Seven(ish) Reasons Why I'm #NotFollowing You on @Twitter

By now, most people understand the very basic concept of the social networking site Twitter.  Unlike Facebook, with it's time-sucking gravitational field of information overload, and Tumblr, which is essentially Twitter without the character limit, Twitter is a "microblogging" site where users can post quips or links, but are restricted to 140 characters to get their point across.  It can be kind of like a game sometimes, trying to fit your idea into a limited amount of space.  Imagine being a headline writer for a newspaper, or Mark Twain's retarded nephew.

One of the aspects of Twitter is following people.  By "following" I essentially mean subscribing to another's Twitter-ers feed, and everytime they update, you see it on your screen, phone or whatever.  The unspoken rule for Twitter is that if someone follows you, (that you aren't already following) you should follow them back, for at least a little while, just to give them a chance.  Because in the Land of Tweets, how many followers you hold, is sort of like internet clout; you could argue that the number of followers you have, represents the direct amount of influence you hold over the world in chief.

You could argue.

However, there are certain criteria that will not get you followed, by me at least.  The following are about seven reasons why I'm not following you:

1.  You're a bot.  A "bot" being a "robot" or program that someone created to dispense information autonomously and automatically around the web.  It can be essentially just a mindless commercial bobbing around in cyberspace.  Typically, these are laden with viruses, or other malware.  They might pop up and ask you to click a link amongst a smattering of gobblygoop.  I would argue that at least half of my followers are bots.

2.  No biographical information.  If I get a notification that so-and-so is following me, and they have what looks to be an actual picture of themselves, I'll go the further step and check out their profile page.  The profile page is where Twitter users put a little information about themselves... kind of like a pitch in order to get you to follow them.  It usually involves a location (say, Boston, MA) as well as a little about what you could expect them to tweet about ("I work at Cyberdine Industries; robots are fun!").  But often times, people will either leave this whole section blank or not even post a picture of themselves.  Instead, I'll be greeted by an egg with a colorful background (Twitter's default profile pic).  If I don't know who you are, why the hell would I follow you?

3.  You don't tweet enough.  Looking at your biographic info, I can see how many times you tweet, or post something on Twitter.  If it's less than say, 100 times and you've been a member for over a year (which I can also see) I'm not following you.  Why bother?

4.  You tweet too much.  Again, if I'm looking at how many times you tweet, and it's at 100 and you just joined today, I'm not following you.  I already think my feed is filled with mindless drivel from the people I DO follow, I'm not adding your hysteric ADD tweets to the mix either.

5.  Your tweets are protected.  I can understand that privacy with online social networks is the topic du jour, but c'mon.  This is Twitter, not Facebook.  If you're protecting your Tweets, why are you on here anyway?  Your 140 characters of intellectual property are not so sacred that you require a lock and key.  If I have to send you a "follow request" in order to see what you're tweeting about (which is likely such mind-blowing topics as going to the car wash, or eating ice cream on a nice day), I look at that as an extra step that's going to take time out of my day from where I could be sitting here, mindlessly staring off into space.

6.  Your tweets aren't funny/interesting/thought-provoking.  I'm not saying every thing you tweet needs to be comedy gold, or in the essence of Walt Whitman, but if all you're ever saying is incredibly dumb, overtly biased rhetoric or some other baseless claim (I'm going to the store now!  I'm eating a waffle!) you're not worth my time.  Granted, we all get one or two every once in a while that is just words for the sake of hearing our own voices, but do it too much, and I'm cutting you lose.

7.  Your tweets are a mess.  If you're tweeting something, and it's all links and #hashtags and @s, so that the block of text is a glowing nuclear field of blue hyperlinks, I'm not clicking on shit except the "unfollow" button.  Granted, people like to share with each other items they think are important, like news stories or other people they think others would want to follow, but put some words around it.  Explain to me why I should be following someone on Friday, or why I should click your bit.ly link.  See The Oatmeal's take on how Follow Fridays should work.

7.5:  On the heels of that, if you're constantly linking tweets to your Facebook or other social networking site, I'm outie-5000.  I got off Facebook for a reason, I don't need you sucking me back in so I can look at your sister-in-law's children, or enter a contest to win "free gear for a year."  Also, if your tweets are constantly too long and they extend to your Tumblr site, I'm not falling for that shit either.