*Fair warning to readers: I'm being ultra honest in this post and will probably piss some friends (virtual and real life) off but what I am about to post needs to be said for both my continued SM presence and because some people, in my opinion, need to hear it. If I offend anyone, or lose any real life or virtual friends because of the following, that's too bad, but it needs to be said. You may whole heartedly disagree with some of what's to come but remember; you have every right to disagree with it and to even tell me you do, but you have no right to attack me for what is essentially my opinion because it is mine and not yours*
Recently I took a few days off from my social media (SM) existence because frankly I was getting pissed off at the influx of stuff I was seeing in my timeline. I'll admit I am not the type of person that can just ignore things.... No, actually I can, and have, but there is a breaking point where everyone has had enough. Maybe my breaking point just has a weaker test strength, I dunno.
Without getting too in-depth on the whole reasoning and without naming names of those who have gotten under my craw (which is not who I am publicly) I came up with a good idea (in my opinion) which will allow me to point out a little checklist of the types of people there are on SM (we are going to use Twitter for this particular experiment) allowing you to maybe figure out which category(s) you may fall in to. The categories in and of themselves are not good nor bad but perhaps if implemented in certain situations or used with a lack of couth may be considered worse then others per say.
The Serial Re-Tweeters (RT's) - This is you if say 50% of your own posts in your timeline are re-tweets of other peoples posts. This does not count if you RT something as a form of or include as response to the original tweetor. Some people carry on conversations in that manner and that is fine. My concern is people who a) overly RT peoples opinions, political message, website link or news stories or b) think that it is important to everyone else that every celebrity (or pseudo-celebrity) they follow needs to be read, followed or lets be frank idolized. No offense but if I wanted to follow celebrities, I would. An occasional RT of something cogent or funny they posted, as you would with a normal persons post is fine, but if your RTing a celebrity daily or more, it's a bit much. Let's be frank; they're entertainers so they thrive on attention and twitter is a gold mine for attention. In normal media outlets if someone doesn't care to pay attention to a certain celebrity, they turn the channel. In SM, if you don't wish to follow them, you don't.... But then some people you follow take RTing too far and you are forced to see a persons post you don't wish too. Moderation folks. Be honest with yourself, do you really think the celebrity is going to care or respond to you every time you RT their stuff? Probably not.
The Attention Whores - This is touchy because most will and have said everyone is on SM for attention. To that I say no, not in the manner as intended. Attention is a real evil entity (see celebrities above) Some people just need people to pay attention to them. Whether it is from a lack of confidence as a child and a feeling of empowerment in the relative confinement of being somewhat hidden behind a keyboard, I don't know; but there are people on SM that really need to be given attention for whatever reason. I have followers like this and to a certain degree it is fine, but when the longing becomes almost a second job for some, things need to be changed in your life. An online attention whore was once defined as someone who spends more than half the day on twitter or someone who posts more than 50 times a day but I don't think with the proliferation of smart phones and the ability for some to tweet freely from work that it's the case anymore. To me, an attention whore is someone who posts 30-50 times a day and is constantly (75% or more of their posts) a) trying to impress people with (and overly push) their creations, words, or opinions b) most of their tweets are about issues they have (and they always seem to have something going wrong) c) how the world has wronged them but in the same timeline post about how grateful they are d) include themselves in to every conversation and (if local) invite themselves to join in on whatever fun is being planned e) purposely post things to get people to react (for the good or bad) and f) if you have (ex.) 1500 followers but only follow 500 back. The last one is a celebrity move and if you are like that and are not a celebrity, you should really step back and reevaluate things.
Being popular on twitter is no different than it was in high school; ultimately it gets you nothing but a false sense of satisfaction in the real world. Perhaps everyone is on SM to garner some sort of attention, but SM (in my view) is a meeting place for like-minded people to meet, gather and discuss. I read recently in another blog where someone said replying to every tweet is not possible and twitter is not instant messaging; I disagree. If the tweet sent to you is not answerable, then fine. But if someone takes the time to send you a message, it is only polite to at the least show the same respect to send a small reply to them. If you have all the time to send out your own posts, then you should have the same time to reply; and if you are selective about who gets preferential reply time, then that is a whole other issue we will avoid for now.
Number Jockeys & Celebrity Worshipers - We touched on this a bit earlier but let us expand upon it. If your entire SM existence is all about garnering the most followers as possible, I have no issue with that, matter of fact I think it's mildly humorous when I read a RT from someone about how someone else needs xx more followers to hit xxx number. If you get those followers to reach said number and follow them back then all is good with the world. I, personally don't want to have a high number of followers nor do I want to follow a large number of people. I'm not on here to change the world, to boost my ego by having total strangers tell me how great I am, to follow every celebrity on the planet in hopes they will reply to me one day (which I have done in the past, no longer though) and in kind think (and yes I know people who think this way) because they replied to me, that we are somehow great friends. I am here to slowly build a group of like-minded people I can enjoy a good conversation with, have a good laugh and smile.
