Tonight I was given a pretty brilliant idea by a friend of mine and I decided to act on it immediately. If you’re reading this, that probably means you’re someone I interact with in real life and someone that I would definitely consider a friend. If this is the case, read on, because this is specifically for you.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in the last few months my twitter account, @Chase_Observes has, for lack of a better term, “taken off.” My top tweets, which at one point only had at most 100 or so interactions are now reaching into the thousands. For me it’s pretty exciting because writing is my passion, twitter has been an amazing outlet for my creative energy, and to be appreciated for that passion is a good feeling. This only happens, however, through consistent tweeting, retweeting, shouting out other users, carrying on conversations with them, etc. For my “in-real-life friends,” sorting through all of this can be burdensome. It is for this purpose, for you guys, that I have made an alternate “personal” account.
@ChaseAdams_
This account will be muuuuch quieter. I will follow my friends, local people, news outlets, etc, and will post every now and again about what’s going on in my life, post pictures (that aren’t gram-worthy, of course), and mostly just interact with you guys! Twitter is far and away my favorite social media platform and with all of the accounts I try to keep up with on Observes I never get the chance to read and reply to your awesome tweets, and that sucks. This account will hopefully give me that opportunity.
If you honestly are tired of my crazy jokes and the people I retweet, unfollow @Chase_Observes. You won’t offend me. That account gains hundreds of followers on a good day and I promise I’m gonna do just fine if you go. However, if you do go, and we are friends and you’d still like to keep tabs on my life, follow @ChaseAdams_! And hey, if you love the jokes and want to trudge onward with me on my @Chase_Observes adventure, by all means stick around.
Thanks for reading guys. Hope to see you in the twittersphere on at least one of my accounts!
Chase
I was inspired to write this post after reading some awesome things people have said about my tweets and wanted to first and foremost thank them for saying what they did. Being appreciated for doing the thing that I love to do most and actually take a bit of pride in, writing, is always such a motivator to continue moving forward with it. The threat of “haters” is always going to be there, it’s just a natural consequence of putting yourself out there for the world to see, but every once and awhile you get some love and appreciation from people and it really does make the risk worth it (for the record, I hate the word “haters,” but I can’t use the word “critics” because I actually encourage constructive criticism. However, there’s nothing constructive about “@Chase_Observes ur a faggit”). One of the people that tweeted at me mentioned that he too would one day like to run an account similar to mine, and with this post I’d like to tell him, and anyone else who is interested, how they can do just that.
My advice for trying to run an account like mine? Don’t do it. It’s stressful, addicting, and starts to interfere with your real life and that’s when you know you have a problem. Also, please note that I’m far from any sort of “twitter stardom,” and while I may be the account that you and your buddies talk about in the halls of your high school, know that I’m just some idiot who’s trying to do something with his wit and is pretty much constantly vying for the attention of the twitter “heavy hitters.” Most people who run accounts like mine are the exact same way, although many of them probably choose not to admit it. BUT, besides all of that, I’m passed the point of no return, so there’s no hope for me; I’m stuck in this twitter thing and I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. If you choose to ignore my earlier warning and would like to ruin your life, continue reading and I’ll explain a little bit about how I do what I do.
When I started out with twitter, I was a clueless. My username was just my name followed by my birth year (ugh), my tweets were littered with pointless hashtags, I followed a few friends, a few companies, and 500 “funny” quote accounts. It didn’t take long for me to realize that all of these quote accounts recycle the same jokes week after week amongst each other, many of them are probably run by the same person or group of people, and ALL of them steal their jokes from the real writers and comedians of twitter. Before I even knew what a retweet was I was stealing these quote accounts tweets left and right, not knowing that they had already stolen them from someone else. The first months of my twitter account were just a mess, and I am not proud of them.
