Well, I thought it was time to expand (in more literate & snarky fashion below) upon my occasional previous twts explaining WHY I don’t/can’t follow umpteen numbers of people, even extraordinarily witty people, and HOW I actually DO pretty much ‘follow’ those I find witty and original EVEN IF they’re not in my daily, automatic tweet-stream.
I sometimes find that a very-welcome, entertaining person starts to follow (eliciting a ‘YESSSS!’ from this corner), and then, when I don’t add them to my ‘following’ list, they disappear a short time thereafter. Now if that’s because they’ve decided I’m not their cup of tea, well that happens and that’s a valid reason to stop following. -And if it’s because of last week’s mondo-tweet episode of “Cries from Whoville”, I definitely understand but HOPE they’ll come back and see that that’s not my typical output (multiple tweets trying to get the attention of an admired twitterer who had misread my pun while reading on the fly and had thought I was giving rude, pushy and incoherent advice. He finally heard me and said, essentially, “D’oh!”, but till he did, it wasn’t pretty). ANYWAY…
The thing is, I have a cell-phone, there are many like it buSHIT can’t stop doing that— I have a cell phone that is not an iPhone, it is not a Blackberry, I love it but it is a ‘regular’ cell phone. No Twitter apps. Also, my apartment has cellphone reception similar to, I would think, that of Burgess Meredith in the bank vault in that Twilight Zone episode. Waiting for a ‘page’ to appear on the screen would make for an even darker Beckett play. But I persist notwithstanding. (Because my name is Becca, and I am a twittaholic). ALSO-
Also — for what OCD-ish reason I know not — I aim to read EVERY tweet in my personal tweet-stream. Again, with no apps or ways to have ‘preferences’ (which I assume other phones can do?) at all. As it is, I spend too fucking much time ‘catching up’ with the morning’s tweets as it is when I get up late-morning. But I do it anyway. Because it’s fun. And again, there’s the addiction thing.
In addition to the posts of people I ‘officially’ follow, I see other people’s great twts both on Favrd and from my ‘visiting’ their profile page. When someone whose name/avatar I recognize starts to follow me, I check out their profile page, +maybe their Favrd page, and star stuff that makes my starring hand twitch toward the mouse. I take note of that person and visit their page every so often. OCCASIONALLY I follow. Against my better judgment, as I already page through nine or so pages of tweets on my phone every ‘morning’ to catch up with the overnight’s/morning’s tweets. But sometimes someone’s sense of insanity so matches mine that their posts are like crack and I know I’d be clicking on their page all the time anyway, so I bow to it and click ‘follow’. But here’s the thing:
If I *don’t* follow you (not that people care that much, this is sounding way more self-important than I feel), it doesn’t mean that I looked at your page and went ‘meh’. It means this: if I ‘officially’ followed everyone I like to read, and retained my preferred habit of READING all the tweets in my personal tweet-stream, then I’d have no time for work, and well we won’t even go there. And if I DON’T read all the tweets in my stream, then what the hell would anyone care if I officially ‘followed’ them anyway? Isn’t the point of following, y’know, actually READING someone? Or is just for the ‘status’ of being followed by absolutely EVERYONE you follow?? Or racking up numbers? I don’t get it. To me, what I like about being ‘followed’ is that people are, like, reading stuff I’m saying. Which — between my stabs-at-humor that don’t fly so good — is occasionally not too fucking bad. On alternate Tuesdays. Usually at 4:30 in the morning.
OK, to the point here: (Can you see why I’m addicted to Twitter? I guess I instinctively know that having an arbitrary 140-character limit is healthy for someone who is quite capable of waxing verbosely into 140 pages of yadda-yadda if I don’t watch it)—
If I don’t follow you back upon your starting to follow me, be assured that I’ve noticed you (I mean real people, of course; not even talking about the random followers who are Social Media Hopefuls etc.). I will see your stuff on your page and on Favrd. If I OFFICIALLY followed all the cool Favrd folk whom I love reading, I’d be unable to follow my entire tweetstream anyway - if you follow my meaning. I’d rather have a smaller array of people, whom I read in full, and then add to that my wanderings and clickings in which I visit and explore all those other cool folks too.
Gawd this sounds so fucking self-important, it’s not like I think people are hanging on whether *I* in particular follow them or not. It’s just frustrating when people I like disappear after a few days when I don’t follow them back, as if I’ve snubbed them or like it’s an indication that I don’t ‘get’ or like their stuff enough to read ‘em. I often DO read and like them, but just can’t *officially* follow ALL the great funny Favrlicious folks. Unless, of course, I skip actually READING the tweets. In which case, huh what’s the point?
..Again, I realize that some unfollows may just be from boredom, not the above issue at all. Maybe you liked one Favrd tweet of mine but my humor in general isn’t for you, or at least not enough to follow regularly; that happens, I accept that reason (even if it leaves my ego whimpering quietly in the corner). But if someone unfollows me shortly after starting to follow for the ABOVE reason, I do hope you’ll consider whether you enjoy my nonsense popping up in your stream or not, and be assured that I am Spartacus. I mean *shakes self*, that I *am* following you, even if it’s sometimes a little like weekend visitation. Otherwise I won’t have time for work, eat, sleep, and then where would those dancers be?
Horrible, horrible verbosity above which I am tempted to erase so as to just leave the more dramatic elucidation below, but I think I’ll leave it as well. What the fuck.
BUT! if Henry Fonda were here to act out what I’m *trying* to say, he might say it SO much more tastefully, something like this:
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ALL AROUND IN THE DARK
Yer Ma: How are ya gonna know about me, Becca? Why I could be killin’ and you’d never know. That would hurt me. How are ya gonna know?
BeccaPiano, as played by Henry Fonda: Well, maybe it’s like @I’mSoMuchZennerThanYou says. A fellow ain’t got a tweet-stream of his own, just little piece of a big Tweetstream, the one big stream that belongs to everybody, then…
Yer Ma: Then what, Becca?
BeccaPiano/HenryFonda: Then it don’t matter. I’ll be all around in the dark - I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there’s a fart, so bored horny people can laugh, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a bot beatin’ off a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way girls block you when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way people laugh when they’re hungry for stars and they know Favrd’s up, and when the people are starrin’ the stuff they read and @-ing the followers they build - I’ll be there, too.
Yer Ma: I don’t understand it, Becca.
BeccaPiano/HenryFonda: Me, neither, Yer Ma, but - just somethin’ I been thinkin’ of tweetin’ about.
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Thank you, Henry. You were always better at this sort of thing than me.
Cheers.
Original quote at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032551/quotes
PS I find it highly amusing that the above link doesn’t post as a link, whereas my copied imdb quote includes blue-tinted names that I’ve retyped and yet which still remain links. To the two actors speaking those lines. But you can copy/paste the above link to get to the quotes page that has the original. Thanks.
