A Little Less Anti-Social
Recently, I have begun to tweet. I am quite behind the curve on this. Many of my friends have been tweeting for ages. Some of them even digg and vine, although I suspect they're only doing it for the instagratification.
I however, merely tweet. In the unlikely event that you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm referring to Twitter, and my reluctant attempts to engage with it because I apparently have to have a 'social presence'. This means setting up pages on Facebook (which I was already on, but didn't use), signing up with GoodReads (not entirely unpleasant, as it meant going through the back catalog of books I've read and remembering how much I liked them) and finally, signing up to and actively contributing to Twitter.
If it wasn't instantly obvious, my lack of a Twitter presence wasn't exactly an oversight on my part. I've been actively avoiding it for years. This is not due to any technophobia. Unlike many other authors, I am actively in love with new technology and have been since my father first brought home a clunky PET IBM for business use and I thought 'I bet I can play games on that'.
No, I've been avoid Twitter because I actively associate it with the 'me, me, me' generation. The thinking that puts people in the Big Brother house dressed as lycra pussycats, or on the Apprentice trying to sell Fish and Banana ice cream to city boys, or even on I'm a Celebrity..., pretending that one's career can only be enhanced by a tearful breakdown in the jungle and a mouthful of kangaroo testicles.
I guess I've been somewhat burned by Pinterest - a site whose fans remind of the kind of person who gives you a Christmas present wrapped in homemade, hand pressed wrapping paper, with ribbons and bows, and your name written on a personalised card in Japanese calligraphy, while you red-facedly hand over your conglomoration of bubble wrap, sellotape and torn paper from Poundland, and think about how frequently 'Look What I Can Do' turns into 'Guess What You Can't'.
I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to find that Twitter didn't entirely consist of strangers tweeting what they'd had for dinner, teenagers tweeting yet another link to a picture of a cat, and faceless corporates mistaking social media for a social billboard and thinking that viral advertising is in no way associated with the unstoppable spread of an unwanted disease.
Instead, I found social media to be oddly, well, social. Rufus Hound was tweeting that he'd found a girls student ID and could she get in touch so he could give it back. Sarah Millican was retweeting fans who had tickets they could no longer use and wanted to sell them on to someone who'd appreciate seeing the gig. It was like a college noticeboard. If the college involved happened to have a campus stretching across several continents, and all students who are all on the telly.
There were real people on it as well (famous people aren't real, they're just very well constructed puppets operated by Ant and Dec). I had a warm and slightly sad discussion with a friend of mine about our favourite Alan Rickman film. My local park run posted photos of its various runners in fancy dress, so I got to play 'spot who I know', and got almost all of them right.
So, I'm going to give social media a go. But, I don't want be just another sad self-promotionalist. I'm setting myself some rules:
1. If I don't have anything interesting to say, don't say it. No-one wants to know what I had for breakfast.
2. Follow things and people I'm actually interested in. If I reply, make sure I have something to add. But do reply. I need to actually engage.
3. Never reply with the words 'me too'
4. And finally, be kind, be generous, and most of all write something uplifting. If this is the college noticeboard of life, I don't want to be the one scribbling moustaches on the team photos. I've never been one to celebrate the mainstream but I shouldn't be the one to denigrate it either, especially just for being the mainstream. After all, people are people too, and if they can handle being social, then so can I.
Wish me luck. I've a feeling I'm going to need it.
I however, merely tweet. In the unlikely event that you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm referring to Twitter, and my reluctant attempts to engage with it because I apparently have to have a 'social presence'. This means setting up pages on Facebook (which I was already on, but didn't use), signing up with GoodReads (not entirely unpleasant, as it meant going through the back catalog of books I've read and remembering how much I liked them) and finally, signing up to and actively contributing to Twitter.
If it wasn't instantly obvious, my lack of a Twitter presence wasn't exactly an oversight on my part. I've been actively avoiding it for years. This is not due to any technophobia. Unlike many other authors, I am actively in love with new technology and have been since my father first brought home a clunky PET IBM for business use and I thought 'I bet I can play games on that'.
No, I've been avoid Twitter because I actively associate it with the 'me, me, me' generation. The thinking that puts people in the Big Brother house dressed as lycra pussycats, or on the Apprentice trying to sell Fish and Banana ice cream to city boys, or even on I'm a Celebrity..., pretending that one's career can only be enhanced by a tearful breakdown in the jungle and a mouthful of kangaroo testicles.
I guess I've been somewhat burned by Pinterest - a site whose fans remind of the kind of person who gives you a Christmas present wrapped in homemade, hand pressed wrapping paper, with ribbons and bows, and your name written on a personalised card in Japanese calligraphy, while you red-facedly hand over your conglomoration of bubble wrap, sellotape and torn paper from Poundland, and think about how frequently 'Look What I Can Do' turns into 'Guess What You Can't'.
I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to find that Twitter didn't entirely consist of strangers tweeting what they'd had for dinner, teenagers tweeting yet another link to a picture of a cat, and faceless corporates mistaking social media for a social billboard and thinking that viral advertising is in no way associated with the unstoppable spread of an unwanted disease.
Instead, I found social media to be oddly, well, social. Rufus Hound was tweeting that he'd found a girls student ID and could she get in touch so he could give it back. Sarah Millican was retweeting fans who had tickets they could no longer use and wanted to sell them on to someone who'd appreciate seeing the gig. It was like a college noticeboard. If the college involved happened to have a campus stretching across several continents, and all students who are all on the telly.
There were real people on it as well (famous people aren't real, they're just very well constructed puppets operated by Ant and Dec). I had a warm and slightly sad discussion with a friend of mine about our favourite Alan Rickman film. My local park run posted photos of its various runners in fancy dress, so I got to play 'spot who I know', and got almost all of them right.
So, I'm going to give social media a go. But, I don't want be just another sad self-promotionalist. I'm setting myself some rules:
1. If I don't have anything interesting to say, don't say it. No-one wants to know what I had for breakfast.
2. Follow things and people I'm actually interested in. If I reply, make sure I have something to add. But do reply. I need to actually engage.
3. Never reply with the words 'me too'
4. And finally, be kind, be generous, and most of all write something uplifting. If this is the college noticeboard of life, I don't want to be the one scribbling moustaches on the team photos. I've never been one to celebrate the mainstream but I shouldn't be the one to denigrate it either, especially just for being the mainstream. After all, people are people too, and if they can handle being social, then so can I.
Wish me luck. I've a feeling I'm going to need it.
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