Unfollow
I’m a sociable kinda gal. Most people may be utter cunts but I like to surround myself with the good’uns. Nowt like a lovely chat to perk up yer day. And d’y'know where it’s good to have a chat? That Twitter. Huzzah for Twitter! You can rely on Twitter 24/7 for inane banter, scintillating mass debate, and cutting edge topical jibber-jabber. I currently have over 2500 followers, which, to the uninitiated, means I’m more popular than Geoff, but a lot less popular than Justin Bieber, or someone with their tits out. That’s OK. I can handle that. I like having followers. Makes me feel like I’m a cult leader. And that’s CULT.
But yesterday and today I’ve been doing something I’ve not really done before. I’ve been unfollowing people. I know. It’s not even a real word. Yet I’ve been doing it.
See, at the moment I’m following 1757 people. That’s a lot of people. Some of them are famous people. Most of them are not. And I figure I only ever interact, on a regular basis, with about, say, hmmm, 5% of them? That’s more or less 88 people.* Out of 1757. WHY DO I FOLLOW SO MANY PEOPLE? My timeline gets all cluttered with their farking milm and crappy wiff-waff. Most alarming. I really don’t know.
Consequently, I began unfollowing. And how liberating is that? Like ‘squashing bluebottle flies’, as @agingmatron so charmingly put it. Yeah, well, it is. It is like cutting loose the useless and the non-fun. I could not have found it more brutally satisfying unless I had been casually picking off scabs from my knees, or peeling dried glue from my hands, or pulling apart split ends in my hair, as I did it. It was like I had fired up my giant laser and began zapping the driftwood from my Twitter timeline with an unenforced glee. Really. It was that good.
I’m still doing it. I’ll see a tweet, think, ‘Fark me, that person sounds like a proper bozo. UNFOLLOW IMMEDIATELY!’ Or, I’ll see a tweet, think, ‘Hmm, I’ve not heard from such-n-such in a while, are they following me? No? SACRILEGE! UNFOLLOW!’ It surprises me how many people I thought were following me, actually aren’t! Bastards. Their loss. I know Twitter does this unfollowing glitch every so often so there may be some genuine technical error in there, but more often than not, I guess people get fed up with me and sidle off, with nairy a farewell. Pfft. Two can play at that game.
The plan is to keep unfollowing and see what I can narrow it down to. I continue to follow new people so my totals will dip and rise a bit. Yes, I know I’m thinking about this a bit too much, and no, I really have nothing better to do. I am cultivating a nice carapace of bitterness, y’see. When I’m a big as Bieber EVERYONE will want to be my friend.
Man alive, it’s like a farking school playground.
How do you play the Twitter game? Are you a serial follower, or do you wait for folk to come to you?
And if I’ve unfollowed you and you think this is a travesty and a farce, do let me know.
*thanks to Twitter people who helped with the maths. I can’t do maths. Maths bites me on the extraordinary arse
I use that site I recommended to you about once a minth or so. I always end up unfollowing about 100/150 people, cause they chat shit. Like, proper shit. Links, and the ‘gravy granules’ competitions. I like your tweets. They break up the ‘buy my crap’ and ‘have you heard about so-and-so’ tweets.
Thank you. I try not to tweet about gravy granules. I’m going to do that Twit Cleaner thing regularly too. Farking marvellous.
I started doing this myself after reading your tweets… I was surprised at some people where I thought we were on good terms that had unfollowed!
Yes, same here. Just shows how fickle and ‘unreal’ it all is, I think. Most of my favourite Twitter people are ones I have met in real life!
I’m so new to twitter and that whole mess. I can’t keep up with it enough so I’ve resorted to posting a random comment here and there and reading others, which I only have 19 or so that I follow and about 15 that follow me and honestly…it’s mostly your tweets that show up on my home page. Funny stuff.
LOL sorry about that
I’ve been having a great big old ‘bin them’ with my followees too. Click click clickety click. It had put me off using twitter as my time line was clogged up with so many retweets of ‘I’ve entered to win a useless supply of a years gravy granules’ tweets. So away they go. Of course my timeline was also clogged up with shameless flirtatious tweets between folks……… But I like that!
LMAO what are you saying? Shameless flirtatious tweets? How rude!
I’m not on Twitter ’cause that would mean my studies would be dying in a corner of my dusty room. I need to complete those studies, so no Twitter for me… (yet).
But on WP, I only follow people I’m really interested in. Some of my followers (the bigger part) never commetn or like, and that pisses me of. Hey, you’re following me, why the heck don’t you give a fuck about my ramblings than? But okay. It’s better to unfollow the people you don’t care about. I can imagine it is somehow of a relief.
The force is strong with you. Resist the lure of Twitter for as long as you can. Because once you’re in, that’s it. Game over. I would be chatting to you ALL DAY.