Later, I started to clean things up. I changed my username to its current Chase_Observes, I started tweeting only things that came from my head (or, in the event of writers block, there has been only a few times that I’ve taken something a friend said, or something I found online but couldn’t find any tweet or author for it. Sue me.) and trying hard to interact with the right people, follow the right accounts, respond to people when they’d tweet at me, favorite tons of funny tweets and generally just dive into the community. I would find people (LOTS of people) who followed accounts similar to mine and either follow them or favorite their tweets just to get myself noticed because I felt that my tweets were worth noticing! Luckily they agreed and I have since garnered a small following through simply having content worth following. Many of them never interact with my tweets which sucks, but hopefully they’re at least reading and enjoying it. Let me reiterate that earlier point: the best way to gain a following is to have content worth following.
There’s a million things you can do to try and make your account “look” awesome: you can steal people’s tweets, you can buy pointless bot followers, you can even buy retweets and favorites now. All of these methods, while at first appearing to beef up your profile, end up being totally transparent and making you look like an idiot. While many of us, myself included, have dabbled in shady twitter methods in our early days in attempt to gain recognition, I can confidently tell you that no scheme is more powerful than just consistently engaging your active followers with good content. I use a web service every month or so that goes through and systematically deletes any bots that have followed me; what good are they doing me? I want to gain followers as bad as the next guy, but I want (and have) real followers who are going to at least enjoy my content, hopefully star or retweet it, and I can only do that by giving them a reason to follow me.
Call me cocky. Call me conceited. Call me whatever you want. I honestly believe that I’m a funny guy and that anyone could get a kick out of my stuff if they had the opportunity to read it. I changed my name to Chase Observes because making funny observations about life and my day to day experiences and interactions is something that I’ve been doing long before twitter ever existed (also, a handle without numbers is more followable in my opinion). So, the first step in being someone worth following is confidently believing that YOU have something to say that people will want to hear; whether it’s funny, inspirational, spiritual, poetic, whatever. Just figure out your passion, make it your niche, and start tweeting! Along with that, don’t be selfish; start interacting with others, complimenting other people’s content and following people who also are worth following. Do this, and I promise the followers will come.
Hopefully this has given you a bit of insight into who I am and how I feel about the poison that is twitter. If even one person reads this, takes my advice, starts crafting good content, and gains a small following, I’ll be happy.
Chase
It seems that this debate will never come fully to a close, and just when the cries for equality begin turning into echoes, the drums of war begin beating once more. I have written much (and read even more) on this topic and intend to write this final post about it as a sort of “closing argument.” Hopefully my readers will be able to understand my perspective and respect my thoughts.
(This post will be long-winded, but ultimately know that I do support legal gay marriage. However, I feel that, as a Mormon, my arrival at this position must be explained, and I attempt to do that here.)
I, as a person, am not “against” gays. I am not even against gay marriage legislatively anymore (this will be explained in more detail below), but on a personal level I am. So, in my own personal conviction I am against it, but I am against it for reasons that nearly everyone overlooks. I do not stand against gay marriage because of hatred or bigotry, in fact, I have gay friends and family and I believe that anyone in the LGBT community has the right to be with whichever person they choose to be with, for that decision really doesn’t affect me personally or infringe upon my rights in any way. I am personally against gays being married because the institution of marriage is, and up until recently always has been, a religious one. As such, it is the religions, not the state, that should and do define the parameters of marriage and decide what can and cannot be considered marriage. Since the beginning, marriage has been inextricably tied to the religion of its time; to strip it of its religiosity is to destroy it because that is part of its intrinsic nature. It is only until recent times that a state marriage, devoid of any religious overtones, has become available. Churches, respecting people’s right to atheism and people not wanting a marriage steeped in religious ceremony, were perfectly okay with these “state marriages,” granted that they fit within the parameters of marriage (between man and woman only) that had been defined by those who created the institution and had it set in place for centuries. It is only now, with the issue of the government crumbling to social pressure and providing gay marriages, does the tension arise. Most religious people, myself included, are perfectly okay with the states providing the LGBT community with civil unions, which offer comparable, if not near identical benefits to gay couples that are enjoyed by married straight couples. State/LGBT marriage supporters are claiming that we as proponents of traditional marriage are “taking marriage away” from the LGBT community, but how can we possibly take something away that was never yours to begin with? Traditional marriage supporters are not oppressing the LGBT by fighting to protect the sanctity of marriage (again, it is considered holy among the religious). In fact, it’s the opposite. The state/LGBT’s are oppressing the religious by tergiversating what has always been an institution belonging to them: the bonds of “holy matrimony.”
