Getting unfollowed - Twitter adventures

Hi there again!

I guess this post comes under the "everything else" heading. 

It's a pretty gratuitous post, but nowhere near as gratuitous as the a-ha post I've got planned when I get to 100 followers haha!

You probably know, I like Twitter.  Quite a lot in fact.  On days when I'm feeling good, and funny, I feel like I can be quite entertaining.  Other days I'm feeling quiet, so I just sit back and watch other people be entertaining. 

When I'm feeling lonely or down, there's usually someone there to listen, and I try to be there for other people when they're having a bad day. 

All the best bits of real life without having to bother brushing your hair or teeth.

So, when you first start, you go out and follow lots of people, usually starting with the famous ones that you're a fan of.  Then you usually start to find things you're interested in, and follow some people there, and then eventually, through finding friends of friends and #ff's, you end up with a little community, and don't bother going out to look for people to follow as much. 

Then someone turns up and follows you out of the blue.  So, you have a look at their bio.  If they look like a bot, you just say to yourself, ah ok, a free follower, and don't follow back.  They usually fall back off after a week or so anyway, no big deal.

If it's an actual person, it's more complicated.  You have a look at their bio.  If they're following 30,000 people and have 30,000 followers, see bot.  If they've only got 1 tweet, see bot. 

If they've passed all these tests, you go on to have a look at their tweets.  Some people's tweets may be offensive, or about cars or some other such nonsense, and you don't want that on your feed, so you think, OK I won't follow back right now, but if they start replying to my tweets, and we get on, I might forgive them their weird interests and follow them anyway.  If it gets too annoying I'll unfollow them later.

Or finally, you've checked their bio and they're not a bot.  You've checked their tweets, they seem normal.  So you decide to follow them, and see if you can be friends.  And then you are!  And you're tweeting away like buddies before you know it.

So what happens then, after all this, if one day you check, and they've given you the big heave ho?!

I hadn't been on Twitter long and I got up to 30 followers, and one of my friends said, thats really good to get up to 30 followers so quickly, however I didn't know anything about bots etc, so I thought that these were Twitter people and I must be the funniest overnight star on Twitter ever (as you do).  So imagine my dismay one morning when I got up and checked my Twitter and I'd dropped from 30 followers to 19 overnight!

I went through all my tweets, and I couldn't see that I'd said anything different, and that's when I got some unfollow software see what was happening.  The first one I got sent DM's to all my remaining followers about how to get more followers and how much I liked certain products, and that probably lost me any actual human followers I might have had left anyway.

Now.  I know that Twitter isn't the same as actually seeing someone in real life.  As far as I know I don't live in the same village as anyone else on my Twitter, if someone unfollows me it's not like I'm going to bump into them in Sainsburys.

But, if you go to your Twitter, see your followers have gone down, and when you check you see it's someone you actually like, you can't help but get stabbed in the heart a bit.  Why doesn't this person like me?  What did I say that was so bad they actually wanted me gone out of their life?

I like to think I'm a sensible rational adult, and when I get unfollowed I know all of the following things:

Everyone can't get on with everybody.

Just because you like someone doesn't mean they have to like you.

Your interests may not be their interests.  If you have alot of friends on your Twitter who all talk about your interests, they may find it boring, or annoying.

You may accidentally follow a nutter.  I once got unfollowed by someone for saying I didn't think Paranormal Activity was that bad a film.  That's a crap reason to unfollow someone by the way.

They may have followed you by accident.  Elizabeth Shatner I'm looking at you.

It's their Twitter, and if they don't want to follow you, they don't have to.  Why should they look at your stuff just because you want them to?

I KNOW all of this stuff, and it still hurts to get unfollowed.  Because they don't like me.  I go out of my way for people to like me, and if they still don't, then I've failed.  It's human nature.

Now, I've unfollowed people too, even knowing what it feels like.  Usually because they swear too much.  I don't mind jokey swearing, but some people are always "effing p*ssed off", and it's too confrontational and aggressive for my liking, so away they go.  I know it will probably hurt them, but I have to do it anyway. 

Otherwise my Twitter becomes something I don't like any more.  And it's the same for everybody else.  I get it.  But it still hurts.  And around it goes.

Eventually I come round to, take it on the chin, get on with life.  And then I do.

Am I thinking about it too much?  Yes probably.  But I'm that kind of girl.  I've never been the popular clique-y easy come, easy go, kind.  That's probably why I've never been popular haha.  It's also why, when I do have friends, they're usually really good, loyal, beautiful people.  I'm happy about that.

I would swap all the popular persons' 6,000 followers for 10 real friends, on Twitter or anywhere else.

So that's how I deal with it.  And I'm pretty sure I've got it right.

Until next time...

Wendy

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