Back in the day, Facebook was my staple social media site. No matter what I was doing, I’d always have a tab open so that I could keep up with everything that was going on with the people in my life. Now I can’t stand the thing, and Twitter has replaced it.
Considering how long its been around, I’ve only been on Twitter for about two and a half years, and while it was an absolute maze to me at first, its second nature now and I’m totally proficient in retweeting, hashtagging and chatting away until my little heart’s content – even though most of the time I’m probably just silently scrolling/stalking.
That said, however, there are a number of things I see cropping up across Twitter on a near-daily basis, and they’re a total mystery to me..
Rant accounts
Yes, I know everyone uses their Twitter as a way to vent feelings, or express unhappiness at certain companies/brands, but that’s not what I’m referring to. What I mean are those accounts that have clearly been set up with the sole purpose of talking smack about a particular company or issue. I once had to block someone (who didn’t even follow me) because every time I tweeted something about Redbubble (and I only have nice things to say about Redbubble), he would reply by trying to attack the brand. Upon clicking on his profile, I soon realised that this is all he does on Twitter, and his entire feed consisted of replying to people tweeting about Redbubble. Whatever your beef is, get over it mate.
The constant begging for an edit button
I know the pain of a typo or auto-correct malfunction, but I cannot stress enough how bad an edit button would be on Twitter. Let me put it this way:
Imagine you see a funny tweet. You innocently retweet it, as does a whole bunch of other people. The tweet has now gone viral, and the original writer now decides to use their famous moment to get a point across. They hit that edit button, and change the hilarious tweet you just had to share into something offensive. Now you, and all those other innocent retweeters have just shared something potentially awful, and you might not even notice..
Sure, the majority of people might just want to go back and correct a minor mistake, but it does have some serious repercussions if abused.
Copying viral tweets
You know when one of those tweets appears in that ‘things you missed’ or ‘things you might like’ section of your feed, just cos its got about 11K likes and retweets. You laugh, maybe you also RT, but then you forget all about it. Next thing you know, about 6 people on your feed have either written their own version of it, or print-screened the original to try and claim some fame of their own. Everyone sees what you’ve done, boo.
The classic follow/unfollow game
Now I don’t always remember to check my notifications to see who my new followers are, but I’ll normally have a little look to see if its someone I might want to follow back. Sure, sometimes the reason I don’t follow back is because I’ve forgotten, or skimmed over the notification, but it could also be because I’m not that interested. The thing with Twitter is that it doesn’t have to be a two-way street, and I’ve written about this before, but if I haven’t followed you back after your third attempt at following me, not only does it mean I’m not interested but it also means I’m not playing your game. Chances are you’ll unfollow me again anyway, so I’m not gonna make an effort to try and support you if you don’t actually care about supporting me.
Am I alone in my feelings?
I love Twitter but at the same time it annoys me I’ve had a few of those “rant” accounts reply to me and I just block them because they obviously don’t want to have a discussion they’re just barking at the moon… and the whole follow unfollow thing is annoying I get it ALL THE TIME on Instagram to, I only follow people I’m genuinely interested in and want an interaction with and it’s not possibly to do with 1000’s of people even though there’s so many interesting people out there, for me it’s not about the numbers it’s about the connection. xoxo
Ahh! I hadn’t thought about how bad editing on Twitter could be…..Eek! I was just thinking of correcting spelling mistakes. I am so naive!
Spot on! I hate the follow/unfollow game – it really gets on my nerves. And I am one of those people always begging for an edit button…but I never even considered the possible ramifications of one. So that was really interesting – and I see now why it could potentially be a bad idea.