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.
my biggest pet peeve on there is the retweeting of the follow friday hash tags every week. You don’t need to retweet someone who put you on their follow friday to show off you’ve been mentioned.
I like Blip to find out what others are listening too but if you blip 3 songs in less than a minute than you’re not really listening to the music so cut it out! 🙂
I’m with you on #FF — I enjoy it because I’ve found a lot of people through friends that I didn’t realize were on Twitter. I like to see who my friends are recommending. I don’t understand when it’s RTd, or when people #FF their whole follow list.
And yeah, if you’re gonna Blip me a playlist, make me a mixed-tape instead.
Same here. Unlike FF to see who else Kanpur there. But don’t FF just because you talk to them sporadically.
Hahaha a mix tape! That’s awesome I haven’t made a mixed tape since when Pam and I first started dating back in 99. I should blip a song about that 🙂
http://gizmodo.com/5711437/how-followfriday-is-supposed-to-work
that is all =)
Sawyer made Kate a mix tape on Lost.
If I unfollow somebody and it’s announced to the twitterverse, I might follow and unfollow nine or ten times just to make sure the world doesn’t miss the fact that I unfollowed.
I’ve tried (with little success) an unfollow app before. It specifically claimed to tell you *what* it was that you tweeted that caused someone to unfollow you.
I tried it not for the sake of drama, but because I sometimes have a hard time knowing when I’m being an asshat or annoying in text. So, if for example, you (or someone else I cared about) were to unfollow me, I could find out that it was excessive RTing, or whatever, and adjust fire appropriately.
That said, it didn’t work as advertised, and I’ve not tried any others.
I haven’t used an unfollow app thing; gosh, I have enough anxious trying to figure out why folks are “unfollowing” me in real life!
But Twitter’s just a program for people to connect. I’m not into rules or using it like it’s the school playground. If I spot enough tweets from someone that annoy me, I ignore it. If I can’t ignore it anymore, I unfollow. Unfollow reasons are as varied and personal, I imagine, as anything else we humans do.
What’s Twitter?
I bang my own drum when it comes to Twitter on who I follow or don’t follow. I do unfollow and move the person to a list it there’s too much chatter on stuff I don’t care about. I may also put the follower on a list instead of following him/her.
Other folks have mentioned the list thing — I just think it’s too much work (isn’t that what Facebook is for?).
I’m not going to go to the trouble of following someone just so I can put them on a list and ignore them. I follow, or I don’t. People just have to stop making it personal.
I’ve recently “un-followed” a lot of people that I really like… in person. The online personas which for some have boiled down to the constant lip flapping about in-jokes that I’m not in on or the ‘spam’ as described above were the proverbial back breaking straws. I don’t hate anyone, but my free time to muck about on Twitter is severely limited and I’d like to actually see what people are up to, be entertained, or communicate instead of scroll past many many many posts that I didn’t read anyway. It has been refreshing and surprisingly informative.
I tweeted that #FF comic a few weeks ago 😛 It was a silent protest to my followers on Twitter to F-ing cut it out!!!
Other folks have mentioned the list thing — I just think it’s too much work (isn’t that what Facebook is for?).I’m not going to go to the trouble of following someone just so I can put them on a list and ignore them. I follow, or I don’t. People just have to stop making it personal.