Monday, September 28, 2009

Twitter, oh Twitter

So, first let me start by saying neither Maggie nor I are addicted or obsessed with this blog, apparently. It's really quite sad because we had such lofty goals in the beginning. But don't give up on us yet. I know we'll continue to blog when the urge strikes. That said, the urge has struck me. There's something I've been wanting to blog about for a while now just as one of those pet peeve sorta things.

So back in the good ole days of 2007, Maggie tells me about this new thing called Twitter that Kevin Pereira from G4TVs Attack of the Show had been talking about. And she says I really gotta get on there cause Kevin's so awesome. And I resisted for a little while because I didn't "get it". I was still all into MySpace (see, I said, the good ole days!) and was really trying to even get a grasp on that Facebook thing. Didn't really want another thing to get caught up in. But sure enough, my arm didn't need much twisting because, yeah, I'm a techie at heart and like to see these new things early on.

I joined and followed Maggie and Kevin and singer/songwriter Matt Morris for what feels like forever because in it's infancy, no one was really doing the whole Tweeting thing. When I finally remembered I had one and went back to it after a few months, I started to get it because of it's simplicity and to this day, that's the thing I love most about it. Call me a victim of the MTV generation with the whole lack of being able to pay attention to anything for very long. I was getting sick of MySpace and people's ridiculously decorated pages and I still was (and kinda am not) feeling Facebook and all the damn quizzes and stuff. So, yes, Twitter was becoming and still is my social networking site of choice. The app on my iPhone made it so easy to fall deeper and deeper in love with it, too.

Given all of that, I don't want to say that I'm like the Queen of Twitter cause I know I'm far from that. BUT having been around it for longer than a bunch of people that I now follow, kinda leaves room for me to make some observations that are generally reasons for me to stop following people and it makes me sad even though I'm sure someone might be able to say the same about me for some reason or another. I mean there are real, legitimate friends who I wish there was a way to stop getting their updates because they're such annoying Twitterers but I don't because I don't want them to see I stopped following thus causing some sort of Twitter War because of feelings being hurt. So, I'm resorting to blogging my general annoyances and if I stop following you, it's not personal. I just don't wanna be annoyed when I log on to my favorite little website of the moment.

Here's the lowdown...
  • Don't tweet too much - There's nothing I hate more than when I see on Friendbar (a ticker of tweets for Firefox) the same pic/name for like 10 posts. Twitter's 140 characters for a reason. If you got more to say than that, take it to a blog or Facebook or something.
  • Learn how to use RT - Retweet stuff that you want everyone to know, not just when you feel the need to reply to someone. I don't see when you reply to people I don't know for a reason, and I like it.
  • Do you really think P Diddy is gonna see you tweeting him? - I get the whole loving the fact that Twitter gives you a bit of accessibility to celebrities in a way that we've never seen before but really, said celebs are likely getting thousands of @ replies and there's a slim to none chance that you're gonna get a reply or acknowledgment when you try. That said, it's not completely wrong to do, just don't do it all the time, cause really? It's ridiculous.
  • Trending - Sure, some trending topics are fun, but man, it's not a competition to get something to be a trending topic (though some are amusing) and making every tweet of your day a # is just wow, too much.
  • Sharing of information - There's a bunch of people that are either TMI or not enough info. I think the people who share waaaaaay too much are equally as annoying as the vague ones. It's like both are searching for attention and replies and it's just frustrating...okay, wait, I think I hate the vague ones more cause it's like "Really, WTF are you talking about?!"
  • TV Tweeting - I like to see what the people I'm following are into, as far as TV and music and all that fun stuff, but man, when you feel the need to give me a play by play of what you're watching, there's a problem. Step away from the computer or cell phone and just WATCH THE FUCKING SHOW. I don't need to know every detail of it. If I did, I'd be watching it myself.

I'm sure there's many, many more things that peeve me about the way people are on Twitter but those are the ones that come to mind. Again, if you notice I stopped following you, no offense...you're probably doing at least one of these if not a combination of them and I just can't take it.

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