To follow, but never to lead…

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To follow, but never to lead…

By Brian | March 1, 2011 | Share on Facebook

OK, the social media revolution is complete. I joined Twitter.

<rationale>
I’ve been reading too many articles lately in which some newswire is relaying news – typically celebrity news – based on what the celebrity in question has just tweeted. So, I figure, why not use Twitter as the news source it has become? I do not ever intend to tweet (I’m already on Facebook, and I honestly can’t see a reason to be on both, unless I’m caught in a real life, hashtag-worthy event…). Rather, I plan to use Twitter as a kind of “Facebook of the Stars,” in which I can read about what various celebrities are telling the world without having to catch up on them through E! Online or Yahoo! Gossip or some other aggregator that has worked an exclamation point into their name.
</rationale>

So, at the advice of a friend, I googled “Most Twitter Followers,” which led me to this site – a list of the one thousand most popular tweeters. Of the thousand I found there, I “followed” 59 people. Here they are, sorted in order from most followers to least:

1) Lady Gaga	21) Al Yankovic	41) Hugh Jackman
2) Justin Bieber	22) Larry King	42) David Blaine
3) Britney Spears	23) Wil Wheaton	43) Drew Carey
4) Barack Obama	24) Lindsay Lohan	44) Lea Michele
5) Kim Kardashian	25) Penn Jillette	45) Miranda Cosgrove
6) Katy Perry	26) Bill Cosby	46) Craig Ferguson
7) Ellen DeGeneres	27) Dalai Lama	47) John Hodgman
8) Taylor Swift	28) Brent Spiner	48) William Shatner
9) Oprah Winfrey	29) Alyssa Milano	49) Steve Martin
10) Justin Timberlake	30) Kevin Nealon	50) Sarah Palin
11) Ashley Tisdale	31) Nick Swisher	51) Seth Meyers
12) Ryan Seacrest	32) Yoko Ono	52) Tina Fey
13) Paris Hilton	33) Sarah Silverman	53) Roger Ebert
14) Demi Moore	34) Neil Patrick Harris	54) Bill Maher
15) Jimmy Fallon	35) John Cleese	55) Joan Rivers
16) John Legend	36) Dr. Phil	56) Pamela Anderson
17) Al Gore	37) Barbara Walters	57) Miley Cyrus
18) Conan O’Brien	38) WikiLeaks	58) Jessica Simpson
19) Dr. Drew	39) Michael Moore	59) Howard Stern
20) Stephen Colbert	40) Kathy Griffin

In terms of actual entertainment, I am fans of some of these folks and not of others, but they all looked like they might produce interesting tweets, which was my only criteria here (and thus concludes the story of how a Twitter user came to follow both Michael Moore and Sarah Palin on the same day. If only I had a way to share this exciting news with everyone I know. Oh yeah, that’s right: Facebook).

Anyway, first impressions of Twitter as news source:

It works. In the first fifteen minutes, I learned that Ellen Degeneres had sat down with a seven-year old paleontologist, that Justin Bieber has raised over $7 million for a clean water charity by asking his fans to donate to it in honor of his upcoming birthday, that Roger Ebert hated the Oscar telecast, that Kathy Griffin is going to appear on Glee, that Lea Michelle had pasta with Tom Hanks after the Oscars, that Matthew Morrison has a new single out (quick review: Yuck), that Britney Spears has a new single out (quick review: didn’t bother clicking the link), that Barack Obama will work with anybody! ANYBODY! to improve Health Care Reform, and that Seth Myers wrote a clever line about Charlie Sheen (“Post-Oscars, when I say “The King’s Speech,” I’m referring to stuff Charlie Sheen said.”). Not bad as a quick (and mindless) news source.
In the time it took me to read 1,000 names and click on 59 of them, 13 people followed me. One is an “online dog community,” one is extremely profane, one describes herself (forgive me for assuming the gender here) as a “Justin Bieber fan.” All thirteen are total strangers to me and likely not even real people. Regardless, all thirteen will be significantly disapointed when they notice that I never tweet. Not even once just to try it. Ever. Seriously.
Wikileaks releases new, “shocking” information every hour or so. I honestly didn’t realize just how shock-jock they were about their information. I haven’t removed them from the feed yet, but they’re the only ones I’m considering removing at this point.
And finally, I knew right away this was a mad, mad world when I followed President Obama and saw these two things pop up on my screen:

Yeah – this is gonna get weird fast…

Topics: Blogging about Blogs, Movie Talk, Primetime TV, Words about Music | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “To follow, but never to lead…”

Jeff Porten says at March 1st, 2011 at 4:27 am :

You’re missing out if you don’t tweet. The deal with Twitter is that it forms a different community than you have on Facebook. I have a loose work/personal split between my Twitter and Facebook communities, but my suspicion is that even if were a lot of the same people, it would still be different based on the different media.

That said, Facebook is Homecoming, Twitter is a personalized news of the world. Find people whose opinion matters to you, follow them, and then share what comes to mind. @jeffporten when you get around to it. I’ll follow you, if for no other reason than it would be interesting to see how the hell we communicate with each other in 140 character chunks.
Konstantin says at March 1st, 2011 at 11:56 am :

I haven’t accessed my Tweet in over a year I think. Mostly facebook now, including up-to-the-minute updates if need to be.
Brian says at March 1st, 2011 at 1:33 pm :

@Jeff – that’s precisely the point: I don’t want another, different community to follow. I can see how your work is more aligned to a Twitter crowd, whereas Twitter is not permitted for professional communication in my line of work. For me, Facebook is 95% friends, and 5% colleagues who I also consider friends (although I will admit to being careful about what I post to Facebook if I know they’re watching).

Re: “personalized news of the world,” I think we’re saying the same thing (I called it “the news source it has become”), hence my prediction that I will be only a reader and not a tweeter. Who knows, maybe I’ll be proven wrong someday…