In the real world, randomly
following people is frowned upon. More likely than not, it will end in a restraining
order. But that’s the difference between the actual life and the internet. For
some reason, being followed online by masses of people is an increasingly
desirable thing. If you haven’t been following where I’m going with this, I’m
referring to the social media mega house, Twitter. It has grown dramatically
since its start in 2006. Really, its bizarre how a site that’s focus is on
followers and hash tags has done so well.
Unlike Facebook, which forces a mutual
friendship between two users, Twitter allows people to follow (or not follow)
whomever they please. That, and the fact
that friends are referred to as followers makes Twitter users feel more powerful.
Kings and rulers had followers back in the day, so do current celebrities. Essentially,
people of influence have followers. Now, in this digital age, anyone can feel
like that.
The more followers an account has,
the more fabulous it must be, right? How do average people become Twitter royalty
through mere 140 character tweets? Everyone on Twitter secretly wants a ton of
devoted followers. Even those who have more people in their followers list than
their following list feel pretty awesome. Sometimes this illusion of power gets
to people’s heads. But it’s good to remember, when the phone screen goes black
and the computer shuts down, being followed in the real world is considerably
less fun...
This is so true. The number of followers you have shouldn't mean that they are worth knowing about. Some of the peopleon Twitter just seem desperate for attention and feel the need to tweet about every little detail going on in their lives. Even some people have gone as far as tweeting about personal event like funerals. If we can tweet about that, where do we draw the line about what should stay private?
ReplyDeleteI like your play on words. I think your evaluation of Twitter reflects both potential good and bad in being able to “follow” complete strangers. Twitter seems like a social media site that allows people to be openly social and connect with each other without ever knowing each other on a personal level. To me I think this is a great system; we share news and entertain each other instantly without restrictions on who receives the information. Additionally, allowing your real world self from being physically followed is reliant only on the information you post, which can make Twitter a pretty safe site to use; given that it is used properly.
ReplyDelete