Dear Lady,
I understand your request – you would like me to follow you on Twitter. Believe it or not, I understood the first time you asked. The 8 times I ignored you, I thought, would have been a message in itself. But, I guess not. And this last one kind of drove me to the edge, so without further ado, here are some reasons I might not be following you. I’ve gone ahead and put in reasons I might not be following any certain person but look through them and see if you can pick out which ones apply to you. Fun game!
1. I don’t want to.
Even though that one doesn’t tell you a lot, it is the main reason which I shouldn’t need to explain, but I’ll go ahead and break it down further for you, in no particular order.
2. You are following 1,542 people and the 24 people following you are all spambots.
3. All your tweets are a RT of @somefamousperson
4. All your tweets are @famousperson Please Follow Me!!!!!
5. All your tweets look like this – just shittin herre. hahalol she a bitch, yo n hate hahalol
6. All your tweets look like this – Call Me! FOR a GOOOOD TIME!! I GOT IT BABY!! I LONELY!!!!!!
7. All your tweets look like this – iM jUsT dOiN nUtIN aLl DaY sHiT sUcKs!
8. All your tweets are promoting your business.
9. All your tweets are an inspirational quote. Some are fine, but I can only handle so much.
10. You joined in April and never tweeted.
11. You haven’t tweeted since April.
12. I did follow you, but you auto DMd me so I quit you instantly.
13. All your tweets are replies to only one person.
14. You don’t tweet anything interesting to me.
15. You tweet 30 times per hour. I can’t handle the load.
16. Every tweet is a whine or complaint. I can’t handle the negative energy.
17. I don’t know you, never met you, haven’t heard of you, none of the people I follow are following you, combined with any reason above.
18. You are a friend or friend of a friend and although I like you a lot and maybe read your blog, I’m not that interested in getting your tweets.
19. You are a friend or friend of a friend and although I like you a lot and maybe read your blog, you only tweet about sex.
20. You are a friend or friend of a friend and although I like you a lot and maybe read your blog, you usually tweet in all caps.
21. Your tweets are protected. How am I supposed to know if I want to follow you or not?
22. The majority of your tweets are about how many people are following you or not following you.
I know I’m not an authority on who is a good Tweeter and who is not. I am not telling you that these 22 reasons should be reasons for anyone else. But they are my reasons. You can make your own.
At the end of the day, Twitter is there for me to enjoy. If I’m not enjoying it, what’s the point? And part of enjoying it is crafting my list the way I want it. Me following you or not following you has nothing to do with your self worth, how cool you are, how famous you are or how much I like you or don’t like you. I certainly hope no one takes offense to whether I’m following them or not. I follow the people I want to keep up with. They don’t all follow me back. I don’t care. They are following who they want and are probably following people that don’t follow them back, too. It’s not a popularity contest. It’s a feed of tidbits and tiny news bulletins from sources I want to know about.
So, last words – go out there and craft your own list. Follow the people you really enjoy and not the ones you don’t enjoy. And don’t feel bad about it, even if someone repeatedly asks you to follow them. Stick to your guns and don’t give into peer pressure or hounding. They can’t make you. You can’t make me. You aren’t the boss of me.