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How Not to be an Asshole on Twitter in 6 Easy Steps

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Twitter, the crazy land where 160 characters are 20 too many, where short forms are advised, spelling errors encouraged and links to everything commonplace. The only place on earth where punctuation is totally inadvisable and where Millennials finally stop saying ‘like’ every second word. For those of you who are just beginning to navigate the Twitterverse, I have some advice. I am not calling myself an expert, I will leave that to others more qualified, but I will call myself a Twitter snob. Much like a coffee snob, but better.

If you want to play Twitter, here are the rules:

  1. You are not fooling anyone. You send a follow request and I will check you out. I will be able to see your stats—you know that right? You have 800 followers and you are following 240 people. You are not playing Twitter right. I like to follow back and see when you unfollow me. It is usually a day but sometimes I am surprised by the quick turnaround. PS: I have ‘Unfollow’ too. If you are Donald Trump or Howard Stern, you can have a higher percentage of followers. If you are starting out, play nice.
  2. If I retweet something you put into the Twitterverse, you should, at least, push the little heart icon, asshole. I pat your back and you kiss my ass. That’s how it works. Say ‘thank you’ for a favour. Didn’t your momma tell you that already?
  3. The word social in social media means that you must interact. If I see a feed that is all your own quotes and quips, I pass. I know already that you don’t care what I’m saying or sharing and you won’t share back so I will leave you to your narcissism and move on. Have fun collecting followers to soothe your tortured soul.
  4. Thank you for the auto message asking me to follow you on Facebook, your blog, StumbleUpon, Google Plus, Triberr, Pinterest and Instagram. Let’s take this one step at a time. I like to be wooed a bit before I commit to a full relationship. Buy a girl a drink before you reach for third base. And, BTW, those auto responder notices are not fooling anyone. Stop them. And I mean now! Every girl likes to feel special and telling us all how much you appreciate us is only making us chastise you to our friends.
  5. I am super excited about buying 5000 Twitter followers for only $25 with your bonus coupon. Is it possible though that your account could be fake? Maybe it was the 127 followers that you have yourself that gave it away. Use your own service, prove it works then we will talk. Actually, we won’t, but it sounds more polite to say that we will and I am from Canada so sorry, we just can’t be friends. Sorry.
  6. I know that your local radio station is hosting a contest, as is Revlon, Poise and Vitamix. I even understand the importance of winning that $10 gift card from Chuck e Cheese. But please, every once and a while, intersperse your feed with something I will read. I will have to cut you (from my follow list) if that is all you talk about. It really interrupts my scrolling of totally inappropriate content from teenagers to see your fat cat enter a contest for best smile.

If you want to win the game, you have to know the rules. I tell you this because I love you. I want you to win that gift card, tell me something funny and I want to laugh when I send you a tweet with the word fuck in it if your profile says PR friendly. That is my prerogative and why I joined Twitter in the first place. Thank you for the follow. Please join me on Facebook and my blog for regular updates.

#WinningAtTwitter

Author

Kristine Laco shares the stories we all have with a splash of sarcasm, a pinch of bitch and a ton of wine at Adulting In Progress dot com. Her middle finger is her favourite and she lives by the motto that if you are not yelling at your kids, you are not spending enough time with them. She takes selfies at the gyno. Taco Tuesday is her gospel. Reality TV is real folks. She is making turning 50 a job because she doesn't have one.

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4 Comments

  1. Gina W. Reply

    These are great rules. I would add something along the lines of, “If your AVI shows a nearly bare ass or set of boobs, I’m not going to follow you because you’re probably not a real person but an ex-con named Earl who is catfishing his way through Twitter”.

  2. Christopher Reply

    I’ve been guilty of #2 (funny, it sounds even worse when I say it, but let’s keep it in context) but only because it feels self-congratulatory. If you found something I wrote good enough to retweet it I’m thrilled and grateful, but hitting that “like” feels like saying, “Ha ha, yes, I’m awesome.”
    But if it’s understood that it means, “I humbly thank you for sharing my thing” then you can bet I will hit it and hit it hard.
    Okay, that sounded better in my head, but anyway I think the meaning is there as long as it’s kept in context.

  3. halfa1000miles Reply

    I am new to Twitter and I actually did want to read this post WRITTEN BY YOU so that I am not an asshole on Twitter, but it comes up as a blank page no matter how many times I try to load it 🙁

    I don’t understand Twitter. If I go to your page(?) I want to see what you tweeted, not the millions of things you retweeted from someone else. If I really really do like something, is it OK to retweet someone else’s retweet, or am I supposed to track down the original tweet? See. I know no things. I stay the hell off of there, cause those people are meaner than on Facebook 🙂

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