The 9 Most Likely Reasons You've Been Unfollowed on Twitter
I'm actually speaking for all people on Twitter. Well, not all. I'm certainly not speaking for these jackasses herein.
Several months ago, my colleague and genetically-engineered super soldier, Chris Bucholz, wrote a column giving six reasons he is no longer your Facebook friend. Personally, I found it a bit overlong as the simplest answer was that the Canadian scientists who created him (by splicing Chupacabra and Cthulhu DNA) had a strict policy against anyone showing Chris compassion. I'm joking, of course. Canada doesn't have scientists.In any event, because Chris will be hibernating for the next three months while his offspring of 500 razor-toothed tiger prawns are gestating inside him, I thought now would be a good time to steal his title and apply it to Twitter. Below are nine things that will get me to unfollow someone.
Awww, it has Chris' eyes!
People Who Think 140 Characters Is More of a Guideline Than a Rule
I don't know how Twitter settled on 140 characters. I don't know why Twitter settled on 140 characters. 140 characters often just isn't enough. But the thing is, Twitter has a 140 character limit. It's not your diary, your text message service or your dream journal for writing sad stories about magic penguins. If what you want to convey doesn't fit, then odds are Twitter is not the right place for it. If you want to write a rock opera, you shouldn't pick haikus as your medium.
Also, you probably shouldn't write rock operas either. They tend to get silly.
But how often does this happen?
People Who Start Tweets with "OMG, you guys!" and/or End Tweets with "Ugh!"
You might be wondering why this isn't two separate categories. Well, it could be, but it's not necessary. Based on completely anecdotal, unreliable research, I have proven conclusively that these things always go together. Just find someone who tweets:
Also, this is a bit of a giveaway.
Saying Good Morning and Goodnight To Your Followers
Holy Crap. Whoever you are, please stop doing this. WWW stands for the "World Wide Web." Time zones a-plenty. Night and morning are kind of relative terms. I don't care what clock you're on. It's morning for me whenever I first click on Twitter and it's night when I pass out in a pool of scotch and misery.But more importantly, your followers don't give a crap when you're going to bed. Do you view Twitter as the balcony to your palace and your followers as your loyal subjects below? Do you think we're really so ravenous that we'll say, "What the fuck? No tweets for six hours. Is our favorite Twitter celebrity dead? What could have possibly happened to him?" There may be some followers out there who want to know exactly when you sleep and wake, but they're the ones who also masturbate to photoshopped pics of your head on a dog's body.
You have no idea how happy this makes some people.
Stealing Jokes Instead of Retweeting Them
Twitter has this lovely little function called the retweet button. If you see something you enjoy, then you just click it and -- presto magic -- it spreads to all your followers, complete with instant author attribution without all the fuss of a properly formatted footnote. On those rare occasions when my fleeting sobriety allows me to form both full sentences and comedy, I'd like to think my followers spread that joy the way the Twitter gods intended. Yet, I'm told tweet-stealing is rampant among today's youth, and must be stopped. Me? I've just been lucky, I guess. With the exception of Michael Ian Black, Neil Patrick Harris and Felicia Day, no one's ripped off my stuff.*
*OK, so none of these people ripped me off or even follow me on Twitter. This was really just for illustrative purposes -- illustrating how one would get sued for libel.
Dropping Daily Links to Multiple Causes
Because I'm so incredibly cool and everyone wants to have sex with me all the time, you might be surprised to learn that I was on the debate team in high school. I know. Crazy. Where did I find the time between all the cocaine and groupies? But it's true. It was the '90s and my band was on hiatus from opening up for Roxette. Debate seemed like a good use of my time. In any event, like all super cool guys, I was practicing my opening statement for my mom, stridently spewing forth my arguments. After telling me to wipe the blow off my nose and straighten my mullet, my mom gave me some really good advice: "If you're screaming about
Scoring may have been affected by some of these judges being related to me.
I don't know who this guy from our photo library is, but if he's tweeting about Glee, I don't like him.
Celebrities Using Twitter For Career Advancement/Social Networking
As someone who is not famous, I like to pretend that one day -- when I obtain obscene wealth writing both dick and fart jokes -- things will be different. That people in Hollywood or the publishing industry won't still worry about office politics, being friends with the right people and, most of all, sucking ass all the time. Of course, that's foolish. (Not the part about me becoming a fart joke billionaire -- that's only a matter of time -- but that bit about people behaving differently.) Of course, celebs are needy, pathetic, game-playing dbags just like the rest of us. Still, when I see some B-list actor tweet compliments to some comic or celeb who is "hot right now" in a transparent attempt to curry favor and possibly inclusion in this person's next big project, I die a little. I'd love to tell you the most recent example I'm thinking of, but I hope to exchange super lame, sycophantic tweets with either of these dudes some day when I'm a big celeb sell out!
Yep. Just me and Louis C.K. kicking it in my horribly photoshopped imagination.
Making Hilarious Jokes Varying The Word "Twitter"
I cannot believe how many (amazingly funny and talented) celebrities I follow who think it's somehow amusing to make Twitter puns. They'll call their followers Twonkers and Twatters and Twonkettes and all sorts of really uncomfortable variations on Twitter. The kind of a "joke" a child would make. A child destined to grow up to write jokes for some Disney channel sitcom. Are stupid Twitter puns enough to make me not follow you? Maybe. I'm hard to love.
"Say, what are you Twonkettes up to on the old Twatter!"
Tweeting Nonstop About What a Nerd You Are In a Flirty Way
Back in my day, if a girl wanted a lot of attention, but she wasn't that attractive, there was a simple remedy: She'd just blow everyone. But somewhere in the 21st century, women realized that if they donned ginormous glasses and mixed their
"Without these glasses and my love of Firefly, I'm only slightly too hot to have sex with you."
Checkout more from Gladstone in TV's Greatest Off-Screen Quotes and Catchphrases and Caring For Your Pet Lohan.