Before I go on, let me clear something up. The previous comment about celebs and people thinking they are friends does not include all of my friends that I know have had numerous contact with. Some have been very kind & helpful to some close friends of mine. The people I refer to are those who get one or two replies from a celebrity and think they are now close, personal life long friends. That's just frankly spooky folks. And if some of you read this and think "is he talking about me?" Probably not because I'm quite sure the muse for that scenario wants nothing to do with me anymore and is most likely not a reader, but.... I could be wrong. My point is (as stated earlier) celebrities are attention seekers and twitter is a grand place for them to garner attention. Don't get me wrong, a lot of celebs seem to be truly open to fans and make an effort to reply to them, but one reply from them makes our day; constant tweets from us to them is just an ever building list of words they have to read. Lets be honest, if you got in a car wreck, they wouldn't pause for a second like we do for them. Why? Because they don't know you personally. Sounds mean to say it like that but it's the truth.
Serial Deleter's - This one I have no issue with but for the sake of being even keeled, I'll add it. Serial deleter's are those that for some reason or another delete whole conversations on their timeline. I'm not sure why they do that, you'd have to ask them. I will say that, it does appear that they are trying to hide something from someone and if that's the case, maybe SM isn't your thing. Sidebar to that are people who talk on the main stream about how much of a different world direct messages (DM's) are to the main stream. It may well be, but in my view, you advertising that you have this private little world of people is akin to high schoolers spouting off about all the cliques they're in and as much as you scream at folks for being immature, doing stuff like that in your 30's on social media really proves who the mature ones are.
Comedians - I'll admit, I fall in to this category because generally I like to make people laugh but there can be and often is a fine line between what's funny to one and offensive to another. Then there's a not so fine line between what isn't funny to you at all. Let's take the second one first: Everyone has a different sense of humor; one person may be hilarious to you, yet I think they are dumber than Carrottop after downing a bottle of moonshine. In and of that, there is no issue. Normally, if you don't think someone is funny, you don't follow them. And as a rule any RT's they get that you may see are few and far between that it is irrelevant. But then there is the fine line humor. The Racial, Social and Political humor that really boils the pot. And you know it's not really the humor that heats the water, it's the double standard that people use when they push and continue to sell said humor. This has become abundant this election season and the main point to me taking the pulpit about all of this.
Let me begin by saying, I have made political jokes about opposing points of view & fully understand and accept that there will be rebuttal jokes and snarks made about my leanings but that is where the issue lands. There has been an apparent disconnect between both sides and their acceptance of core beliefs on the oppositions side and because of that, the jokes and flat out insults have become sharp and in my opinion, wrong. People talk all the time about Fox news and conservatives being racist, religious zealots and inhumane, while the other side blames liberals for being liars and back stabbers willing to piss the Constitution down the drain to get re-elected. Is any, or all of that true? Maybe, maybe not. The point everyone is missing (including regular voting citizens on SM) is there has always been two points of view in this country. ALWAYS. Neither side is completely right or totally wrong. People have differing views on a salvo of topics. It's what makes this a free country.
The issue has gone far beyond whether you take a little jab at a political stance someone may have to taking unwarranted and blatantly ruthless stabs at their belief system and that is absolutely wrong. You can not demean someones beliefs just because you don't agree with them, then get absolutely incensed if they do the same to you. Why? Because that makes you a hypocrite. There are a lot of hypocrites on social media....... I gave a little space there because I'm sure a shit ton of you feel offended by that. Also, you can not go around acting all passive and peace loving by supporting things like No H8, Anti-Bullying and other peaceful ventures then turn around in the same time line and wish a politician be dead. That also makes you a hypocrite. They may just be venting words to you, but saying them publicly offends people who may not have the same belief system as you. You know what the easiest way to avoid getting mad at opposing viewpoints is? Turn off Fox News! Change NPR! If you don't hear it, you wont get mad. And don't give me the "I need to know what the opposition is saying for election time" That's a crock! People that feel that strongly about issues, know who they are voting for already and no surprise candidate will change their mind. Point is, you like to be angry, you like to spew venom and like it or not, you like that being outlandish garners you attention, just like modern day politicians.
Sidebar: Before you all go calling me out on my "don't watch it" two things: 1) I don't watch or listen to them and 2) I warned you in
red at the beginning that this may piss you off.
So bottom line: Do any of those remind you of you? If so, it's not a bad thing, just maybe something you need to be aware of. I freely admit, I need to work on getting less worked up over others comments and I am working on being more passive. I mute people, delete people (some I really liked) and screen out as much of what annoys me as I possibly can. Social Media is not a bad thing, just remember, it's an outlet, a tool, a guide; not a real life application. While it can be useful to vent, to laugh, to give you opportunities, to get your "brand" out (in moderation) it is not a cure but rather a band-aid to what troubles you. It's not going to get you any trips to red carpets, allow you to hang out with your new celebrity friends. Except for rare occasions it's probably not going to find your true love. It's not a way for you to gain, re-gain or acquire a high school dream of being popular. It may give you attention in a fleeting sense but if you need attention so bad, look around you. There is your husband, your wife, your kids, your family, friends, neighbors; most of them are probably willing to give you all the attention you require and you'll be surprised; they'll probably make you feel a lot more content than any of us on social media ever could.
Good Night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.
