is very simple--I follow people who talk to me and who use twitter in a way that is compatible with how I use it. That's to say, I don't think there is a right or wrong way to use twitter, but I do think there are ways that don't work for me, so I do what I can to keep incompatible things out of my twitter universe. If I unfollow someone, it's just that we don't use twitter in the same way. I may very well really like that person when face-to-face, I just see twitter differently than they do. Examples:
1. The Never-Ending Whine Fest. You are absolutely entitled to use twitter as a way to vent about all of the things that annoy you all day long. However, if your daily routine is to post that your car is gross, your mom won't leave you alone, your boss is a jerk, your hair is ugly, and the weather is too hot/cold/wet/dry/windy/cloudy/snowy/rainy/whatever, and you don't make me laugh even once while throwing your daily Whine Fest, UNFOLLOW.
2. Political Ranting. I don't mind a good, succinct, political opinion once in a while (@awrightbrian does this well). I do mind when people try to hold long, condescending political debates via twitter. I don't care if you pray to the church of Palin or if you think Obama is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it doesn't work with my way of using twitter. I always think that political debates on twitter are like political debates in a bar. You just know that at the exact moment the music dies down and the bar falls silent, you'll be caught yelling, "ANYBODY WHO GETS AN ABORTION DESERVES TO BE SHOT BY A FIRING SQUAD." Whether that's your opinion or not, context is needed to keep you from sounding like a douchebag. 140 characters doesn't leave room for context.
3. Nothing Original. If your every tweet is a retweet or link to something somebody else wrote, UNFOLLOW. If that content is so vital, I bet I'll find it without your help. (P.S. @twitcleaner is a great tool for quickly identifying accounts that do nothing but post unoriginal content.)
4. It's All About MEEEEE. Look, twitter is narcissistic by nature, but it is possible to notice that other people exist in this world. If you post links to your own blog over and over and over again, UNFOLLOW. If you post things like, "OMG! Look how awful my hair looks! I hope my fabulous-expensive-wouldn't-touch-your-hair-for-all-the-money-in-the-world hairdresser can fix it! SO EMBARRASSING!" along with a picture of your so-called embarrassing hair over and over and over, UNFOLLOW. You're free to throw your MEEEEEE Party, but I don't really want to attend.
5. Do As I Say. There's this thing that some parents do that makes my skin crawl. They repeatedly complain via twitter about how horrible/annoying/misbehaving/etc. their kids are, but between all of those complaints about how their kids are the spawn of Satan, they tell everybody else how to be a good parent. For example, if you tweet, "If this kid doesn't shut up soon, I'm going to shoot myself," and then reply to me saying Alexis is attempting to break the world record for most words formed out of one breath of oxygen with "I just use the Quiet Game and my kids are great!" UNFOLLOW. You can go ahead and use twitter as your means of getting sympathy from the world as you prove how smart you are, but I don't have to read it.
6. Drama Monger. There are people who loooooove to cause drama. They live for pointing out weaknesses, faults, mistakes, etc. They like to prove their superiority by cutting others down. That's fine, but I don't want to read it. Interestingly enough, it's the people who are Drama Mongers who are most likely to call someone out for unfollowing. It's a little, "Look! That person is a jerk! Poor me!" move, and I hate it. UNFOLLOW.
7. #Winner Is The New Loser. The horse is dead. Very dead. It's OK to stop beating it now. All of that is to say, OMG! ENOUGH WITH THE SHEEN TWEETS! I can't handle any more idolizing or laughing or enjoying of that whole dumb show, so UNFOLLOW. You go ahead and keep living last week's news, but I'm ready to move on. That's really hard to do when every other tweet in my stream is about him, y'know?
Like I said, I don't care if people want to use twitter in all of those ways, but I don't have to be there to see it. It's not that I don't like you, it's that we don't use twitter in the same way. Promise.
When the resident five-year old presents you with a picture of "tiger's blood," you can't unfollow her, but you can be SUPER ANNOYED.
burghbaby
A quick note: If I'm not following you on twitter, it doesn't mean you are guilty of any of that stuff. Assuming that might be a bit of a confession, though. ;-)
In all seriousness, I turned off new follower notifications right around the time I got six consecutive notifications from spam accounts that were all using a naked Britney Spears as their avatar. The only way I know a new follower is a real person is if they @ me once in a while, which makes sense given that I primarily use twitter as a conversation tool, no?
Reader Comments (33)
Whew. Glad I made the cut. I was afraid I'd have to start tweeting #loser. haha (I'm over that too and about an hour ago, again, I said to my husband, "His children are going to see all of this." It's sad.
