I received this tweet the other day. My first reaction was to apologise and to promise to change my approach. It was followed by "Oh, good, then I won't have to unfollow you then." I don't intentionally offend anyone and I didn't mean for my tweets to be "noisy."
I explained to my follower that originally I had started tweeting this way in order to encourage new twitterers to join in the fun. The idea was that Twitter is an open, extended, conversation, best when it's thrown open to all comers. I don't have any wisdom of my own to dispense, and I don't dole out the accumulated insights of the world's recognised autorities and notable thinkers in 140 character chunks. Actually, I find all those quotes that litter twitter just bloody annoying; if I need enlightenment, I know where my library is! Anyone who thinks that Twitter is a vehicle for human improvement must be a bit soft in the head, and I've mentioned it often enough. I use Twitter to talk to people, one conversation at a time. The people I talk to simply interest, amuse, and entertain me, and I hope they feel the same about me. I'm not interested in accumulating "followers," and in fact, if I had one major criticism of Twitter it's that unfortunate word. Why would anybody want to follow me, and why should I give a damn about following anyone else? The whole thing's mistaken from the start.
So, I was a little miffed at myself for potentially alienating someone who might have something interesting to contribute. Therefore, I changed my approach, replying solely to the person who'd replied to me. After about an hour I noticed I wasn't having any fun anymore. The conversations had dried up. People were not chipping in their two penn'oth. And I was boring myself with what I was saying. It wasn't working for me at all.
There are two reasons why I'm not going to change the way I tweet. If I put off the occasional conversational partner, then that's just fine. The first is that it does seem to me that we have our best ideas when challenged by voices that we normally don't hear. I'm not interested in confirming my own prejudices, and I love inviting the unlikeliest people into the conversation. It's great when we don't know where things will end up. I had a natter this morning with a few people across the world about camp comedy in Britain in the 70's and what that said about the difference between the British and American cultural psyches. I certainly didn't wake up this morning with that on my mind. Everyone who participated in that conversation learned something new about themselves, their culture. and the culture of the other. None of us felt the need to lecture or got carried away with the need to prove a point. We couldn't have done that if we'd kept our conversations in our single silos. We would have singularly made some didactic observations and left it at that. But because we were "noisy" other people felt they could get involved.
My second point is more aesthetic. I find people who begin a sentence with my name disturbing if not frankly menacing. It may be the result of 20 years in mental health, but if someone I'm talking to says my name at the start of every sentence I want to know that there's an unimpeded path to the door. It's the sign of a nutcase. And it looks and sounds so ugly too; breaking the tweet into two breaths has a much more natural, much more human, much more authentic feel to it. The Tweet looks better, reads better, and is much easier on the mind. It also feels much more "me."
So, in response to the follower who promised to dump me should I carry on being so noisy, I have to say goodbye. We never got to speak properly. It's fairly obvious now that we never shall. There's nothing to apologise for on either side. We simply use twitter for different purposes. I'm going to carry on my incontinent nattering, thank you very much.
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