can of worms, opened

I seem to have ruffled some feathers with my last post, overtwitterers. I should write controversial posts more often! ;)

I was responding to the comments and my response got so long that it really turned into a new post. So here it is:

geekgal: i applaud your efforts at taking a look at your twittering and creating separate accounts for separate audiences. that's a great idea.

joe: i too love alanna's tweets. my day is truly better knowing that her neighbor's dog should get a record contract.

anna: thanks! i have a few more ideas for twitter that i may be posting soon.

juleed: eek! the first rule of twitter should be "don't follow a teen twitterer."

jr: swaggle is great. to clue others in to how we use it, we have a local neighborhood group that we started so we weren't always twittering non-locals with our neighborhood dinner/drink invites. we're learning etiquette there as we go too. for example - only respond if it's affirmative. 12 people all replying "can't make it" gets aggravating and adds up. also - don't accidentally SMS the neighborhood list asking where you can buy, say, pot. as a completely fictional example.

anyhoo...

just to clarify - this post was NOT about anyone in particular. it was about a number of twitterers i follow or used to follow, all rolled into one.

people have different styles of twittering, and some of those styles just don't match up; i get that. it's just disappointing to me personally because I would love to know what's going on in these people's lives, but the way they twitter makes it really difficult.

i'm not saying i'm a twitter saint; i have my days, especially when i'm at events, when i twitter a lot, but on the whole, i don't have time to twitter more than 2, *maybe* 3 times a day. i try to think about my audience; i only @reply when i know that half of my followers know or follow the person i'm replying to. otherwise, i take it to a direct message.

i'll be writing another post on this topic (and possible solutions) in the near future. stay tuned.

btw - i did not twitter about JR's gorgeous locks. he hijacked my iPhone and forged a tweet. i have to keep my eye on that one. :)

overtwitterers

Maggie Mason wrote an excellent article for The Morning News: Writing My Twitter Etiquette Article: 14 Ways to Use Twitter Politely. I highly recommend it. I started to comment on it on her blog post twitter etiquette, but I realized I had so much more to say about it than was appropriate for a comment. Plus, it really is a "bugs me", so it's better this way.

Here's the start of my comment:

I'm most bothered by a derivation of the don't-pause-between-tweets set — the sunrise-to-sunset twitterers. I'm talking play-by-play running commentary from "Good morning twitter!" to "Good night twitter!". I've had to unfollow people that I really do like in real life because of that. Come on! No one on earth is *that* interesting! If you were truly that interesting, you wouldn't have that much time to twitter.

Let's be honest. If you were that interesting, you'd be me. I'm kidding! I am fully self aware that I am not that interesting.

But here's a full, true-ish-to-life example, in case you don't know what I'm talking about (or are one of these people, in which case, I'm so sorry, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you're crushing my will to live, a lil' bit. It's not that I don't love you. I just need some room to breathe.):

"Good morning, twitter!"
"Fixing cereal for breakfast"
"Heading to work"
"Stuck in traffic"
"I'm at work now. Ho hum."
"Going for Chinese food for lunch"
"Can't decide: general tso's chicken, or general tso's pork..."
"Mmmm. Lunch was delicious. I got the chicken"
"Back at work. Now I feel like a nap"
"I'm already hungry again!"
"Getting afternoon coffee"
"Work is over, finally!"
"Driving home"
"Stopping at grocery store"
"Fixing green beans for dinner"
"Dinner was good. Gonna watch Mannequin 2 now"
"Getting ready for bed"
"Goodnight, twitter. Sweet dreams!"
"I can't fall asleep"
"Fixing myself some warm milk"
"For real this time. Good night, twitter"

Seriously?!? Every day?!? Do you really think anyone out there cares that you are currently, say, clipping your toenails? That the universe is waiting with bated breath to find out that you are... sitting down... picking up your fork... chewing... swallowing... digesting... taking a breath? I don't need to read every mundane second of your life. I have my own life for that.

I want to hear funny things you overhear, bizarre/hilarious things you see, that ridiculously clumsy embarrassing thing you just did, where you are that would make me jealous, funny things you have to say, snarky commentary, or "join me for dinner/drinks at [wherever]."

Unless you are inviting all of twitter over for dinner, or into your bed, keep it to yourself! Unless the dinner you're cooking caught your kitchen on fire and a fire truck came, not interested! Here's a good rule of thumb: If you are twittering more than 10 times a day every day, you better be funny or insightful or the Dalai Lama. Scratch that; you better be Joel McHale. If 20 times a day, you might want to get a hobby. Consider journaling.

If more than that (dear god - more than 20 times a day?!? should someone even have to tell you this?) think hard if your tweets are truly of interest to anyone other than A) yourself, B) your spouse, or C) your parents. Are you using twitter as a record of your life? That's not what twitter is for. The question on twitter should be: "What are you doing that's interesting?"

As a matter of fact, I don't think it should be a question at all. It should be:

If you only have one take-away from this excessively long and self-indulgent blog post, let it be this:

MODERATION IN ALL THINGS. ESPECIALLY TWITTER.