If I had it my way, the state wouldn’t be able to provide marriages to anyone, because ultimately it’s not the government’s place to do so. It would be like the state offering baptisms and then demanding that churches accept them as legitimate. Civil unions should be provided by the state, and you can give civil unioners the exact same rights as married people and that would be fine by me, It’s just that agreement, the agreement of marriage, of holy matrimony, isn’t one that can be governed by an earthly tribunal.
You might now be saying “well that seems silly, having two things that are exactly the same but having two different titles for them is superfluous” but hear me out: another issue arises with LGBT’s being granted the title of marriage. Firstly, religious people obviously believe that the act homosexuality is a sin in God’s eyes, the same way that sex before marriage is a sin. I know you don’t care about what God thinks and you do not have to believe that if you don’t want to, but the scriptures are clear and that’s the doctrine that most religions follow. This does not mean that we cannot love our homosexual neighbor, it simply means that we cannot condone such behavior or participate in it ourselves. Now: orphanages ran by religious groups (trust me they are many and they are massive) are required by law to provide adoptions to any married couple that seeks them, regardless of race, religion, etc. unless of course upon inspection they deem the living environment to be unsafe or unhealthy for the child. They do not provide adoptions to gay couples because the churches that own and operate them do not agree with the practice, and they are not legally bound to do so because the couple is not legally and lawfully married. By giving gay couples the title of marriage, that forces all of these church-run adoption agencies to provide them adoptions, which obviously they will not do due to moral conflict. By not doing so, they are then breaking the law and are susceptible to lawsuits. The only option left for them is to close down the agencies altogether and let the crushing weight and responsibility of finding homes for foster children rest squarely upon the shoulders of the state. So, by demanding the specific title of marriage, gays will obtain a piece of paper with the simple title of marriage printed on it, rather than working to reform civil union laws, at the cost of thousands of possible adoptions annually that could have been completed through church agencies in a timely manner. Through civil unions, gays could obtain adoptions through state-run agencies while respecting the religious agency’s right to believe and operate their private establishment however they see fit.
Earlier I said that I don’t oppose gay marriage legislatively anymore. To explain that a little more, I used to oppose gay marriage outright. I felt that the law should only say that marriage is between a man and a woman, but I don’t feel that way anymore. Like previously stated, I feel that the “law” shouldn’t say anything about marriage because the law has no place there, just as it has no place with baptism or sacrament. But I know that eradicating marriage from the law entirely is an impossibility, so I have reformed my position on gay marriage, and here’s why:
I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that this nation, for better or for worse, is what some term to be “progressive.” One of the most important things I continue to learn everyday is that not everyone sees things the way I do, and no matter how right I believe I am, they believe equally as passionately that they are right as well. While I can believe whatever I want to believe on a personal level, I can’t rightfully petition the government to make everyone else feel that way as well. People who don’t believe in God will never care what He has to say about homosexuality or anything else for that matter. My personal convictions will remain ever constant; I know in my heart what is true and right for me, but what is right for me might not be right for the majority of the American people. I am of the belief that rather than babysit the nation on these social issues and make us all believe one way is right and the other is wrong, the government should focus its energy on getting us out of debt and taking care of its citizens economically. Fiscal responsibility, to me, is more important than figuring out who is right or wrong in these social debates because none of it will matter if we enter another economic depression and get taken over by a more powerful country. The two-party system is nearing obsolescence, and if I ever want to see a fiscal conservative in the Oval Office, there will have to rise up a candidate that is willing to concede some of the social issues while standing firm for economic responsibility.