Oh my goodness, I could have gotten myself blocked today because of my karma comment, oops!
Usually, I check out someone’s timeline to see if their tweets interest me, and I definitely check out their Blogs, then I decide whether or not to follow.
Sounds sensible
Feel quite privileged that you ever bother tweeting me back at all. Thought I was but a mere speck of fluff in your giant Twitter enclave.
Me? Well, my fb is full of folk I sort of used to know. Vaguely. Once. 20 years ago. So with Twitter, I kind of promised to only follow people I genuinely think I could chat to in The Real Life. Feel guilty not always following people who follow me but they can always not follow me if they like. Not too fussed about numbers so keeps it simple.
You daft thing. I interact with people who share the same sense of humour as me and I reckon we are similar on that score. I’m hoping to meet you in The Real Life at some point, would be a hoot.
I must admit I got rid of a few people recently who were just posting utter irritating crap all the time. Truth be told, I don’t get on twitter as often as I’d like, not even every day. I find it too hard with Ethan, he demands every moment of my attention really and doesn’t tend to nap now! And when I do have something to tweet my phone has no signal or something… grrrr!! Still, I’m small fry on twitter, only 300 ish followers!
Good on you sorting the wheat from the chaff!! (chuff)
Mahahahhahahah you said ‘chuff’ *snigger* It is difficult to keep up with Twitter, if you want big numbers you need to maintain it, like with anything I guess. I really notice a dive in mentions etc if I miss a day.
Yo mo-vo!
Tis very liberating to unfollow, and to be honest, if people make a song and dance about it then clearly you did the right thing!
I regularly unfollow when I’ve woken up to some self promoting drivel, or other nasty comments…tis life!
Another great post m’darlin, love saving up a few posts to read all at once:-)
Xxx
Thanks my best crazy stalker lady
x
Well i know im safe from your unfollowing coz you told me earlier *Grins*
xx
HexACKLY x
I very rarely see you on Twitter! I kind of do a hit n run every few hours though so I miss LOADS. I don’t often tweet at night either so I miss all the gossip and scandal, damnit!
If a person looks genuine then nowadays I generally follow to ‘see how it goes’. If they annoy me then I unfollow. It’s rare, but I have done so – mainly with the competition addicts who are always bugging you to vote for them for something. Pisses me off. I also track and unfollow unfollowers. Then I hex them. Maybe even a little voodoo if I’m especially wounded.
Yeah I rarely see you, but that’s cos I reckon Twitter shows you only a small percentage of your followers on your timeline and picks folk you interact with more often? So interact with me more often? Innit?
Good hexing though, I’m going to try an unfollowing thing. Makes life easier
Well I must have been getting it wrong because despite the advice of a friend with 6k followers (never unfollow) I have no problem doing it! If someone has troll like karma, or over indulges in promoting self or something I just unfollow and when my followers go up and down like the tides I don’t take it personally. One man’s noise is another man’s music. I’d like to think anyone following me does so because they choose to and appreciates my meagre contribution to the chat. It’s my feed, I want it to bring positive vibe to my day and so I follow people that I enjoy listening to. And occasionally, I get lucky and they follow me back. 😉
You tell it like it is, sistah! Woo!
Aah suddenly it’s all so clear. Good to see I’m still there, or at least .75 of me is…
I would not unfollow you. You’re too lovely
Ah thank you. And same back atcha
I totally agree! I had the most devine un-following spree recently and afterwards I felt purged. Among the bastards was someone who had previously made a big deal of unfollowing me (as well as a few others) which I think is utterly bizarre. I’m also rather confused by people who comment on being unfollowed, I’m much more likely to slink away quietly, or just not notice for several months. Oh Twitter is a funny old place, but I like it. Excellent, funny post as ever.
If anyone makes a song and dance about me unfollowing them then that’s their problem. But I don’t think they will. If I get unfollowed I just think ‘oh well’, unless it was someone I considered a ‘close’ friend, maybe someone I had met in real life, for instance. But thank you for reading and commenting. I won’t unfollow you
I regularly unfriend and unfollow. Every so often i spring clean my news/twit feed. People either get dull, show their true colours or i think ‘did i follow these people when i was drunk’. I don’t care about the whole you follow me/i follow you thing as i appreciate my humour can be a little…controversial. Now i try and keep my newsfeed full of interesting, fun, amusing people or people who teach me stuff like new swear words or how to dress.
No pressure or nuffink…
How to dress? Tartan cape and tutu, m’dear. You’ll look farking ace.
The tutu i can muster….haven’t seen a tartan cape yet…Zara?
Ooohhhhh Zara for everything. I got my tartan cape in Venice which makes it uber-cool.
