Twitter

I have just finished a thorough purge of my followers on Twitter.

Ok, that sentence standing alone makes me look kinda mean. I mean, shouldn't everyone be allowed to read my tweets?

I thought so for a long time, but since Twitter imposed its own spambot purge, I've been thinking about how much value I place on how many followers I have.

Don't get me wrong, there are quite a few people with whom I interact with on a relatively personal level. I can quilte honestly say that, while limited to URL-style interaction, I still feel a certain amount of love for these people. I know it's not the same as having a friend you can physically meet up with and spend time with in person, but I don't feel like that is any excuse to not like these people the way I do. In fact, I'd tell you guys some stuff I wouldn't dare to tell anyone else I know IRL (which, by the way, is a HUGE deal). I just want to make it clear that it is not these kind of people I have a problem with on twitter (quite the opposite, in fact. These people are the REASON I use Twitter).

No. The problem I have lies with people who follow me not to hear what I have to say or find out what I'm doing, or even to stalk me (which would be more flattering than their actual reasons, I would say), but with the vain hope that if they click the follow button below my picture, that I might follow suit and return the favour. (Ok, let's be clear. Even after Twitter's spambot purge, there are still many bots out there just in it to spruke their wares or direct you to sites of questionable morality (read: porn). These are reasonably easy to identify and block, but let's face it, just as annoying as the aforementioned [1 f? 2? idk] "follow-me-plzkthx" followers).

Nothing annoys me more than clicking on one of my followers and seeing that I am one of not 20 or 30 or even 100 people being cyberstalked by them, but one of 2 or 3 thousand. That doesn't really stand to make me feel like my tweets are being heard. Not because I'm vain and attention seeking and want people to listen to me whether they like it or not, but because THEY followed ME. For goodness sake, guys, this is TWITTER. Not FaceBook. Following someone is SUPPOSED to mean you VALUE their point of view, or find them funny, or entertaining, or inspiring, or friendly. Essentially, you have found a connection with this person and following their twitter feed is a way of maintaining this connection, even if they don't follow you back. Another thing is that I found it really easy to make friends with a fair few of my followers. The thing playing on my mind: Why do friendships fall into place so easily with some followers, and yet with others, nothing happens? Obviously they are using Twitter for different reasons.

Ok, so I realise how messed up and all over the place my thoughts are on this, but bare with me. I'm not saying EVERYONE has to use Twitter for the SAME reasons. But I have my reasons for using Twitter. My account is like my little cyber-bubble, where I can interact with whomsoever I wish, for my intended purposes. If it's my personal bubble, then I can choose who to block. I have no intention of being mean here; I'm only being practical. I blocked a lot of followers who, I assumed, would not miss the presence of my tweets. I mean, for someone following 3000 people, you hardly get 3 seconds on screen before other tweets have pushed yours down. 2999 is hardly much of a difference. If I do get a message from any of them asking why I blocked them, and would I please unblock them so they could follow me again, because they thought I was funny and missed my tweets, then I'd unblock them. No problem. (The same does not apply to the spambots or the pornbots. They stay blocked forever.)

Oh yeah. Another thing that irks me about some of these people following hundreds or thousands of other twitterers, is when their own tweet count is only, like, 2. That's kind of abusing the system.

Anyway. Long story short, I blocked pretty much anyone following me who I couldn't see myself potentially developing a friendship with. This is the reason I joined twitter. Not to broadcast my views, or video/blog postings (although that comes in handy) but to meet and get to know the interesting, quirky, wonderful people out there in cyberspace hidden among the spambots. At least now, I can say I have a following of wonderful, interesting and quirky people, instead of a larger following of bots. Quality over quantity.

I'm getting to that stage where I feel like my point has been made, but i keep thinking of new ways to put it across, but really I am just repeating myself. So, I'll wrap it up there, and I wanna hear your thoughts on this. Leave comments, or write your own post about it, and link it in the comments. Let's have a good old discussion about Twitter Etiquette.

Before I go, good luck Beth with orientation at the new school, good luck Fran with the new craft store, and there's a few of you out there moving house, etc, so good luck with that too, I hope you all get settled in smoothly and quickly.

That's it for now.

***EDIT***

Ha, just spellchecked, and one of the suggestions for 'spambot' was 'spearmint'. ~giggle~ Sorry spellcheck, but spambots hardly leave my mouth feeling fresh. :P

Also, am currently in the middle of redoing the bedroom. Will be acquiring a new bookshelf soon (I know I tweeted that a couple of weeks ago, but it has still yet to eventuate.) Also, further down the track I'll be upgrading my bed, but not before I get me a car, and probably a MacBookPro too, since these 2 things are of slightly more importance than a bed.

Anyway, I've got to leave it there, IRL friends await, so have a good night/morning/day/afternoon/wheneveryoureadthis and I'll see you soon :P