At the end of the day, if gays get married, I’m not gonna walk downstairs to my living room and find two dudes making out on my couch. If we continue to elect economically liberal candidates into the White House who continue to spend like crazy and make this nation the wet noodle it’s well on its way to becoming, I certainly will one day walk downstairs and find two movers taking my living room furniture away due to bank repossession, or two armed soldiers from a foreign nation taking over our country.
This new position is simply my attempt to not be so blind with my conviction. I will legislatively accept gay marriage, abortion, and liberal immigration principles, while still personally opposing them and not ascribing to them in my heart, if in return it means that I could have a strong economy and a nation of people that are not only working together but working hard, rather than holding out their hands begging the government for more money. If liberals will grant me fiscal responsibility, I will grant them the social freedoms they desire and we can all get along for the good of the nation.
Several times in the past, people have asked me to compile a list of my favorite tweeters and share that list so people who are just getting into twitter (or just don’t have very good content heading their way) might have a few solid accounts to follow and can more fully enjoy their twitter experience.
This list will not include superstar accounts, the likes of @RobDelaney or @HipsterMermaid, because while very funny, these accounts already have the exposure necessary to receive hundreds of new followers everyday and you will more than likely run into their material via retweets. This list will include underdogs, people that aren’t writers or comedians by profession, regular people just like you and me who also have a voice that deserves to be heard. I will likely do more lists like this in the future, so consider this the first installment.
1. @imnottyourbf (Connor Rawle)
If you’re looking for a little bit of everything on twitter, look no further. Connor Rawle covers a broad range of topics and moods with his content, undoubtedly tuning his finely-crafted tweets to match his current life experiences. He puts it all on the table in bouts of pure honesty and will always call things how he sees them. If we were to nail down his content to a higher level of specificity, however, Connor seems prone to tweet about relationships, the nuances of dating life and being single in a fast-paced and hormonally charged college environment. It could be advice one day and satire the next, but he always has something to say that is relatable and true.
2. @theTBLACK (Tyson Black)
If the cool side of the pillow became a human being, it would be Tyson Black. He is laconic. He does not mess around nonsensical fluff words in his tweets. He is here to tell you how it is and whether you agree or disagree with what he says, you are obligated to respect his delivery. Cold, dry humor and wit interlaced with shots of pure truth, Tyson is a solid addition to anyone’s feed.
3. @davidjohnsonn (David Johnson)
I don’t own a subscription to any news outlet. I do not receive weekly newsletters from journalism sites. I don’t even have cable in my apartment. Why? Because I follow David Johnson on twitter. If you need tweets that make you think amalgamated in pure harmony with tweets that contain links to well-written articles that make you think even more, David is your man.
4. @dustinlocke (Dustin Locke)
Dustin is one of those overlooked funny guys who if you don’t pay attention, you will miss altogether. He is one of my best kept twitter secrets and I’m sharing him with you now so you may further your understanding of what it means to have a sharp wit. He will take subject matter that you never thought could be crafted into a tweet and do just that, as well as making it both funny and extremely relatable. An easy-going guy just trying to survive the young-adult-married-starving-artist life, his tweets will inject clever commentary into an otherwise mundane feed.
5. @EricBarrett3 (Eric Barrett)
Don’t let the presence of a number confuse you here. His handle, while resembling a middle school Hotmail username, is home to some of the most outrageously obscure and hilarious tweets that I have the pleasure of sifting through each day. Taking current topics and affixing idioms to them that you may have heard your grandparents use, the wells from which he draws his wordplay are a mystery to all. To this day, I still occasionally laugh at a tweet he published almost a year ago; his tweets have staying power.
No one that I’ve mentioned here asked to be on this list. As a matter of fact, a few of them might even be extremely surprised to see their names here. I have chosen these people because I follow them, I enjoy their content, I feel that they deserve an audience, and that people like you, the reader, should have the opportunity to listen. Go follow them and see for yourself.