It must be so liberating to do the whole unfollow thing, but please don’t unfollow me!!
It is, and as if I would! Wow people are so worried I will. You know you’re safe, yeah?
I don’t usually do the whole “they followed me so I have to follow them” thing, I follow folks who I want to follow. Although obviously I do appreciate it when people follow me. Often I’ll follow back cos they look interesting but not automatically. And I don’t expect people I follow to follow back either. Does that make me a bad Twitterer etiquette wise? (ps I will follow you whether you follow me or not cos your blog is a good’un!)
Mahahahahah you use a lot of ‘follows’ there. I generally follow people I find interesting, but I do prefer to have some interaction with folks as well. I’m not sure what the etiquette is to be honest. I generally do what I like, innit
If I’m not following you, give us a shout, I do like it when folk introduce themselves
Apparently you are, although if my tweets are as repetitive as my comment here I might get unfollowed soon
LOL no chance
No wonder I have bugger all followers, I only follow about 90 people – that’s quite crap isn’t it?! I think I’m following everyone who’s following me, other than the ones that are clearly only doing it to advertise at me – they can fark off. It’s just when I go through Twitter’s suggestions as to who I should follow, most of them sound really dull – perhaps I should go follow all the ones you’ve unfollowed and let you know if there’s any fall out??
LMAO now THAT would be interesting… if you want people to follow then I converse with loads of lovely people quite regularly, it helps to ‘drop in’ on conversations and build interactions with people. It’ll happen, I’ve been tweeting for bloody ages so it’s no wonder I’ve got shitloads. Hope I don’t sound patronising at all, I really don’t know what I’m doing…
You could never sound patronising – and I probably do need to get better at butting in!!!
Ah good, most of the time I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, so if it sounds like I’m lecturing I get a bit embarrassed, innit.
wow just noticed im following 922 people! i bet i dont even realise who most of those are, of on a mission now….
Mahahahahahah GO UNFOLLOW
im still following 700+ but there doesnt look to be that many, i deleted several i know for a fact i wouldnt follow :-s
I will continue to follow you whether you follow me or not, cause you is proper funny and make me lol which I like. x
Ah mate, I hope I do follow you, gimme a shove if I don’t and I’ll sort it innit
You do, huzzah! Feel rather honoured if I’m honest
PMSL you daft mare *gives you an affectionate tickle*
Yet another brilliant blog. I farking love that you speak from the heart and don’t mince your words
I follow anyone I find interesting and people who are recommended to me, I unfollow anyone who bores me Zzzz
You make me laugh daily. For that I thank you.
*takes a bow* thank YOU. I would not be here were it not for my lovely readers.
I only tend to unfollow when I see something I really dislike or discover they aren’t following me… when they really SHOULD be following me! (twats)
I need to have a cull, but half the time I think I need to start blocking followers…. What do you think?
Some people follow me for good reasons (wit, intellect, obvious raw sexual power). Others, I’m not so sure of….
Should we block our stalkers, or revel in their lunacy? (discuss)
xxx
I’ve blocked a few people. But for very good reasons. Otherwise, I just unfollow and get on with shizzle. Life’s too short to waste on the ones left behind, innit. I’m still unfollowing. It’s good for the soul! Do it. X
Yep…. I gotta work up to being as clinical as I know I have to be… x
Ah you big softy xx
I don’t understand Twitter. I follow around 550 but only see a few names on my timeline. And I don’t get how to see if they’re following me unless I scroll down lengths of un-alphabetical names. I’ve only ever deliberately unfollowed one person, although my tally of disciples seems to tumble as fast as it rises, but you make it sound such larks..!
Such larks indeed. Give it a go! I check their profiles to see if they’re following me, but there are many many apps you can upload to see it in much more convenient way. If I knew what I was doing, I’d use one.
I’m currently following 691 people I think I ought to see if some of these can be gotten rid off??
Yeah baby!
I just finished my first following cull and finished at 634 mostly just celebs & companies. A lot of others are celebs i like and other mummy & daddy bloggers!
That’s good, I need to keep culling, I follow too too many
i follow more people that i have followers (if that makes sense) but thats cos i follow a lot of art, craft, textile, fabric shops/blogs,companies etc to network (bombard with my shizzle) but i know i need to unfollow alot, theres loads that follow me just because im a mum that blogs and ive followed them and never responded to one of their tweets about baby poo or something. im all about the networking these days with a side dose of laughs and crazyness. Cant be doing with scrolling thru loads of shizzle i know im not really bothered about
You know it! Baby poo is for losers innit
yep thats 200 followers gone
I’m all for this. Planning on doing this too soon. I have no idea what half the stuff I wake up to is anymore. x
It clears the mind as well as the soul. I thoroughly recommend it
x