Unfollow!
Monday, January 5, 2015 at 12:09 It's exactly a year since I joined Twitter.
I know this because Twitter told me.
I don't have many followers – a few hundred – and I follow a third of that number.
I don't understand why anyone would follow hundreds or even thousands of people. You'd have to spend all day on Twitter to read every tweet.
I assume some people are so desperate for followers they follow indiscriminately in the hope the people they follow will follow them.
From time to time I cull some of the people I follow. I do it because if I didn't they would drive me nuts.
One is a high profile Conservative politician who is adored by many on the right but I think he's the most crashing bore, on Twitter at least. In person he's quite pleasant but when he tweets I often want to scream "Shut up!" or "Get a life you pompous prat!".
For example, whenever the nation is gripped by a big event on television (the final of the World Cup or Strictly Come Dancing), our man will be on Twitter quoting Shakespeare or Churchill, oblivious to the real world.
A prospective parliamentary candidate was doing my head in because there wasn't an airport in the world he didn't want us to know he was tweeting from. (I post a few vanity tweets myself but not all the time!!)
A senior journalist at a leading national newspaper would begin each day with a tweet describing how visible a major London landmark was from his office. I read each tweet as a coded message to his employers: "Look at me! I'm in the office at 6.00am!" He's no longer at that newspaper and I'm not surprised.
I sometimes tweet about football but not obsessively. I'm 55 for heaven's sake. One person – a broadcaster the same age as me – tweets so often about the love of his life (Arsenal) I'm concerned about his mental health. (No, I'm not talking about Piers Morgan.)
These occasional culls genuinely improve my life. Having certain people on my timeline is stressful not because they're bad or unpleasant people. It's the sheer volume of inane and often self-regarding rubbish I can't handle.
Which brings me to Gyles Brandreth.
I've interviewed the former MP for Chester twice. He's smart, funny and extremely engaging.
His diaries (Breaking the Code: Westminster Diaries and Something Sensational to Read in the Train) are wonderful. So is Brief Encounters: Meetings with Remarkable People, a compilation of often very moving interviews.
Two or three years ago I even took my family to see his one man show.
On Twitter though Gyles is maddening. Morning noon and night he appears to tweet everything that comes into his head. It's like a nervous tic and it's relentless.
Sorry, Gyles, I'm a huge fan but last week I could bear it no longer.
Unfollow!
PS. If you're going to tweet about yourself from a great location do it with chutzpah and a sense of humour.
Take these tweets from Alex Deane (who spoke at Forest's Freedom Dinner last year). They barely hint at the torrent he posted last week but their appearance on my timeline genuinely brightened my days.
I hope you enjoyed your holiday, Alex, because I did!
Today has been hell pic.twitter.com/UanHbecCaR
— Alex Deane (@ajcdeane) December 29, 2014How we've suffered pic.twitter.com/fPxXhMI3hL
— Alex Deane (@ajcdeane) December 29, 2014Bye bye, sun pic.twitter.com/VGYPWJDKjO
— Alex Deane (@ajcdeane) December 29, 2014Another day of struggle and strife in Africa. pic.twitter.com/d3oAbHmuSd
— Alex Deane (@ajcdeane) December 30, 2014Hello Table Mountain pic.twitter.com/Adt4bOe8Wy
— Alex Deane (@ajcdeane) December 30, 2014How dare anyone call me smug? pic.twitter.com/Qk6aRCvhsF
— Alex Deane (@ajcdeane) December 29, 2014
Reader Comments (3)
The idea is that it's just something to dip in and out of as time allows. It's not realistic to read everything even 200 people tweet. There will be a handful of people whose every tweet is worth reading, but you can organise those into a list to filter out all the chaff.
He'll be at the centre of a twitter storm if that Africa comment goes "viral". Move over, Katie Hopkins.
Simon,
The "Every 15 cigarettes you smoke will cause a mutation" tobacco control industry
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