Twitter Weirdness

[dalekboy]

So been doing the Twitter thing, following famous people and friends I like, being followed by friends and the occasional stranger.

On Friday I put up a post that said, - Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because I will short-sheet your bed at the first opportunity. Got a couple of replies from friends and I thought to myself, here's a little bit of creativity I can inject into Twitter for myself.

I've realised I need that creative outlet, no matter how small. It's basically why I don't visit Facebook very often. I like some of the games and stuff, but it doesn't make me want to do more than play them. It sucks at my time but doesn't give me an outlet for the things I need an outlet for. That's not going to keep my interest very long, no matter how much some of my friends who use it mean to me, and how much I like playing Scrabble.

So I basically figured I'd try to do a new Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because... every day that I had net access ('cause I'll be damned if I'll pay SMS costs to Tweet). It's fairly light-on, but I figured I'd have fun coming up with stuff.

So yesterday I posted - Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because that time you thought you'd misplaced your keys, I had deliberately hidden them. - I did it just before I started following Roger Ebert. Ebert retweeted three of his new followers, as he seems to do every day, I was one.

Now in the grand Twitter scheme of things, it's a not even a blip. For me, however, I've suddenly nearly doubled the amount of people following me as various other people retweeted it - sixty-six in total. Now that's not that many, and it's not like they're going to look at everything I write, Twitter by its nature is a disposable medium, but it's odd to suddenly have 38 new people start following and watching what I write.

Very hard not to self-censor, or to avoid actively trying to replicate that. I'm a writer, of course I want people to like my stuff! But fortunately my screw'em, I'll write what I want reflex is pretty strong. I have no doubt the number will drop down again fairly quickly, the 'net is a harsh and capricious beastie, but still... it's all very odd.

And it makes me naturally curious to see whether that weirdness can be channelled in even a tiny way, like the promotion of Continuum. Come up with the right blip, or have the right person retweet something, and suddenly you have a whole new audience finding out about your stuff.

It's a fascinating idea, and no doubt has been done many times already with varying levels of success. But hey, I'm new to it all, so I know nothing about that. But I kind of like that sort of ignorance, because it usually means you don't know that something is impossible.

And not knowing something is impossible is the first step in achieving it.

Or making an arse of yourself.

And I've had lots of practice in doing both!

Comments

[cheshirenoir.livejournal.com]

I will admit I got into twitter in the first place because I was reading some online fiction written as twitter posts.

It was Othar, a spin off from Girl Genius.

An interesting experiment, alas now lapsed.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

I use Facebook in a Twitter-like way, in that I might do multiple status updates in a single day to track something I'm doing. Not moment-to-moment, but like tiny LJ posts if I'm too whacked to write a "proper" entry of more than one sentence. I also quite like the comedic potential of writing about one's self in the third person.

My vaguely anti-Twitter stance is possibly supported by the fact that someone else has my username!

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

That's kind of what I like about Twitter. Things that are too small to do a proper post about are perfect for it. And then they get lumped together and chucked up here anyway :)

[drew-bowie.livejournal.com]

I have to say I've been enjoying the "Don't hate me because..." posts :)

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

The only problem I have with them is I'd like to do more that are everyday things that annoy, and less of the weird ones - which happen to be the ones I mostly have in mind :)

[callistra.livejournal.com]

We had a swancon twitter last year, the only problem was that I was doing it, and I was unfamiliar with the medium. I think using someone like yourself with a bit of creative flair and a short attention span (LOL) would work so much better. Also, I'm a lot more familiar with it, even though I don't 'get' it. I tended to use it to mess around with words, which confused people I think.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Problem with using me is I don't get to enough of a con.

That said, getting a small team of people to do it, along with the occasional "If you're in town, drop in!" could work.

[callistra.livejournal.com]

*nods*
#swancon is a very useful tag at that time
:-)