twitter fail blog
sharing the good, and exposing the best of the worst on twitter
Follower Envy
Twitter is a lot like a locker room. There’s dirty jokes, arguments, inside jokes, and friendly rivalry. There’s also sidelong glances and sneak peeks to see who has the biggest…follower count. Any woman will tell you, it’s not the size that counts, it’s what you do with it. You can have a million followers who don’t listen to a thing you say, or you can have a hundred people who will evangelize your every word.
Translation: Please validate me and give the impression I’m popular. I don’t care if you like me, just be my friend.
Thank you to @BIGGMads for the awesome response. We coudn’t have said it better ourselves.
And, finally, our favorite:
As a matter of fact, it is.
Why People Use Twitter
People use twitter for lots of different things, yet they can be broken down into a few very simple categories. We feel compelled to admit that while some people are connecting with friends and family, we tend to spend most of our time in the in the work avoidance category.
Many of our fellow time wasters have found that the best way to spend a lot of time on twitter, and look as if you’re actually doing something worthwhile, without actually coming up with any new content, because that would be work, which is what we’re avoiding, is to Retweet other people’s stuff.
It’s been pointed out to us that “Inspirational Quotes” actually belongs in the “Useless Crap” category, but we already uploaded this chart. We’d do another one, but we’re still working on our orange slice of the pie.
Here’s Why We Don’t Follow Celebrities
We really don’t care for the elevated status given to celebrities, just because they get paid to act, sing, tell jokes, or whatever they do to get famous. Mostly because they use that status to push their own agenda. And also because their raving fans follow them around like lost puppies, drooling over the opportunity to do their bidding.
You may recall that we started the #notfollowing hashtag several months ago as a response to the way #followfriday had turned into nothing more than a “I love you,” “No, I love you more…” bit of nonsense. So we decided to announce to the twitter world who we’ve made a conscious decision to not follow that week. Over time, this weekly list has developed themes, because we’re lazy and once we start with one person, it’s easy to find others like them.
We first made the decision to #notfollow @stephenfry on March 13, when we noticed that he had asked people to include #followmestephen in a tweet. It didn’t appear that he actually followed everyone who tweeted that message, so we thought that wasn’t exactly playing fair.
Since then, he’s been on our #notfollowing list on May 3, and September 27. He obviously didn’t care. Why? Because with hundreds of thousands of people fawning over him 24/7, he doesn’t have time to read all the garbage in his timeline. (Yes, we know our tweets are garbage. We said it so you don’t have to.) He did, however, notice this casual remark:
which then became this exchange:
A rational person may think Stephen overreacted just a bit, however this started a firestorm on twitter that will continue for some time. The people who love @stephenfry probably couldn’t bear the thought that maybe he really was boring, and they were just too blinded by his celebrity to notice. That would shatter their world. And if he stopped tweeting, that would be infinitesimally infinitely more serious than when @alyssa_milano announced on October 30 that her boyfriend had banned her from twitter for the evening.
(Note to feminists: don’t get your panties in a wad. She rebelled and tweeted anyway.)
So they attacked @brumplum viciously. Stephen and Richard have since made up, but that won’t stop the tweets and retweets on this subject, because on twitter, nothing ever goes away. Do a twitter search for #fixreplies and you’ll see people still up in arms about the “new” way twitter is managing replies. This change happened nearly 6 months ago, which is ancient history on the internet. To top it all off, many of these bellyachers weren’t even around before the change. It’s just so fun to complain, they had to climb on board.
When we noticed this story get big press, we decided this would be today’s #notfollowing theme. You were probably wondering when we’d get back on topic. Feel better now?
Not surprisingly, we got some hate annoyed responses. No biggie. If we can give it, we’d better well take it. Because sticks and stones…and all that. You’re probably wondering why people would be so protective of Stephen. It’s not because he has bipolar disorder and was feeling down. Lots of people on twitter have BP and nobody pays any attention to them. No, it’s because of the huge value he bsrings twitter as a whole. This was summed up perfectly by one of his fans:
Wow. He is using social media to be social, and not just to beg for attention like a spoiled cheerleader at Homecoming. (Hi Marcia). This kind of thing just might catch on.
Trash Talk
Lots of business people are getting involved in twitter these days, because that’s the place to be. It’s all over the news; everywhere you turn, someone is talking about making money on twitter. Although the hype and reality are about as far apart as John and Kate (minus eight) that doesn’t stop them from giving it the old college try. Or asking their college kid to give it a go for them. At least, that’s what we think is going on here.
@DayBreeDisposal’s bio says they are: “Residential and Commercial Removal Services.” But what they look like to us is someone who’s frustrated that the quiz in Cosmo was already filled out by the time he got it. Since about 200 of their (currently) 233 tweets are about random games, polls and surveys, they definitely know their garbage.
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