Say Hello to My Little (Twitter) Friend
Want to be my little (Twitter) friend?
Fine. Then, listen up.
My time is precious. Got it?
If I so happen to select you from among the millions of people worldwide I could follow, it’s your obligation to perform for me. It’s your duty to provide something I can’t get from someone else.
Try this: Amuse me. Entertain me. Educate me. Question me. Inspire me. Enliven me. But don’t bore me.
If you bore me, then I’ll drop your ass quicker than Paula Deen’s invitation to speak at an NAACP convention.
I hand-pick my people. Carefully. My Twitter peeps are a chosen few. And I only pick 50 or so at any one time. That’s because I want to actually follow those I’m interested in. How or why anyone would follow a thousand people or more is beyond me. Sort of like trying to have a conversation with everyone at the DMV. I want quality, not quantity.
Since I only have fifty people from among 50 million with Twitter accounts, that puts my chosen people in a special class. The friends I select are literally one-in-a-million.
To those who I now follow on Twitter, listen up. Here’s how you can keep me as a loyal follower:
(1) Don’t post too often — That’s right. I don’t want to read 20 posts from you every day. Sorry, your life just isn’t that exciting. No one is. Here’s an exception: If you are climbing Mount Everest or getting ready to fire up in the Space Shuttle, I’ll cut you some slack. Post more. But if you’re a typical slug working a lousy job, or worse — playing poker for a living — zip it. I don’t want to read about every element of your life. A Twitter account should not be reality TV.
(2) Stop posting information only you (and perhaps two other people) care about — Quit posting your chip count at the first break, especially on Day One. It’s sadistic. No one fucking cares! It’s like looking at the score of a basketball game three minutes after it started. It just doesn’t matter. Moreover, I don’t want to read about your dinner excursion to McDonald’s followed by a criticism of the service or the hamburger. YOU ATE AT FUCKING MCDONALDS! You deserve a miserable experience followed by a visit to the ER.
(3) Quit trying to impress me with all your sophisticated street lingo and indecipherable abbreviations — I understand Twitter allows only 140 characters. But the shortcuts have become absurd. Try writing a complete sentence — with a noun and a verb — and perhaps a few descriptive adverbs and adjectives. Your Twitter post shouldn’t look like a fucking chemical composition.
(4) Don’t comment on subjects you know nothing about — Reason: It will be obvious. Remember the Boston Marathon tragedy, followed by the capture of the beastly fuckers who deserve death? During the week-long manhunt, Twitter transformed the chase into a soap opera. Unless you were connected to the investigation or you knew the suspects, nothing you said meant shit. And I’m really not interested in your “take” on the situation. Neither is anyone else. You aren’t CNN. You’re probably watching highlights on SportsCenter while doing bong hits between Twittering your friends. Your 140-character opinion is worthless.
(5) Quit sharing what should be private discussions with the entire world — Must everyone who follows you be subject to each trivial line of every meaningless discussion with a person that’s even duller than you are? Take a hint: Will anyone be interested in reading your post tomorrow? If not, it’s probably not worth posting. Period. Anyone who goes back and forth with trivial insider talk gets axed by me quickly.
So that was a list of things you shouldn’t be posting. By contrast, here’s what you should be posting instead:
(1) Dates, times, places, and directions of interesting events to your followers — Imagine your closest friends, many with shared interests, posting details about events that everyone might find interesting? Too bad this rarely happens. I’ve missed countless great shows, bands, meetings, lectures, and parties either because few people bothered to post the details about it, or there was so much clutter on meaningless subjects by other people that I simply missed it.
(2) Invites to social gatherings — I like the idea of Twitter being used to round up interest in making plans for a night out on the town or inviting people to parties. In fact, this is precisely what the forum should be used as, which is a bulletin board for you and your friends.
(3) Links to important articles, videos, photos, and other additional content — The Internet is filled with some amazing resources on a wide varity of subjects. Trouble is, there’s so much out there we miss things. Twitter enables you to share a great story or image with those who are inclined to also enjoy it or gain some insight. Use it constructively.
(4) Breaking news, announcements, celebrations, and special occasions — If you witness something remarkable, by all means, Twiter it. If you learn about a breaking story from a source that’s not widely available (or perhaps something truly confidential), then break it to the world. It’s also okay to celebrate and honor those who deserve praise.
(5) Funny lines and quips — Everyone loves a clever remark about a current event or issue of public interest. The more original the comment, the better. But the line better be funny. Furthermore, there are subjects where humor is inappropriate. Here’s a guideline: If you wouldn’t say it in a crowd of people you know, then you shouldn’t write it either.