Not too long ago, as I was leaving class, I watched two girls walk into school through the main entrance. Before they had gotten to the doors, a boy walked out the opposite direction and continued on his way. As one of the girls pulled open the door that the boy had just walked out of, she turned to her friend and remarked sarcastically “thanks for holding the door open, I’m still a girl”
NOTHING is more annoying to me than that attitude. I obviously don’t support the mistreatment of women and I do believe that any and all women deserve to be treated kindly, but that’s not the point here. The point is that some women have developed this attitude that they, based solely on the fact that they have two x chromosomes, are ENTITLED to have ALL MEN tripping over themselves to deliver them this special treatment.
You have every right to expect that treatment from your significant other. If you had a husband or boyfriend that never held your door open, never complimented you, never brought you flowers, and if those gentlemanly qualities were things you looked for in a man, you would have every right to feel indignant.
But that boy walking out of school? He doesn’t even know you! He owes you NOTHING. Now, of course holding the door open for a stranger, among other things, is considered a small, admirable act of kindness, something that admittedly should happen more frequently in this world. But that does not give anyone the right to feel cheated, offended, or indignant towards another in the absence of those small acts. No one owes you an open door. They give it to you perhaps because they are feeling generous in that moment, they felt it was the right thing to do, or for a myriad of other potential reasons. If a random boy doesn’t hold your door open, extend your own damn hand and open it yourself.
For the gender that fought for decades for “equal treatment,” who are you to act indignant towards men, strangers no less, that do exactly that?
I feel that the title of this post, a Bane quote from Dark Knight Rises, has real world application in America. During the first half of the 20th century and earlier, Americans were hard working, united, and family-oriented people. As the decades have drawn on, however, our longstanding place as the front runners of the world has spurred complacency, protests and demands of “free this” and “it’s my right to do that.” This mentality has generated a nation filled with people who have their noses in the air and their hands extended outward. This country was once humble and hardworking, grateful for its place in the world, such an example of strength and fortitude. Currently It is spiraling downward and it is a tragedy to behold; not simply economically but socially, emotionally, and civilly. As a country, what do we have to look forward to? Will we ever be able to turn things around? Can we convince Washington, as well as our own citizens, to stop spending frivolously, stop giving/receiving/EXPECTING handouts to people who don’t NEED them, to focus our efforts on lifting up those who have fallen and treating those who are ill, physically, mentally, emotionally, or otherwise?
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to lose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”
I don’t believe the poor government funding in things that matter like health and education is the source of the problem, although it’s certainly not helping. I read an article recently that mentioned that ours is a deluded, narcissistic generation. We believe that we are all pseudo-celebrities, building ourselves up in our minds as being exceptionally gifted and important, that people should pay attention to our every thought, all while simultaneously raising up and worshiping a new celebrity every six months. The glorification of these celebrities and their carefree lifestyle of drugs, sex, and endless money is toxic. Youth see them and say “I’m next in line. If (s)he did it, so can I,” shirking responsibilities such as work and education (particularly reading, writing, and arithmetic) because it won’t help them make it on the next reality TV show. I think more government money should be focused in education, I really do. But I don’t believe we’ll become a healthier, happier, more intelligent, successful, wholesome people unless we can instill in our peers and the rising generations beneath us a fascination with higher knowledge and wisdom, rather than learning the bare minimum just to scrape by in life while fueling a fascination of these false idols and the idea of getting paid for doing next to nothing. Until we do that, kids will keep drinking, keep smoking, keep tattooing their entire bodies to look like Wiz Khalifa and trying as hard as they can to rebel against a system that could make them so valuable if only they would let it. Our search for the path of least resistance will ultimately be our destruction.
