I like twitter, it's a way to keep in touch with people you know in a way that doesn't involve a phone call or email, and it's easy to do. I spend more time talking to people I've never met than the ones I actually know on there but the idea is still the same. If you follow the right people you can get different views on the things that are happening to what is reported, you have to filter it, but you have to do that with TV news anyway, and you can get a more balanced view from people who are actually there, or concerned with or about what is happening. You can get an idea of who to trust and who talks shite easily enough if you look at it, which isn't possible when you have only one point of view on your TV or in your newspapers. The BBC are to scared of appearing unbalanced or leaning to one particular view that they've lost it, Sky will do what their shareholders tell them, they will be neutral but things may get subtly downgraded or ignored. Newspapers have their own agendas and are free to do that as well. Other sources of news are better, but they don't tell you everything.
You can follow people who are interested in the same subjects you are, you can see what some famous person is doing, or had for lunch in the really boring tweets, you can just randomly follow a bunch of people and get some very weird things happening on your timeline, my favourite being when the journalist Johann Hari was interviewing Stephen Fry via twitter for reasons I can't remember and someone tweeted right in the middle of a serious point asking about how to cook sausages. Well I found it funny anyway. But you can see what other people think on issues you care about, you can lock yourself into people similar to you or get a broader view by following people you don't agree with and work out the truth, or the reality at least. These are some reasons I like twitter.
But there are a few things that have been getting on my nerves when going through tweets recently, and they're getting worse. Or seem to be. Some are just basically annoying, some are pathetic behaviour, some may just be annoying me but I don't know. One that really gets me is the Follow for Follow shite, or people who expect a follow back automatically. If you look interesting, funny, or someone I might like i'll follow you, if you don't I won't. Sounds fairly simple, but some people think of it as keeping score, like that old T-shirt slogan - He who dies with the most toys Wins. Well, he or she who reaches the most followers will be Lady Gaga, or someone like that, it's nice to read new people but it isn't compulsory, and you can lose out if you only follow other people who follow you. If you get to 50,000 or whatever then ok, but if you're following 50,000 as well you're not reading much that's going through, you'll maybe see the odd tweet from most of them, and where is the point of that? I follow just over 300 people on twitter, and can keep up generally if I check in a few times during a day. But many more than that and it's pointless, you're not seeing what people are genuinely saying, even if you live on your twitter app, so why bother. It's just stupid as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather read as much as possible of what the people I follow tweet, rather than 1% of it.
The RT me because you're my favourite actor/doctor/singer people. Why? You're not asking for anything, there's no cause or charity your promoting, you're not saying anything remotely interesting, why ask for an RT with nothing to say? And why do some celebs actually RT them? It's just a waste of everyones time, another brain cell gives up in everybody who has wasted their time reading the tweet, which may not be much but cumulatively it's very annoying. Is it just a game some people are playing? To what end and to what rules. Another thing I don't get, if you're going to talk to someone, actually say something don't just make some noise. Which is what doing that is, it's like kids attention seeking. Probably is in some cases, mental age of about 4 in some people who do it probably, and I do wish they'd stop.
And then we come to the trolls, been around since the days of usenet, (on usenet, is it just me who reads about the AFP news agency and thinks of Alt.Fan.Pratchett, a news group I used to lurk in a bit? Probably). They haven't really evolved much, but do seem to just take a target, say something offensive and then wait for people to abuse them, which is their oxygen. And why do some people draw attention to them? There are a couple of famous people who just RT them and then try to get people to abuse them, or encourage it at least - pointless as far as I can see. I think ignore them until the go away. Or block if needed, starve them of attention, they're toddlers on speed, saying I need attention and will scream until I get it. It's pathetic and annoying. Also you get the aggressive unfollowers who will @ those who they're unfollowing to tell them how boring/stupid/pointless they are. Why? Just unfollow, it makes you look petty and stupid to announce it, and really up yourself to announce it directly to the person you're unfollowing. They aren't there to entertain you and you alone, so you just wind up looking pathetic.
Those are the troubles on twitter, but the good points outweigh the bad I think, most of the time anyway. I'm sure there will be other things that annoy other people, and I'll find more that annoy me, but I've also got somewhere to talk at people, or sometimes to them, and not just mutter insanely to myself. Although I could be doing that of course, and no-one reading anything I put there, but I feel I'm not talking to myself, and that's important.
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