Friday, 15 March 2013

Social Networks - Our Virtual Footprints

When Twitter jumped into our digital world a few years ago I LOATHED the idea of it.

I enjoyed Facebook for personal friends and family; seeing pictures of my friends on their holidays and keeping in touch with others that were just too far way to get together with at short notice.

One of these particular friends said to me recently that he finds social networking makes us talk less. I tend to disagree with this statement entirely – at least from personal experience. If there is a person I haven’t seen in ‘real life’ for a while I can already see what they’ve been up to and base our conversation on catching up with them.

Facebook, for me, is starting to feel over played and everything interesting that people post has already been on Reddit for weeks in advance. I got twitter because, frankly, I didn’t have the time to keep a track of everything going on and wanted to supplement the casual articles I write on here. It feels a little worthless to only post on here as most interest savvy people won’t even go to each other’s home.com. You’d much rather see their short and sweet tweets or like their Facebook to keep up with their feed.
 
There’s a point when you hit a certain amount of ‘interested’ follows that almost every tweet you post will have an imminent response. The problem is, unless you already have a good idea of Twitter, you’re easily open to breaking the similar rules that it follows:

          If you misspell ANYTHING you’re IMMEDIATELY trolled on it. In fact, it almost always ruins the entire point of your tweet and in a day of predictive text for phone updates this can be a fairly common occurrence.

          If you post something and delete it IMMEDIATELY it’s guaranteed that someone screen capped what you posted. (I’m looking at you @JoeyBarton, @PopeBenedict)

          If you make any allusions about politics, race, sex, or religion you are opening a giant can of worms that’s not even worth touching so just don’t do it.

          If you stick to the above you’ll eventually have tweets that boil down to your day-to-day life and usually this means nothing all that interesting for your followers.

I like to think I am a fairly well rounded adult but when I tweet about anything other than video games or comic’s people seem to instantaneous attempt to find a connection. It’s a typical response and one that usually shows that my followers are only there for one reason – the next article or the next review.

Then there are the people that feel the need to tell me that they’re unfollowing me…. Really? In this day and age do you really feel the need to bash someone online? As an old GIF once said ‘starting an argument on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics’ (looks like I broke my own rule already).  Contrary to popular belief, sharing your thoughts and actually putting yourself out there does require some courage and time/effort, and those people that post funny/interesting stuff do it because they enjoy it and they actually want to. There is a massive difference between the entertaining tweets of @kellyoxford and the boring stuff found on your own profile.

They’re doing YOU the favour.

You have the freedom to follow, and you also have the freedom to not read it. Just don’t announce that you’re spitting your dummy out and going home, because no one ever liked that fucking kid in the first place.

What the fuck.

And, interestingly – my girlfriend will love this - 9/10 of the worst, most cynical, nasty tweets come from the UK. You click the profile, and there it is - “Go Manchester United.”

Anyways, here are a few things that I’ll keep posting about, and if you don’t like it, don’t read it.

SPORT

Now I’m not the biggest sport’s fan ever or the most knowledgeable but I do enjoy a good game of pretty much anything. Football and Basketball are where my real passions lay but I’m fond of a whole selection of different sports. As I’m sure you are aware I support Liverpool and Miami Heat, and I’ll happily explain why to anyone who wants to know. I’ve followed both teams since as far back as I can remember and have a lot of fond memories from each. I still regularly watch the Champions League Final of Istanbul in 2005 where ‘Captain Fantastic’ brought us back from the edge of what might have been the most disheartening display of football ever.

I like to think that I’m a normal sort of sports fan - people have their opinions and are welcome to them. The people that I despise are the ones that become rude, obnoxious and personal because their team lost or because I tweeted that their performance wasn’t up to their usual standard.

It’s pathetic to hate on someone for telling the truth – and chances are you’ve said the same thing about my team when we haven’t played so well either. Grow a pair!

BOOKS/COMICs

I’ve always been a massive comic fan, in particular of the Superhero variety, and this has given me a wide range of personal feelings about characters or storylines. I’m not saying I’m ever right but I have an opinion and if it’s not something you agree with then reply with what you think. I love a health discussion on these sorts of subjects and it seems to be one of the few things in life that everyone is always divided on.

On top of comics I love all types of books, except anything about love, and always seems to be digging into something or other. I’m currently running through ‘A Dance with Dragons’ which (for those who don’t know) is the fifth book in a ‘Song of Fire and Ice’ sage. It’s actually the first time in ages that I’ve felt like I’m reading something where I don’t know what will happen next and I’d recommend it to you all. It’s far better than the TV series and has a lot more depth than people give it credit for.

VIDEO GAMES

If you’ve followed me on twitter or read this blog before you’ll know, as the title suggests, that I am a little bit of a Video Game fan. I’ve played games since I was old enough to stand and don’t imagine that will ever change. I love escapism in any form and the idea that I can be wandering a fantasy world one second and a futuristic steam punk city the next thrills me no end.

I don’t really have a favourite genre anymore but in the day and age I appreciate content more than ever. Too many games are released these days with a 6 hour single player and a weak multiplayer that any 30 hour epic gets my money first. I don’t get the time to play as much as I have in the past so I want to make sure my money is well spent.

Obviously I loathed twitter, but now I love it so add me up and lets be friends forever @somemanwithplan (remember there’s no ‘A’)

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