Twitter and the Follow-Back Thing

This has been an issue that a surprising number of people have brought up on Twitter recently, and since I have a collection of thoughts on the issue, I thought I’d put them down for reference and see what other people thought.

Most of my traffic comes from Twitter, except the people looking for lyrics for Mes Oreilles by Amylie, who are something like 70% of my traffic, which is frustrating because I don’t know the lyrics even though I’m still the #1 hit on Google when you search for ‘mes oreilles amylie’, so maybe I should put some content up there. Anyway, I’m going to assume that most people know what Twitter’s about, and provide only a brief explanation.

Twitter is what’s called a ‘micro-blogging service’, which is a new term that means nothing. It lets you write short updates, called ‘tweets’, and people interested in what you write can follow you, and you can follow people you’re interested in. You automatically get updates from people you follow, plus anyone who ‘replies’ to one of your tweets with one of their own (an important fact I’ll bring up later).

The issue that’s been bothering everyone, it seems, is the issue of reciprocation. You see, whenever someone follows you, you get a notification (if you want one), and you are presented with the choice of following them or not, in the sense that you are able to if you want to, but it’s not a choice forced on you – i.e. you don’t get a pop-up saying ‘So-and-so followed you, do you want to follow them back?’

The question that is raised is this: if someone follows you, are you obliged to follow them back? Should you reciprocate? It seems like a simple question, and to some people it is – and I’m one of them – but people don’t agree.

One view is that you should. These people might argue that it fosters a sense of community and discussion, and that’s what Twitter is about. If I follow you, you should follow me, because then we’re part of the same community, equals, and we can have discussions on relevant topics.

The other view is that you should when appropriate, and this is the view that I take. When you get a notification about someone following you, you should go, check out their profile, and see who they are. If they seem interesting, you should consider following them. If not, don’t. You can always un-follow someone (and Twitter doesn’t notify people when you un-follow), so there’s no harm in ‘testing it out’. 

Note that these are the only two views I see as realistic – always and sometimes – because ‘never’ doesn’t make much sense.

I’d like to outline the rationale behind my view, because it seems like a lot of people in the former category tend to get rather upset if they don’t get a follow-back, and I don’t think that’s very fair.

Twitter, at its heart, is about subscription and choice. The concept is that if people find you interesting, they will follow you, and vice-versa. Each person is a feed, a stream of thoughts or comments or links that are relevant to that person. The thing is, Twitter is many things to many people – and even many things to individual people. There’s no one thing Twitter is for. Each person has their own reasons for using Twitter, and their own reasons for following Twitter (see that link for my reasons), but not everyone’s reasons mesh.

Let’s take an example – a radio station. Let’s say I have a radio station, and so do you, and we play whatever music we enjoy and want to hear. People will tune into us because they like the music we like.

You and I both love ’60s rock, and we both play it about 50% of the time. I also like ’80s pop, and play that the other 50% of the time. You don’t mind ’80s pop, so you follow me because I’m playing 100% music you like or don’t mind. You, however, enjoy death metal more than 80′s pop, and so you play death metal the other 50% of your time, but I hate death metal – can’t stand it at all.

So here’s the score – I’m playing 100% stuff you like, so you tune in to me. You’re paying 50% stuff I like and 50% stuff I hate, so I don’t tune in to you. The argument being made is that because you’re listening to me, I should listen to you. Essentially, that I should like you because you like me.

This doesn’t fly with me for a lot of reasons. I have a limited attention span, and I can only pay attention to so much at once before I start becoming too distracted by Twitter and the people I’m following to be able to focus on anything during the day. If I followed everyone who followed me, I’d be following nearly twice as many people – and that’s not counting the people I’m following who aren’t following me back.

As one example, take Greg Grunberg, the actor who plays Matt Parkman on Heroes. He’s hilarious (and famous) and so people follow him – over 9700 people at this moment. Now, Greg is a busy man. He’s on a hit TV show, he has a great band, and he has a family. Do you really, honestly and truly think that he is capable of balancing those three schedules, and still paying attention to what almost ten thousand people are doing with their lives? I can barely keep up with the around-90 that I’m following.

As a more extreme example, take Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com. Now, I neither know nor care what Kevin is doing with his life (though it’s probably more interesting than mine), but I’m willing to bet that he’s probably too busy to keep up with the 81,000 people that follow him.

Now, I mean no disrespect to my followers on Twitter when I say the following, so please don’t take it the wrong way, but this is just the way it is.