I am religious, but I don’t fool myself into believing that everyone is going to straighten up and “find God,” and I don’t even believe that if they did all find Him that it would solve the problem and everyone would be better people all of the sudden. I believe that this a cultural issue that runs deep within our society and our generation in particular. A culture of disrespecting and hating government, structure, order, and rules. A culture of conspiracy, of assuming the worst in everyone, including police officers, government workers, and politicians. A culture of killing. A culture of deification of those who do wrong the most glamorously. A culture of laziness, delusions, enablement, and rewards regardless of success or failure. I predict that this culture, if left uncorrected, will bring this nation to the brink of annihilation before we will humble ourselves, pay attention in school, strive to do our best, and earn rewards by the sweat of our brow.
In short, let’s just live up to our full potential and show some empathy towards our fellow man.
Today was my day off and I spent a large majority of it just watching mindless videos on Youtube with intermittent perusing of social media. Finally, after not having eaten anything all day, my hunger pangs became unbearable, so I fled my apartment (devoid of food of any kind excepting Gushers and Otter Pops) in search of sustenance. After a quick love affair with Arby’s beef and cheddar and other good mood food, the thought of returning to the bubbling vat of worthlessness that is currently my living situation was nauseating, so I decided to head over to Barnes & Noble. I spent several hours there, a large portion of that time looking at a display they have up labeled “Essential Classics” I believe, a table full of leather bound, gold leafed reprints of literary classics. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Writings of Mark Twain, Dante’s Divine Comedy… as I flipped through the pages and read some chapters, I recalled an NPR article I once read titled “The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going To Miss Almost Everything.” In it, the author ponders the innumerable vastness that is the library of the world, and how no matter how hard we try, we will never read, hear, or see over 99% of the great offerings that inspired people have given the world, and for me that’s a depressing thought. I reflected on my life, this one life I have to live, and how frivolously I waste it, spending countless hours scanning through the mindless drivel that is produced on a whim by millions of people everyday; no editing, no fine-tuning, no researching, no pondering, just synapses in the brain that formulate thoughts which moments later are self-published for the world to see. I’d like to spend a lot less time subjecting myself to that content, and more time to the content that has been thought, written, edited, revised, and ultimately published by some of the best minds that have ever lived. It doesn’t have to be books; it can be movies, television, music, whatever. I just want to digest media that is the result of a craft, the product of someone that invested a lot of time, skill, and expertise to create whatever it is that I’m reading, seeing, or hearing. It doesn’t have to be deep and existential, it can be comedy, horror, action, drama, whatever. When it comes to the media I digest, I just want to spend my time with things that are worth my time.
Social Media has its place, certainly, and that’s why I’ll never kick it to the curb completely. I love being in the know with my friends lives, I love knowing that my acquaintances who I would otherwise rarely have the time to call and catch up with can just be a click away. Most of all, I love being able to ponder, ask questions, and freely express my opinion and know that I will always have an audience. It is extremely convenient, but on the flip side of that same coin, it is dangerously time consuming; a lesson I’m sure we’re all familiar with through personal experience.
There is so much to be learned and understood in the libraries of the world. So many people who are so much more intelligent and experienced than you or I who had important things to say. In addition to my social media fun and formal education, I would simply like to begin my pursuit of attaining and understanding those important messages from the past, the present, and I’m sure many to come in the future.
TL;DR - I’d like to read more.
There’s nothing quite like a day of thrift store shopping. The digging, the searching, the meandering, the pacing, the rushing, all in hopes of pulling that one dusty diamond out of the rough. For some people it might be embarrassing to let others in on the fact that they purchased X item at Y thrift store. For others, it’s a place to go with a group of friends to find goofy outfits for 80’s night, retro ski jackets, or this years Halloween costume. But for a few, the thrift store is nothing to be embarrassed about, nor overly published, simply one of the many stores you can discover some fantastic, albeit somewhat dusty and wrinkly, clothing and accessories at a great price.
