Stop telling me what I can and can’t use Twitter for

There have been a number of articles over the last year or so telling us what we shouldn’t be tweeting about. Pretty much everyone I know has seen this “article” on The Oatmeal, and there are a number of other articles on the subject. You don’t want to know what I had for breakfast? You’re not interested in my day-to-day ramblings, or what’s going on in my life?

Well then here’s a question for you: Why the fuck are you following me on Twitter?

By choosing to follow someone on Twitter you’re effectively saying, “I want to know what is going through this person’s head at any given moment.” If you’re following me, I can only assume you have some kind of interest in me, or my work, or what I get up to in my free time. Is that an excuse for me to post any old random shit, or an invitation to push said shit onto your phone? No, of course it bloody isn’t. But if you’re following me to find out when Jump Leads updates and instead find yourself having to endure tweets about the latest episode of Doctor Who or my musings on the future, why continue following me? Why continue to follow anyone on Twitter who is actively tweeting things you have no interest in?

And yet people with this sort of attitude instead find themselves tweeting complaints about the person they’re following. Why don’t you just save yourself the effort and just unfollow the person? Depending on whether you’re using a Twitter client, it can take anywhere between one and four clicks to stop following someone. Surely that’s much less effort than typing some passive-aggressive tweet about your disinterest in my socks.

So fuck you, “Don’t Tweet About This” article writers. I’m going to tweet about my lunch. I’m going to tweet about my vacations. I’m going to tweet about writing, and hanging out, and the events I go to, and emotional breakthroughs. Is it self-indulgent? Yes. But self-indulgence is the very core of what Twitter is.

If you don’t like it, you know where to find the unfollow button.