I’m a tweeter. I tweet. I love tweeting and reading your tweets. You know how when you’re watching some dumb show on TV and you see the hashtag up there on the screen and you think, “What kind of loser needs a hashtag to watch a show?” I do.
The problem with twitter is that it’s open enrollment. Anybody is allowed to tweet. It’s not like Facebook, where only verified real people can create an account and then Mark Zuckerberg decides what updates are “quality” and what updates by perfectly nice lady humor writers are garbage that must be filtered out by his *&^% algorithm—but I digress.
Actually, as long as I’ve digressed: Part of the fun of twitter is all the fakers. There’s a fake account in my school district tweeting official-looking announcements that school is canceled, instantly retweeted by hopeful and unsuspecting kids. I love this. (Third level of digression: I may be a terrible person.)
Back to the problem: I love twitter but I hate a lot of people—or rather, I hate their tweets. Considering that I can’t possibly see what every delightful twitterer has to say, why would I waste time on annoying tweeters? I wouldn’t. Over the years, I have developed a little set of rules to sort out the tweet from the twaff and I’m here to share them with you. It’s a public service, really. I simply do not follow anyone who:
- Tweets only links, sweepstakes, fitness updates, recipes, inspirational quotes, or horoscopes
- Tweets about “furbabies” (Bless you, dears, but you are not my people.)
- Tweets exclusively to celebrities or exclusively about boy bands (Sadly, this includes many grown women.)
- Has Favstar in her bio (Seriously, Favstar people, calm down with the retweets.)
- Is on #TEAMFOLLOWBACK (These people need to calm down in general.)
- Has a bio promoting a terrible self-published fantasy novel or earnest poetry
- Seems to be working out something on twitter that would be better addressed by a licensed therapist (I wish you the best, but I cannot stay up all night worrying about your problems. Plus, I think you might be making up the whole thing.)
- Tweets a bunch of nonsense (%^&* robot spammers)
- Uses an avatar photo of some body part other than the face
- Just isn’t my cup of tea
Twitter is supposed to be fun, y’all. If you’re not having fun, I highly recommend that you use that unfollow button early and often—except on my account. That really hurts my feelings.
22 Comments
The furbaby people distress me. I mean, I love my dogs on a level that is probably pathological and if you were a fly on the wall of my house you’d probably laugh so hard at my ridiculous baby talk (except I never talked that way to my actual babies) you’d probably DIE. But, I mean, nobody cares. OK, so the pug got her head stuck in the peanut butter jar and that was funny, but in general, nobody cares. Not even other dog people.
Plus all the other stuff you said, but mainly the furbaby thing.
But did you Instagram that pug thing?
BUT… But… I tweet about cats, not furbabies. It’s different.
Hmmm…we’ll see about that.
And the one who @s to say, “I followed you 24 hrs ago and you still haven’t followed me back so I am unfollowing you.” GO AHEAD.
Them, too!
I used to be punk rock about twitter, now I’m snobby coffee house alterna acoustic rock. You have to bring something other than a follow.
Your list is a very good guide.
Finger snaps to that.
A-freaking-men sister. And I won’t even be offended if you don’t follow me back on Twitter. Promise (I tweet about Minecraft a lot, in between tweets slamming 50 Shades of Barf and complaints about the Wild Things. Not everyone’s cup of tea, I know). lol!
I hate bots and “follow back!”ers. They’re freaking annoying. If I follow someone it’s because they post stuff I want to see. Period. If I follow someone back as a courtesy (I do it sometimes with other Youtubers), and they post too much crap, I either unfollow or mute them. But in general, I’m only going to follow people whose stuff I want to see.
It’s kind of like Facebook except you’re not necessarily actual friends with people, so it’s more ok to unfollow if they post too much bs. #thatswhatIlikeaboutTwitter
Follow people you want to hear from! How deliciously radical!
Separating the “tweet from the twaff”? HUGE hoot from me on that one.
A few months ago, some guy followed me and then started sending me messages saying “follow me back.” Oh, sweetheart, there’s nothing on Earth that would make me less inclined to follow you than sending me messages telling me to.
I can think of one or two things worse, but we shouldn’t discuss them in polite company.
I love this so much I WON’T tweet it. Just for you.
Thanks, doll.
How about the unsolicited direct tweets to please click on this link to support my fundraising campaign/ buy my etc? Gah.
YES
I love this so much I’d forgive you for tweeting a sweepstakes right now. And AMEN to the “Furbaby.” Just no.
I’m tweeting three thousand people to enter for a chance to win a froyo coupon! #sweeps
Bahahahaha! I cannot tell you how hard this made me laugh. I love this so much Peyton!!
Happy to be of service, Ashley. 😉
I just think if you are a guy who is going to follow completely random women on Twitter, you should at least take a photo that doesn’t make you look like a total weirdo. Like, try turning on a light that is not the glow of your computer (shudder).
People who tweet their follower stats. Just no. Add one to those who unfollowed you.