"...but I do think there are ways that don't work for me, so I do what I can to keep incompatible things out of my twitter universe."
~ This is perfect. And fitting for life, not just twitter universe.
VAGINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I may be on the unfollow list (I SUCK at twitter and never use it consistently--I admit it. I'm twitter dumb and it overloads my brain and I can't stay focused), but this post made me laugh. Just don't dump me as your FB friend, okay?
whoops!!! i'm guilty of posting the link to my blog all the time!! i guess i better stop. i never thought that it could get annoying really. i guess my rationale behind is "how will they know i updated?" but i guess if they have a google reader... duh... anyway i'm actually glad you made this post because my followers are probably so over me right now. lol. i don't do the hair thing tho! the other stuff i'm not guilty of, thank goodness.
i'm like you, i get so annoyed by those 7 people. for me its worse on facebook than it is on twitter though. i have a friend who is number 1, 5, and 6 all at the same time. i'm afraid to de-friend her because of the backlash that will likely ensue, so i just hide her feed. unfortunately you can't do that on twitter. if you could it would save a lot of trouble. you can still be "friends" with them but without them knowing you don't read their posts! yay!
"That's to say, I don't think there is a right or wrong way to use twitter, but I do think there are ways that don't work for me, so I do what I can to keep incompatible things out of my twitter universe." So diplomatic, you put it just right.
I loathe anyone who blatantly uses Twitter to bait people for compliments or concern. I get that we're all self-obsessed to a point, and we all feel depressed occasionally or take nice pictures of ourselves that we want to share (in your case, photos of your kid, since you're not a self-portrait kind of person). But if it's a regular occurrence, I just have to unfollow. People who try too hard bother me even online.
I'm going to group any Twitter meme under number seven. I'm glad most people are coming down off their tiger blood high and seeing how ridiculous it was.
You're awesome! Wait...
Okay, phew! Just went to check to see if you still follow me on Twitter, since hi, I tweet all day long about my new blog posts! Not because I'm all ME ME ME ME ME but because I know that different people are on Twitter at different times... so yeah, I totally am bad that way.
I hate the drama, too. Can't stand it. My tweets are mostly all over the place... about the weather, my job, my blog, etc... I'm surprised I don't get unfollowed more often with all my randomness!
I went to send you a DM one day on Twitter and it wouldn't allow me to because you were no longer following me. So I just popped on over to fb and sent it that way. Never really thought about why you sis it, but I guess I could have been 1 or 6. Maybe more, god forbid!
Well said!!! I can barely deal with twitter for many of the reasons you stated. It's hard to clear the clutter when it's mostly clutter.
Enjoyed your post...
Thanks so much for making me feel less alone about the Sheen thing eveybody except me seems to have so much fun with. I am scanning the web since I am back to Germany for something like an application that would suppress all Sheen related tweets from my timeline. No success :(
It is getting better now (because he is not only awful, stupid, ugly, but also - boring), but for a couple of days Mr. Sheen ruined Twitter for me. REALLY!
Blog updates tweets: I guess it is like medication / drug abuse .... it is all about the dose.
We bloggers all post updates on FB and Twitter and so do I. That is how we advertise our work and that's fine. But I have one or two people in my timeline as well (and I am sometimes close to unfollow), who post the same update a dozen times and do not have much more to contribute. That's then crossing the border from information to annoying - at least for me.
I am a technology dinosaur, so I don't have to worry about this drama. I like reading tweets on someone's blog (usually) but I don't tweet. I'm also not on FB. I have enough drama of my own!
I think we all feel that way. Well said.
Hm. I can't figure out if you're still following me or not. ;)
Just kidding. I don't think I'm too guilty of the above, although everyone has bad days, and I've probably pulled one or two of those. The people who pay attention to "unfollows" have a lot of time on their hands.
And, besides, my hair looks awesome! I may not have my s*#t together, but I am rocking the locks.
Does this mean you aren't coming to my twitter party?
Let's call this post How to Do Twitter 201. If I may, let me summarize How to Do Twitter 101:
-sign up
-follow @burghbaby
-here endeth the lesson
(sorry, this comes from following your conversation with @chachisays -- whom I love -- on Twitter): I think the Internet and social media has made us less self aware in general. Perhaps not you, per se, but a lot of people who use social media are absolutely dependent on other people for their awareness. So feedback is important, and "unfollows" are like a knife in the heart. Which is ridiculous, but there you have it. Satre is spinning in his grave.
This is not meant to create drama, just a mild observation of mine. And that's a little existential humor for you, there.
