Ok, it’s time I let out an ugly truth.
Sometimes, even now, I look at some Twitter accounts I don’t really like and…I find out that they have more followers than me.
This creates quite the dilemma, because as you might know, I am all about not caring about numbers in Social Media. Still, it’s kind of like that feeling you got in high school when the person you had a mad crush on ended up going out with that vacuous, boring, cliche person who you just couldn’t stand at all. Even if you had the best self-esteem ever (which we all do in high school), it probably made you think, “Gee…what am I missing here?” It throws everything you believe into a sort of purgatory, even if for just a few brief seconds. I see people on Twitter who are doing everything in the world I disagree with. There are people whose profile page can make you dizzy with all of the Retweet icons. There are people whose profile pages are just thank yous to other people for Retweets. And yet very often, these people have more followers than me.
You know what’s really sad? There are SPAM BOTS who have more followers than me! I mean, c’mon people. These aren’t even people! Do you want me to tweet about bacon? Do you want me to tell you that you can win an iPad? I’ll do it!
So what’s going on here?
OK, I’ve regained control of myself. Phew.
Truthfully, I don’t mind that some of these accounts have more followers than me. What really boggles my mind is a two-fold question. Why do hundreds of thousands of people follow those accounts, and why do people I follow follow those accounts?
Obviously a lot of this is created by the “auto-follow” epidemic. As an aside, if you end up following a Bacon Bot, it does make me wonder if you are taking your presence on Twitter seriously. As we say on Twitter, #justsayin
Maybe people follow these strange rogue accounts because you are sure to get your name mentioned. Sometimes autobots mention my name and I am seldom happy about the pragmatic effects of “my name getting out there.” Maybe I am missing something.
Am I missing something?
Image by Berkeley Robinson. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Berkeley