I think I’m getting old, anyway. Or maybe I just cling on to my values?
What follows is a blog spurned on by a conversation with @JohnCKirk and continued this morning with @alexhansford.
I love Twitter. I think it’s brilliant, and it keeps me sane. It’s like a bit of company when you’re an office worker or home-alone mum. I think it’s a great way of keeping up with projects, people and events. I like that I can choose whether or not people get to see what I say, keeping those with an alternative agenda at bay. I like that I can follow someone but they don’t have to follow me. More choice than Facebook, home of the mutual follow. However, there are a few traits that have caused me to unfollow people on Twitter and, in some cases, question whether or not to stay.
Firstly, grammar. Not a reason to leave, but one to unfollow. I appreciate you’re only allowed 140 characters. But that’s no reason to reduce your conversation to some sort of babbling code. c u l8r, m8.
Secondly, misuse of Follow Friday. Each Friday, it’s a fun idea to highlight someone you follow whom you think those who follow you might enjoy following too. Ahem. Several tweets full of @usernames? Bye bye. Or, even worse, retweeting everytime someone gives you a #ff? You’re telling the people who *already* follow you, to follow you. Sigh.
Thirdly, and mostly, people can be just so damned rude. Offensively so. I’m not talking curse words. I mean people doing the equivalent of going up to someone they have never met, telling them they’re rubbish and spitting in their face. Let me explain…
Celebrities. People in the public eye. They’re on Twitter too. I follow people that I respect and want to keep up on their upcoming projects. Bit like ye old fan club newsletter. If they ask a question to their followers, I will sometimes respectfully reply, if I have something to add. And that’s great. However, there are those who feel they have a right to rip into such Twitter users, just because they can.
This is the difference between tweeting ‘J Ross is doing my head in with his stupid voice!’ and ‘Oi @wossy – your voice is doing my head in! STFU!’. The first is an opinion. It is absolutely fine to have and share an opinion. The second is abusive and rude and is not okay. For the record, I don’t think that at all, it’s just an example.
Let me get to the point – we all have opinions. X may think that FamousY can’t sing. But the complete disrespect to another human being by directly telling them ‘Oi – I think you’re s**t’ – it’s just unbearingly rude, and it makes me so very angry.
And that’s what’s happening all over Twitter. It’s a lack of respect for other human beings, perhaps because we’ve reduced ourselves to fonts, but either way, it’s wrong and cruel.
So that’s me sharing my opinion, albeit lengthier than a tweet. It’s not about rights or ability – it’s about respect.
http://www.savagechickens.com
All change
You may notice that ye olde blog looks a little different. I thought it was time for a little update and change of colour, plus changing to a theme that gives me a little more breathing space on the blog side of the panel compared to the last one. You like?
According to Google Analytics, someone came to my website last month using possibly the most amusing phrase ever as a search term. “how to touch a girls butt without her finding out while she is awaket”. Brilliant. Certainly tickled me. The answer is here for you kiddo: don’t. You’ll get the most amazing slap if you do.
And finally, I did say that I would make a hat to go with the washing-up themed pantomime dame dress below. That I did. Using baubles hotglued to a base and kept on with elastic, it’s meant to look like washing up bubbles. Unfortunately, given the rigorous nature of the dance routine involved, the hat had to be retired to the dressing room. Mind you, it still looked bloody good up to that point!