Saturday, November 6, 2010

Year of Twitter – Flatlined

It's been a little over a year since I decided I needed to be a full fledged tweeter & meet local people. I was really into it and I did meet people, some that I really thought I had a connection with too. Back in October of last year, I wrote a post titled "Things I’ve learned from Twitter:"
  1. Twitter is down sometimes more than 7 times briefly in my workday. I’ve actually named the Fail Whale after seeing it so many times. Hello Charlie!
  2. Having local strangers on your follow list sometimes turns into great friendships.
  3. Not all businesses are spam. Some are just letting you know what you’re missing if you don’t work locally. @in_gre_di_ent ½ Sammy of the day Turkey Avocado Club Shaved turkey breast, avocado, bacon, spring greens, Roma Tomato… (Seriously had me at “avocado”! Damn I wish I worked in Lawrence).
  4. Don’t judge others only on who they follow/tweet with and always remember that the only person that should be held accountable for being a dick, is the one being a dick.
  5. On any day of the week I know I can count on at least three people willing to entertain me with their tweets.
  6. Don’t ever piss off Sunflower Broadband.
  7. Hawks tweets less than he ever plurked.
  8. There is always a lunch planned somewhere in Lawrence, and I’m missing it.
  9. There happens to actually be *cool* moms in Lawrence, and I’ve found them on Twitter. Lawrence twits are anything but dull.
  10. Lawrence.com (@lcom) is a tease and will dangle concert tickets in front of my face.
Bonus: There will always be a Kanye West joke.

AND…. How could I forget this? :p RT @Luthi @Jells you forgot one: Luthi is super awesome and funny and stuff
Of course that was in the beginning. I can't say that the list has changed much, but I know there's a lot I could add to it and not all as positive.

I went to monthly "tweetups" where the local tweeters would hook up at a local establishment once a month & be social because isn't that what social media is about? Usually though they would tweet at the tweetup. Tweeting "OH" (Overheards), who was there, what we were eating, who had what phone, etc etc. After a few tweetups I realized that it wasn't as social as I had hoped it would be. Then being myself kicked in and I wasn't as filtered in my tweets as I had been in the beginning. I spoke out if I disagreed with something, even if I knew I was in the small minority. I believe this is what got me blacklisted. Disagreeing with the agreeable. Blacklisted might be too bold of a term but it sort of feels right so I'm going to use it. Tweetups seemed less fun. A couple of the organizers obviously didn't like me either because I spoke out or because they saw me as someone they couldn't get along with. I've said it before & I'll say it again - to know me is to love me. There are many things that I am, but one thing I'm not... is a sheep.

I still continued to go, with breaks when I just didn't want to deal with it, but it wasn't until the very last time in July I went that I realized why I was going to stop going. My best-friend was visiting from New York and I thought taking her to a tweetup would be nice. It really wasn't. We sat at the table behind the tweetup folks in the same room at Johnny's Taven because the other table was full. We felt like outcasts. One of the organizers (out of 3) came to say hello & talk to us but you could tell he only did it because he felt he had to. I could go on & on about tweetups but I won't. I just stopped going & I'm okay with that. That isn't to say that I won't go to another if I feel like it later on down the road.

Twitter is what it is. You can't have a big group of people & not expect some drama and/or politics. That's just not how life works, adults or not. I'm not going to change who I am or how I am to fit into any group and those that respect that are welcome to be a part of my life. That's not to say that some good things haven't come out of twitter either.

Last year I got trapped in my apartment, some piece broke off in the door & I was literally trapped. I tweeted my dilemma & rescue. It was hilarious! Or the time that I really wanted to make fried pickles but didn't have an egg. Renee (chookschick) brought over two fresh laid eggs from her flock. There has been a lot of good experience but they definitely don't outweigh the bad. That's why I'm still on Twitter but not actively attempting to be part of the community anymore. I'd say follow me if you aren't already but that would be asking you to be overly patient with me to see if I ever get back into a tweeting groove. I pop into Twitter every so often but Facebook is where my heart is for now.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

KiK loves comments, feedback, and suggestions. Got something to say? Say it. If you'd prefer to contact Kimberlee directly, send an email to: kimberlee [dot] bourdon [at] gmail [dot] com