Photography by Dustin
I’d like to pose a question to you about twitter etiquette… So, like everyone’s twitter account I’m sure, my follower numbers fluctuate more than a flux capacitor… No big deal, tis life. But then today I realized a couple of the “bigger blogs” have stopped following me, one’s I thought I had built a report (“re-pore” that is, not sure of the sp?) with…
Now, that, in and of itself, doesn’t bother me too much, but it did get me thinking, as things like this tend to do.
What IS proper blogger twitter etiquette?
In my relatively short time being earnestly active on twitter I’ve come across a few “twitter-stereotypes”, if you will. For example… Some tweet every. single. god. damn. nuance. of. their. life. I remember one music festival, it was probably SXSW, this one blog, one of the “big blogs” tweeted EVERYTHING. That he’s standing around waiting for a band, that some famous dude just came in, that he was hungry, that he’s eating a hamburger, that he’s going to this bar, that he’s standing around waiting for a band, that he just saw some famous dude….. etc, etc, etc.
Other’s only tweet to pimp out their blog posts. Nothing but “new posts” tweets. This was pretty much me when I first got on twitter. It was tied into my facebook, so when I posted, I then tweeted, which then updated my status. Yeah, my twitter had the personality of a egg-shell coloured wall in an empty manufactured suburban apartment.
Some seem truly interactive saying “good morning” and often asking questions, but when you answer, it falls on deaf ears. The way I see it, if you ask a question and actually want someone to answer, maybe you should engage with that person. If you have too many followers and they all “answer back”, well, maybe you should stop asking the questions then??
Some will flood you with automated blip/last.fm/hypem tweets. I love that you are loving a song and if I’m following you, I’m genuinely interested, but when it’s 9 songs in a couple minutes, well, unless they are 15 second hardcore songs, I’m going to be a bit dubious. You know?
Some tweet ALL the time, but they are all “serious” tweets. I followed Roger Ebert for about 5 hours and was hit with a ton of serious & very one-way tweets, like this retweet, “I play the strings into the fog. There is no joy there. This fills me with disquiet.”. Lesson… When a serious persons’s followed to following ratio is 1,485 to 1, well, unless you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders in every thing you do, it might not be as awesome-O as you think.
Some tweet obscure things, a phenomenon that you see on Facebook too. Updates like “No more.” Huh? What? What happened? Are you being abused? Should I report this to the proper authorities???
Now look… Like Mama and Baby always say, “to each their own”. We are all different, one man’s tolerance level will drive another man insane. But what about you?
What do your favourite tweeting twitterers that you follow tweet about?
What about me? Am I too much? Too little? Stupid? Funny? Weird? Asinine? Too much annoying cycling or creepy photography, when you just want cool/hip music stuff?? Or D) all of the above?
Honestly, I have no idea. I can only be me as, for better or for worse (more often than not I find it’s “for better” for me but “for worse” for most everyone else) and hope in our little online relationship you and I have built, it’s nothing but good times.
But look… You know and I both know I’m a odd man. I’ve accepted it. Odd, but harmless, I swear. So, for those of you who have embraced me and continue to follow along, I just want to say thank you. You lost 10 “internet cool points” by doing so and on the intertubal superhighway, that’s a pretty big blow to your cred, but I truly do appreciate it.
Speaking of good times (two paragraphs up), well, maybe not “good times” as in “WHEEE!!!” but more like “good times” as in, “damn that’s good music”, I’m loving the hell out of Dear Companion by Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore…
Singing & playing with the wisdom & sound of 90 year old Appalachian men, Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore bring something timeless and classic to this god-forsaken young decade. I guess this would fall under the big alt-country umbrella (do they still call it that?), but really it’s just got a sense of old-timey country-folk, touched & accented with the occasional string or two. It’s rocking chair on a porch in the summer music, it’s cooped up inside in the frozen winter music, it forces the world to slow down, slow to a twitter/facebook/tumblr/blog/forum/blip/foursquare/last.fm/social-network-free world, if only for the eleven tracks….
Thanks Ben & Daniel, I needed that.
1. Something, Somewhere, Sometime
2. My Wealth Comes to Me
3. Needn’t Say a Thing
4. Wilson Creek
5. Only a Song
6. Dear Companion
7. Flyrock Blues
8. Try
9. Flyrock #2
10. Sweet Marie
11. It Won’t Be Long
Some Ben & Daniel Linkage for ya: Myspace | Official | Label
Cheers & love,
Tsuru
