Unfollow the Yellow Brick Road

Yesterday, a few people and I were having a discussion about the drama associated with “unfollowing” on Twitter. I’ve discussed this phenomenon before, here on this blog, but I wanted to bring up a few new points.

Here are some reasons I’ve stopped following people on Twitter:

1.) constantly listing their location (damn you, foursquare!)
2.) constantly Blipping music
3.) copious flirting with his/her girlfriend/boyfriend (whom I also follow)
4.) excessive pessimism (don’t bring me down. I’m good enough at that.)
5.) excessive chatter about pets (I follow you, not your cat)
6.) constantly RTing people I don’t follow for a reason (I won’t hit the button first time you RT them. After that, all bets are off.)

The people I wish I *could* unfollow are all of my friends who have one of those unfollow applications. Yes, there are apps out there who will tell you when someone unfollows you. (Apparently there are also ones who will auto-tweet when someone unfollows you…and whoever designed that one should be shot.)

So far, no one has been able to give me a good reason for hosting all these follow-drives, or any good reason for knowing who just doesn’t feel like reading your nonsense today. If you’ve got one, shoot.

Otherwise, if I find out you’re using one of these apps, beware. I love you guys, but I really don’t want to enable that sort of behavior.