There’s a coat I look at often. It is a beautiful duffle coat, wool with leather accents, it fits me like a glove. I tried it on in NYC, and that’s when I fell in love with it. Now, back at home, I simply have to stare at it on my computer screen, longing for the unrealistic day that it will be mine. The near $1,000 price tag on the coat makes me ill, and I can’t help but wonder “WHY does this coat cost that much?” I know there must be several reasons, but I feel like as long as I can scream and shake my fist towards the heavens, blaming the cosmos for placing this coat in my path and treating me so unfairly, I can release a bit of that frustration that builds up from constantly turning tags over and seeing the heart wrenching dollar amount of the once “must have” item.
Designers can make every article in a wardrobe cost twenty times what the material is worth, but unless you’re an achieved high-end businessman with stock options and a nice car, an established and well-respected doctor, or one of the best athletes on earth, getting that “designer everything” look is simply not feasible. On the other hand, if you are that platinum selling musician that never wears a pair of socks more than once and literally throws them away at the end of each day, why wouldn’t you spend $5,000 on a pea coat that looks like most other pea coats? If opulence is within your reach, you’ll most certainly grab it.
But for those of us who consider fashion something worth investing a large amount of time in, but not necessarily all of our money (not because we don’t want to, only because we have bills), this is where a great mentality comes into play, and thrift stores become an invaluable rook in the drawn out chess game of wardrobe construction. The strategy is one I’ve aptly titled “pick your battles”, and it’s as simple as deciding which types of items you’re willing to drop big money on, and which types you’ll go to the sale rack/thrift store for. Which pieces have to be the latest and greatest? Which are acceptable as older, go-to pieces to combine with or layer under the new stuff? After making these decisions, you can spend more than you’d like to when it’s “necessary”, and pinch pennies on the low key areas that aren’t as important to you. Plus, with frequent thrift shopping, coming across an amazing find isn’t uncommon, something that looks just like a designer piece or IS a designer piece, for a fraction of the cost. Those are the days you seem to float out of the store rather than walk out. After all is said and done, your clothing settlement should end up right around the normal spending area, while still looking sharp. “Normal spending” being a relative term, of course…
Look, I want to start this off, first and foremost, by simply saying I’m sorry. I am sorry that my not following you back offends you. I am sorry you have been hurt. But please, back away from the ledge for a moment and allow me the opportunity to explain myself, show you WHY I’ve committed this great evil against you. Hopefully through understanding we can speed the healing process of your wounds.
Twitter is all about content. Every second, huge amounts of content is being shared neatly packed into small vessels, microcosms of information called tweets. Being a twitter user enables you to sort through this vast sea of media, selecting only the waves that are best suited for your wants and needs to reach your shores. The best part about twitter is that everyone uses it differently, for different purposes. Some people uses it strictly for news. Others use it for comedy and entertainment. Still others use it as a fun way to interact with friends, almost like texting, and that’s okay! Excepting a few etiquette guidelines, there’s no real set rules on how to use twitter.
As you’re already well aware, I chose early on to make twitter a place where I could organize and publicize all of the humorous thoughts and observations that constantly run through my head. In high school, I was considered a class clown because whenever those thoughts came to me, I would just blurt them out and get a few laughs, followed by a few visits to the principals office. Now, I can control the urge to blurt things out when it’s inappropriate to do so by simply drafting up a tweet! I love sharing my humor with others, and twitter allows me to do that in a constructive way (usually).
Now on to you. You, as a follower of mine, have hopefully seen my content and enjoyed it, subsequently making the conscious decision to follow me, allowing my “waves” of content to regularly reach your “shores.” But you’ve noticed something; you also send out content, and I’m not seeing it because I don’t follow you back! Most people, knowing this, don’t really care. There are a few people however, maybe those of you closer to me, that are so hurt or offended at this realization that you “exact revenge” by unfollowing me. Like I said, it’s your shore; you decide the waves that end up there. But before you make a voodoo doll with my hair and start giving me neck pains, let me list the possible reasons why I chose not to follow you back.
1. I don’t know you, nor have I ever met you. I’m not against following a stranger, if their content suits me well. If you’re a stranger and you also match any of the criteria listed below, then it’s not gonna work out. It’s not you, it’s me.
