April 3, 2009
My first encounter with Twitter was at the start of this year, when a friend asked if I’d tried it. “Twitter?”, I retorted, “Twatter, more like”. With wit like that, I thought I should give Twatter a go, thus exposing my all-round awesomeness to the world. If it’s good enough for techno-geek Stefan Fry, it’s surely good enough for me.
With my @Sheq screen name obtained, I started ‘following’ people (not stalking, it just means you get to see their updates) in my email list along with some high profile slebs.
The point of Twitter is to follow and get followers by publishing, within 140 characters or less, something interesting or conversational. Unlike MySpace which is purely about self-promotion and Facebook which is all about your personal friends, Twitter is about interacting with strangers. Randomly. It’s a bit like what I imagine cottaging is like, but without the smell, secretion, thrill and violation of hygeine. It’s probably nothing like cottaging, then.
As you start following people, their follow count rises, and if they’re being observant, they can see who is following them. If they find their follower interesting, they might start following them. You follow? Good.
Sadly, it’s a double-edged sword: a virtual Katana forged from 15th century Sheffield steel. Just as quickly as you gain followers, you lose them too. And you will lose them. It could be a simple tweet (a posted message) about a song you like, or a reflection of a complex political view – but someone somewhere will actively click through to ‘unfollow’ you at some point. So, if you take things personally or have an easily bruised ego, Twitter is not the social network for you.
People I’ve stopped following include James McMahon (NME Journalist) who foolishly tweet that he didn’t see the big deal with The Wire (there were other tweets leading up to that, but that was the final straw); Gareth Dobson (DiS) “Fuck off Alan Shearer” (no need); Diddy for his consistent praising of God and general upbeat attitude (you’re a millionaire, I’m not – spare me your happiness); Courtney Love and Lily Allen for being overtly narcisstic and dull respectively. I even spent a little time trying to lose followers, which was fun, I mean – who are these people anyway? You can use TweetEffect.com to see what tweet won and lost you followers: an interesting and mildly nihilistic exercise. Another useful tool is Friend or Follow. It’s a good way of finding out which ordinary Joes you follow who don’t reciprocate. Unless they really add something to your stream – cull them.
Disappointingly, a number of people who I would suspect to be a great ‘follow’ turn out to be hollower than Kevin Bacon‘s performance in Verhoeven‘s Hollow Man. For example, you’d think that the rather brilliant writer Graham Linehan would be pretty awesome. Wrong: just as simple as his music taste. I can say that because I know he’s not following me. Annoyingly, many slebs don’t follow people; possibly because they’re afraid of being contacted by a direct message. Aaaargh! “Can you imagine? A message! To me? Direct! Good grief – why not just take my credit card and PIN now, you smelly prole”.
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to embrace Twitter while it’s around (Google are rumoured to be in talks to buy it for $250m) and it’s far more fun and educational than MySpazz or Fartbook.
Some of my personal favourite follows that I’ve ‘met’ through Twitter are:
@BobaFatt – all round good DJ and Wire fan
@mapsadaisical – blogger and radio dude
@thepoacher – music writer
@JonathanDeamer – music and tech buff
@The_No_Show – visual media and comedy
@Gigwise – updater of music and festival news
@raziqrauf – man of metal
@iamjamesward – absurdism
@akirathedon – good blogging and hip-hopping
@theindiedave – all round in the know music chap
@TheWordMagazine – it is
@Martin_Carr – musical fellow
@TTOBF – from The Line of Best Fit Zine
@anikainlondon – visual artist / writer
@sentricmusic – great advice from this money grabber
@johnrob77 – punker than thou
@JudeClarke – Wire fan, record shop owner
@wardytron – more absurdism
@charltonbrooker – TV critic and funnyman
@katesnowbird – visual artist / writer
@Documentally – clever chap
@godisinthetv – music webzine
@rodti – for humour
@themanwhofell – writer
@RichHughesTLOBF – another Rich from The Line of Best Fit
Twitter’s not for self-aggrandizement- and it’s annoying when followers thank you for reciprocating their follow before going on tell you about their band’s latest release. If I’d wanted that, I’d have stayed with MySpace.
Tell me what you had for dinner and post a picture of it to Twitpic. Now, that – that is something I can get behind.
Related posts:
- Reasons why Twitter is great #1042
- Christopher R. Weingarten
- Interview with me – Cloudspeakers.
- 2009 – Review
- World Malaria Day
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