Twitter Etiquette? Fuck you.
Okay, before I begin my anger-laced rant, if you’re reading this and you don’t know what Twitter is, read THIS first. Otherwise, you’ll not know what I’m ranting about and will assume that I’m just a psychotic, ranting idiot. Or, maybe you already think that. In which case, I already know, and have already added you to my “List”. What was I talking about?
Right. Twitter etiquette. An asshole, who goes by the android-sounding name of “PCNerd37“, has posted a blog over on Global Geek news in which he lays out his Seven Rules for Twitter. So, right off the bat, you can already tell that this PCNerd37 is one of those, “I know better than all of you mindless idiots, so do as I tell you and everything will be fine” type people. But wait, it gets worse.
Almost all of these “Seven Rules” are the stuff of crap in a hat. For example, let us consider his Rule Number Two:
If you are going to Twitter events, do it on an alternate account. For the sake of the sanity of those not at the event such as SXSW, we don’t need to be made jealous by your twittering of every person you run into or panel you listen to. Use a second account that your followers can follow if they want to know every detail about your event experience.
An alternate account? So now, if I DO want to hear what you’re saying about this event, I have to now subscribe to another Twitter account. So now, I’m following the same person twice. This is supposed to make things easier? Maybe in Stupid-Land (population: Paris Hilton and PCNerd37). The whole point of Twitter, or one of them, anyway, is to make it easy for people to communicate to a whole shit load of people quickly and easily. Setting up multiple Twitter accounts for multiple events just serves to fuck everything up.
Now, let’s consider his next rule, Number Three:
You should not twitter more than once every 15 min unless it is in reply to another twitter user. Certainly there are situations that make for an exception to this rule, but generally speaking, especially those people that are alerted via text message, get annoyed with constant twitters from a single person. It can also be very costly to those that get message via text message. I have stopped following several people for excessive twitter usage. You should never twitter more than 30 times in a day unless you want to lose followers.
WHAT?!? If getting alerted to new Tweets via text message annoys you, you probably shouldn’t receive updates via text message! Also, if you don’t have unlimited texting on your cell phone account, you probably shouldn’t receive updates via text message! Finally, no one cares if you stop following them. Really. I’m not going to turn into a sobbing, inconsolable mess because PCNerd37 stopped following me on Twitter. Honestly, I won’t.
Which leads me to my main point. If someone who you are following on Twitter starts to annoy you or spam you or stalk you or whatever, just stop following them. It’s really fucking easy to do. Therefore, all of these Seven Rules are garbage. They are stupid. All of them assume that everyone who uses Twitter uses Twitter for the exact same purpose as PCNerd37. STOP IT!
People who try and “police” free services like Twitter are, obviously, sad sacks of mindless meat. The beauty of Twitter is that it’s free and you can do whatever you want with it. It’s like sex. And really people, do you want to take sex advice from a guy who calls himself PCNerd37? Exactly. Keep on Twittering and pay no mind to all of the PCNerds trying to rein you in.
-Sanity, PhD
www.DoctorSanity.com
DoctorSanity@sockpuppetsfromhell.com