I don’t care about numbers. I don’t care how many people I’m following, or how many people are following me. There’s a certain sense of validation you get from having lots of followers, but it’s not necessarily real, and it’s not necessarily important. I don’t care how many people are following me – but what I do care about is that the people that are following me are doing so because on some level, I’m interesting to them. I hope, honestly and truly, that no one on Twitter is following me because I’m following them. If you are, if that’s your only reason, please don’t feel compelled to stay.

Don’t get me wrong, when I follow someone I do hope that they check out my profile/tweets/blog/whatever. I hope that they take a look and consider me. Let’s face it though, not everyone is going to be interested in what I have to say – hell, most people aren’t, and I’d be surprised if as many people as are following me can claim that.

If I follow you, it’s because I think that you’re interesting, or that you might be interesting. Maybe you have something interesting to say, maybe you have a neat blog or you’re a good source of news or information. Maybe you’re just funny. I follow you because what you have to say enriches my life.

So, with that said, let me turn the coin around.

The people who insist that follow-backs are somehow a responsibility are wrong. They’re wrong for a variety of reasons, depending on their points of view, but they’re wrong, and they’re damaging the very community they claim to be a part of, and here’s why.

Some of them claim that it helps promote a sense of community and discussion. That if we follow each other we can have dialogue and enrich each other. Except that’s BS, for the reason I mentioned above – replies. If I follow you, I can see what you have to say. You don’t see me by default, but if I reply to you, it does show up in your stream. If I try to start or participate in a conversation, you will see it unless you go out of your way to ignore it. Discussion and conversation can happen even if actual following is unidirectional, so this argument goes out the window.

Some people claim that it’s only fair – that the least you could do is follow me back, the least I can do is be as interested in you as you are in me. But that doesn’t make any sense in any context. We saw how that might not make sense in the radio station example, but let’s look at another example – the club. Let’s say I’m in the club (I’m not) and I see a girl I think is cute. I’m interested in her, so I go up and tell her ‘Hi, I’d like to converse and/or have sex with you.’ What should her reaction be? Well, I’m flirting with her, the least she could do is flirt with me, right?

Well, maybe she has a boyfriend. Maybe she’s a lesbian. Maybe she’s a nun. Maybe she thinks I look/smell/sound offensive. Maybe she’s got any one of a thousand other reasons for not being interested in me, but all I need to – or deserve to – know is that she’s not. If she shuts me down (and means it, i.e. she’s not just playing hard-to-get), I don’t have any rights to draw upon. I’ll leave her be.

Just because I’m interested in her doesn’t mean she has to be (or pretend to be) interested in me, or put up with me. Interest is not a two-way street, and that goes for clubs, radios, or Twitter.

I have an opinion about these people, and it’s not a pretty one. If you’re easily offended, then you’re on the wrong blog, but if so, you may want to stop reading now – especially if you are one of these people.

You see, these people are insecure. They want validation. They want self-gratification. They want followers. They want people following them because it gives meaning to them, it tells them they’re interesting and awesome. It’s a quantifiable measurement of how great they can tell themselves they are. They follow you not because you’re interesting to them, but because they need desperately to believe that they’re interesting to you – and everyone else. And if you don’t follow them back? They unfollow you.

You see, they didn’t need you after all. You’re probably a jerk, or a bitch. That girl in the club that shut them down, or the cool kid in high school who talked down to them. If you ignore them, you deny them their validation, and so they reject you. There are lots of people who are interested in them anyway, and as soon as they find them and follow them, they’ll have all the friends they ever wanted.

It’s a common approach. Imagine if ten percent of all Twitter users followed-back within a week. All I would have to do is follow as many of them as I could, and then after a week, unfollow any who hadn’t reciprocated. If I did that to Kevin Rose, I’d have 8100 followers.

You might say I’m being harsh, but it seems fairly straightforward to me. Now, it’s very important not to rush to judgement on this – there is a perfectly reasonable explanation on why someone would follow you, then stop following you a week later, namely that you weren’t that interesting after all, or were too chatty, or a variety of similar reasons. Just because someone follows then unfollows you doesn’t mean they’re a follow-back whore, it might just mean that you weren’t a good match for them.

The people that are, however, strike me as sad, pathetic individuals. They follow people because they want attention, gratification, and when they don’t get it, they get upset, hurt. Don’t get me wrong, I want gratification too, and I want attention – most people do – but I want it for the right reasons. I don’t want to whore for attention, I want to earn it by being interesting. I don’t want to whore for gratification, I want to earn it by doing things I’m proud of.

These people cheapen the Twitter experience by turning it into a way for them to satisfy their insecurities, arguing that they deserve attention simply because they want it. Sorry folks, but this post is the only attention you’re going to get from me, and I don’t think it’s the attention you wanted.