I've gone and done it. I've joined the Twittersphere, the Twitterverse, whatever one calls it. Twitter was my last social media holdout (well, the last one of which I am fully aware), one that I prided myself on maintaining, and now I'm fully integrated into the grid like Jeff Bridges in Tron. And okay, it's not as bad as I imagined it to be.
So now that I'm broadcasting a quasi-endless stream of random bulltwit to people who are charitable and patient enough to follow me (and I love all 10 of you; the rest—I'm sure—are bots), I've got some things to say that require more than 140 characters:
I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me. John Lennon said it, and in a sense, I truly believe it now, having seen so much starfuckery on Twitter that I had to unfollow a grip of celebrities I admired before I loathed them to the point where I wanted to unfollow their offerings as well. I rarely reach out to a celebrity, and when I do, it's with a fair amount of trepidation. But I saw how certain celebrities I followed treated tweets from fans, as opposed to tweets from their contemporaries; that is, they ignored the fans (who subsidize their livelihoods) and inserted their noses so far up other celebrities' asses that my feed quickly began to resemble the Golden Globes. Perhaps I should've followed Ricky Gervais for levity. Oh well—should've, could've, didn't. He probably doesn't RT his fans, either.
People you least expect to be Twitter snobs are the biggest ones. That mellow, awesome, all-accepting guy I was good friends with in high school Advanced Placement, the one who always shared his weed and knew when Morrissey was coming to town? Forget it—he is a rock, he is an island, and he couldn't give a coconut about me. Oh, and those fellow horror fans you befriended at the last Weekend of Horrors? Yep, they've got Twitter accounts too, and they'll follow you—until they reach their desired number of followers. Then like skieves in the night, they'll drop you like a bad franchise. Horror geeks, math rockers, comedy writers, "nerdists"—no, no, no and no. They gave at the office, and here's your pink slip. They're just too sexy for your party. Twitter is truly the Land that Nice Forgot.
So why in hell do I bother? Well, I came for the dinner, stayed for the pie, and found that I liked following real human beings who teach me how to live more, learn more, and be more grateful. A beautiful 5-year-old battling a brain tumor. A brilliant journalist from The Mirror whose tweets unveil a spectacular taste in music. A renowned novelist whose engaging tweets can teach a celebrity or ten about how to be accessible without sacrificing the self. And I also have a thing for a legendary film institution, but it's okay—my husband has given me a free pass. These follows enrich my life and, I hope, bring something to my followers' lives (I hate that word, followers. I'm not exactly leading people to the Mount) as well.
If not, then I guess the "unfollow" button is always there, for those who have had enough, to gong me off their stage. To quote my own tweet from a few weeks back, I'd rather lose followers being myself than gain them by being someone else. Btw, I'm @thebirdzthenerd.