I'm still a Twitter novice - I follow a lot of people, but don't post much. But can someone explain to me why people tweet about their blog posts multiple times in a row, just variations of the same thing? "Updated my blog! www.allabout me" "More about Me! www.allabout me." "I had the worst day yesterday... www.allabout me. " I guess I can see spacing such tweets out throughout the day, since some people may read only the most current feed at a given time, but I'm mystified by the tweets RIGHT IN A ROW. It comes across as "in case you didn't get what I JUST said..."
Also, I'm all about "Unfollow Charlie Sheen Day." May be a good day to clean my follow list in general...
@Kristin--When I've asked people why they do that (yes, I'm a jerk who will ask), sometimes it turns out that people have enabled multiple tools that will send auto-tweets when they post and they don't know how to make it stop (which, FIGURE IT OUT, PLEASE!). Other times, they really just don't realize how annoying it is for those of us who saw the first seventeen mentions of the post.
People are dumbasses. Now I'm going to go do all those things just to drive you insane.
Twitter is a big mess. I'm not sure I even like it, but I'm still out there once in a while. There are way too many people on there for annoying reasons. I need to go through a serious twitter cleaning. Maybe now is a good time.
This is a great post! I recently unfollowed about 70 accounts, just because I could not keep up. I used Twitcleaner and then removed a few others on my own. The next day, I had a mention from someone I had unfollowed listing my user name and 2 others saying we had unfollowed her today...checked by (website name here). First I was angry, but then I realized it just validated my unfollowing her.
A lot of people treat Twitter like a big popularity contest, and I suspect that's where a lot of the clutter comes from. I use Twitter to learn about and interact with people I wouldn't know otherwise.
Leslie, yes on the popularity contest! as well as the validation thing too, redpenmama. I keep my feed somewhat tight, only bc there is only so much time in the day I am willing to give to Twitter at the expense of my kids/job/spouse/housecleaning. If you are filling my feed with drivel, MEMEME!, or constant negativity, I won't necessarily unfollow you (to protect your feelings) I will just stop reading what you type.
I've been unfollowed, and meh, it stings for a minute, and then you realize that's life. You can't please everyone. Heck, some people I like on twitter and can't stand in real life. It happens!
@Jordan- You actually can hide a twitter feed if you you tweetcaster by handmark. It's called zip it. You can "zip" a person, or even a hashtag (like #winning, #tigerblood, and #charliesheen). It makes my twitterspace a happyplace. :)
who the hell pays attention to those who unfollow them? i have no idea when people unfollow me and i would never in a million years trash them if they did.
i love your twitter philosophy, by the way. great post.
Wow. I don't tweet, but it all just seems like too much nonsense for me. So, it's okay to post links to your blog on your Facebook page, but not tweet it? Honestly, why don't people just TALK anymore?! I miss talking.
I am so behind! I don't know what the #loser thing is about or the tiger's blood....I was thinking about giving up Twitter for Lent. Maybe I should and re-group!
It is just like blogs. Read the stuff you like... life is too short to be all woven into the things we can't stand...
But AMEN to the sheen tweets... my gosh...
What do you use Twitter for?? Just wondering. I have an account but I just don't understand the point.
Is there anyone left to follow?
I have a Twitter account. Haven't used it in about a year. Have you unfollowed me yet?
You better not unfollow me... You the one that got me INTO THIS in the first place!
I know I am guilty of at least one of those, not as much lately as I just don't have much time on Twitter anymore and also because I am learning what annoys me, so I try to not repeat it. I realize I have done the very thing that annoys me so I stop. I do post links to my blog but probably because I post so rarely anymore I figure most people have given up and removed me from their feed reader (and I think I have about 6 readers anyway), but I try not to post the same link over and over. And the Charlie Sheen tweets? Ugh, don't even get me going on that. I am so over that - I was over it from day 1. One of my students joked about him today (a 4th grader!!) and another student said "he's bad." My response was "He's not really bad, he's just a great example of what happens when you make bad choices." They all pretty much seemed in agreement for that one and most of them didn't know who he was before last week!
Thanks for a great post and for keeping us all in check. ; ) Just wish I had more time to do some real tweeting - I miss my Twitter friends!
Is it wrong that this makes me REALLY want you to follow me just so I can see if I pass? Heh.
P.S. @Jordan and @Mary, you can also hide people you follow using UberTwitter (now UberSocial)'s Mute feature -- it even lets you choose how long you want to mute someone for, in case they're only being temporarily annoying.
@redpenmama "The people who pay attention to "unfollows" have a lot of time on their hands." Word.
Good lord thanks for bearing with me, especially the last two months. I know my head has been spinning in circles re politics. I've tried not to go overboard with it on my personal twitter but sometimes its the only way to stop my head from going kablooey!