2. You regularly tweet content that is not important to me. You could literally be my best friend and if all you tweeted were NHL scores, I still wouldn’t follow you.
3. Your tweets are all @’s to your friends, conversations, mini journal entries (“had thai for dinner tonight. so good.”), inside jokes, and pictures that, frankly, should just stay on instagram. Anytime I engage someone in conversation on twitter, those tweets will be deleted within 24 hours. I don’t like to clutter people’s feeds, including my own. I keep my content relevant to my niche: life observations, often humerous. I’m not saying that your content is bad, because it’s not! That’s how you and your friends use twitter, and that’s great. It’s just not the type of content I want to engage in.
4. You rarely tweet. Twitter is a constantly changing stream of media, and I expect to enjoy new content every time I open it. If you’re not consistently participating in that stream, you’ll get left behind.
If after reading this you decide that I’m some pompous arrogant jerk that thinks he’s better than everyone else and then unfollow me, well, I’m sorry you feel that way. If you’ve only been following me to maintain some sort of social rite of passage for acquaintances and you don’t even like or appreciate my content, please do yourself the favor and unfollow me! Sometimes I jokingly tell people that if they unfollow me, we’re no longer friends, but that’s not actually the case. I’ll just interpret that to mean that my content wasn’t best suited for you, which is totally fine. If you are the person, however, that enjoys my content, frequently shares it with others, and you decide to unfollow me as a way of getting back at me for never having followed you in the first place? I just feel bad for you! I’ll keep on tweeting, just like I always have, and you’ll no longer have access to that content you once enjoyed.
Besides, let’s be real here: my tweets are amazing.
In case you haven’t already heard, the people at Myspace decided that they have had enough. No longer content with collecting dust under the internet’s bed, they have completely rebooted their platform, rebranded themselves, and given the world a new outlet to share and digest media. A short video tour can be found here, and the results look promising.
The skeptic voice has been loud ever since news of the “New Myspace” hit the interwebs; do we really need another social media platform? Can anything overtake the Facebook stronghold? That all remains to be seen, and while I don’t expect to see the Rome of social media fall anytime in the near future, I also don’t believe that Myspace will share the same fate that Google+ did at launch which, unfortunately, has yet to generate any sort of real competition.
What makes things different this time around? The answer is quite simple, and it is a force for success that only Myspace could harness. As a young college student who grew up right alongside the internet, I can tell you that one thing we love to see more than anything is nostalgia. Throwback thursdays fill my Instagram timeline every week. Twitter accounts dedicated to tweeting about what life was like as a “90s kid” are numerous. Post a status update about how you miss Rocko’s Modern Life, Doug, All That, or Boy Meets World and you will notice an influx in “likes.” The very fact that the website has the name Myspace will give it an initial boom that will carry for who knows how long. While everything will look new, clean, and redesigned, users will still remember all the things they loved/hated about Myspace in the good old days; profile pages with background colors/images that you could choose, music blasting unexpectedly through your speakers when you went to stalked your crushes profile, checking your profile views number on a regular basis, “50 questions” bulletins galore, the list goes on and on.
Facebook is tired. Almost everyone has thousands of friends, hundreds of people they’ve only met once briefly and are forever after subjected to their day to day musings. I’m willing to bet the farm that every single Facebook user on the planet has at least one friend who if they saw them in real life, they wouldn’t even know who they were. I’m certainly not suggesting that everyone boycott Facebook and abandon ship, hurling ourselves overboard into a sea named Myspace; all of our parents and grandparents would be left on the ship confused as to where we all went. What I am saying is that Facebook, like when your family plays Risk and your dad always has Europe and Asia dominated, will always have its place in the world. Upon launch, Myspace, through simply being Myspace, will challenge some of dad’s territories and will enjoy a consistently high level of user interactivity and traffic for the next foreseeable future, and I’m excited to see what they have in store for us. Who knows, you might need to start thinking about who’s gonna be in your top 8.
