Picking up from yesterday –
Here’s what I took away from that.
People might be listening to me. I know that when I first got twitter, it was like a game to try to get Cory Booker to tweet me. But you know what? I have my own followers now! I can say stuff, and people might listen (and do listen sometimes!).
I don’t have to have Cory Booker respond to a tweet in order to have a good tweet.
When I was talking with someone about this awful, embarrassing story of a deleted tweet that people were actually liking, she said a couple of things that resonated with me.
I was saying that I have this twitter cycle that seems to happen too often – tweet something, decide it was a stupid tweet, delete it, decide it wasn’t a stupid tweet, tweet it again, then get mad at myself for wasting twitter space on the same idea twice when I could’ve kept the original tweet in the first place.
She said that that sounds like a lot of time in my head – which can be a very complex space. And girl, oh girl, is she right. (“Girl, oh girl” replacing the more used “boy, oh boy” because I am really making an effort on this blog to stop using so many masculine words when they’re not necessary. (eg. “Hey guys!”) But, women is a whole ‘nother subject, so let’s just move on.)
She also said that I should just be myself, tweet what I want, and trust my followers that if they don’t like my timeline, they’ll just unfollow. After all, they made the decision to follow in the first place, right?
For some reason, I forgot the fact that people made the decision to follow me. I sometimes feel maybe I’m one of those chore accounts they don’t want to follow but feel like they should.
Or sometimes I just assume that since so many people are following so many other people, that I get lost in a long timeline and no one is reading my tweets. But they are!
This made me think a couple of things. For one, sometimes I think my biggest fear is that no one’s listening, but really, I think my biggest fear is that everyone is.
Do you ever feel that way, people of the internet?
I don’t get loads of comments on this blog or twitter, so it’s this weird feeling, not knowing if you’re talking to a void or people. Sometimes that’s freeing.
Sometimes it’s confusing, or maybe even a bit stressful. The internet is weird.
But I don’t constantly favorite or comment on things I like. Sometime I just like things in my head and move on. And readers should be allowed to just read – that’s what reading is…
Hilarious side story: He later deleted this tweet.
Interaction is wonderful, but this blog is sort of like a never-ending book. And most people don’t call an author after every chapter to say, “Hey, just read this. Let’s talk about it.” (Of course a blog is different from a book. It is easier to comment. And you’re more than welcome – even invited – to comment anytime.)
So, I’m just gonna continue taking the internet as is comes and enjoying the journey of getting into all this crazy social media stuff – and putting up way more content online than I ever thought I would. (Whether that’s good or bad is something not to be worried about in this post.)
But as I explore the internet and put stuff up, I’m going to actually assume that at least some people are reading now… Cool!… And scary. Right?
I said earlier that I had two realizations after messing up twitter and getting wisdom dropped on me from a friend.
The second realization for me was that instead of trying to get Cory Booker to retweet me, I should try to be someone’s Cory Booker.
I know that’s a big idea, and a lot to aspire to be. But really, if he can inspire me, maybe I can inspire someone else. Instead of worrying about validation (which sometimes I think the internet was made for/conditions us to want), I should worry about figuring out how I can help (or perhaps entertain (or inspire)) others.
Wouldn’t that be the best use of the internet?