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This Is Why I Suck At Twitter, A Rant

This Is Why I Suck At Twitter, A Rant

I avoided twitter for the longest time.  Why?  There’s a couple of reasons.  First, Twitter for me has always had been pointless.  When it first started it was just a place where everyone posted, “On my way to the store”, “Just sat down to watch a movie” and so on.  It was just boring and useless. Also, because I like to rant about stuff. You simply can’t effectively rant on Twitter.  140 Characters at a time isn’t much a rant and people that know me know very well that I can turn a simple subject into a three page rant at the drop of a hat.  I began to love Facebook because I rant.  If something pissed me off I could tear into the subject.  When someone posted something completely false, I could point out the actual truth.

However, I have learned that nobody really seams to give a shit about the truth.  I have friends on Facebook that will continue to post the most outrageous lies because some right-wing nutbag page said it’s true. The same goes with the liberal pages, they can be just as guilty of spreading misleading information as well.  Both of them posting their dire headlines aimed to spread fear.  I found myself correcting the errors not because I am an asshole and want to prove I’m right but because I see no one else doing it.  It didn’t matter if it was politics or a picture of a sic little boy that needs “Likes” to get treatment.  Even missing children posts would drive me up the wall because almost every time it’s not a missing kid.  Sometimes, it’s a kid that has died and these idiots are sharing the photo in an attempt to help with absolutely no clue as to the pain they are causing the friends and family.

Time after time, these same people keep posting this crap over and over again.  I mean, you have got to know by now that Bill Gates isn’t going to give you money because you shared a post.  Jesus isn’t going to save a dying child because their photo gets enough likes. It has just become too hard to keep up with people that have such a disregard for facts let alone common sense.  So why do I follow them?  Well, just because they can’t seem to determine fantasy from reality or fact from opinion, some of them I know in real life and they have other attributes I do respect.  Thay are basically good people but should absolutely not be allowed to surf the internet unsupervised because they can’t seem to ever understand that just because they want something to be true doesn’t mean that is, in fact true.

So I decided to work with Twitter more but I am sucking at it so bad.  I see people go from having only a few friends to thousands in a matter of a few days or weeks.  I would love to have thousands of followers.  But, I don’t want those thousands of followers to be all of the same thousands of people that I am following.  To me that is pointless.  I want a wide variety of info in my feed.  And, if we’re all just sharing the same information than what is the point?  I have already followed several people that don’t interest me, only because I felt it only fair to follow them for following me.  I have since stopped doing that

If someone follows me, the first thing I do is go to their feed and scroll their tweets.  Are they offensive in a way I don’t appreciate?  (Sometimes being offensive is a good thing) Do they sound like an idiot?  If so, I don’t follow them.  On the other had let’s say they’re in a band that plays a type of music I don’t really care.  I might still follow them if I feel that they might have something interesting to say.  Maybe I might like the music and when I have time I will check it out.  Same goes for authors or filmmakers.  I do believe that everyone is capable of having something important or interesting to say.  It’s why I scroll their feed before making a decision on whether or not to follow them.

So why do I suck at twitter?  It’s been about a month and a half since I gradually started taking Twitter seriously.  I’ve gone from about 100 followers to almost 500.  And, I have some amazing followers I must say.  But, as much as would love a huge following.  It seems that some people only follow people so that they will get followed back or worse, in the hopes that the person following them will re-tweet the stuff they say.  I Just want no part of that.

I want people to follow me because they think that I post interesting things.  I try to post things that I like, things I found interesting, fascinating funny, news worthy.  I don’t ever post things I don’t find interesting on some level.  I don’t just post links with incredible headlines to get you to read my blog.  Yes, I see the irony of this as if you’re reading this it’s because you probably followed a link to my blog.  But, my point is that it’s not all that I post on Twitter.  The vast majority of things I post are re-tweets or a link to something I found on the internet that I found worth taking a look at.

I have found this to be a terribly ineffective way to gain followers for some reason.  Right now there are a couple of “people” that follow me and that I follow, who do nothing but post links to the types of blogs I mentioned above.  They promote these blogs and almost every story I have gone to read makes no mention of where they got their information.  One of them was so bad the other day I had to correct them in a re-tweet, just giving them the heads up that their information was completely incorrect.  No response.  So, once I again, I am finding that it just seems as if when it comes to social media, most people simply don’t give a shit about the truth.  I want to follow people that I think do care about what they post.  That care more about sharing something about themselves than promoting something to sell.  As for me I am far more likely to buy something if I like the person selling it than just being told go go buy something.

I just want my posts to mean something.  I am not saying that I want every post to be news worthy and science based.  I just want to make posts that are at least interesting on some level, funny, scary, informative or silly.  It might be a cool tutorial I just saw on YouTube on how to nail wood to cement or a movie trailer for something I want to see or have seen.  It could be the latest episode of Simon’s Cat.  I want my feed to be interesting and real.  I think it is, I follow people from the horror genre to news outlets.  Celebrities and science figures to porn stars and rock stars.  So if I re-tweet something it’s coming from a place true sincerity.  I don’t re-tweet things as part of some deal to get a person to follow me.  I actually care about what I tweet.  I figure if someone was nice enough to follow me, the least I could do is post things I enjoy rather than just posting or re-tweeting things that are nothing more than creative spam.

I think this is why I why I suck at it.  It care about what stuff I pass along to people.  I am not some stereo-typical Twitter person that only cares about how many followers they have.  I don’t follow people hoping that they will follow me back.  I follow people because I want to hear what they have to say not for what I think they can do for me.  I follow some folks and all they seem to do is push their latest book or album and it bothers me a little and I will probably stop following them soon.  Not because I didn’t like their book but because, I don’t need to spammed with every tweet about whatever they selling in every single tweet.  I want to know what they think, what kind of sense of humor do they have?  Why did they write that book?  Why do they write romance instead of mysteries?  I want a peek behind the curtain.  These are things that interest me.  I don’t mind the occasional spam but a little depth in some form would be great.

Am I wrong here?  Am I expecting too much from people?  I don’t know.  What I do know for sure is that I suck at Twitter.  I have made posts I thought were fascinating or things I thought were so damn funny and I get nothing.  Not even a simply “Favorite”.  So either my tweets are far less interesting and fun than I think or I’m just over thinking it all.  Probably both.  But, either way I guess it doesn’t really matter.  I have to believe in what I re-tweet so I suppose that I will keep sucking at Twitter, I’m good at sucking at Twitter so why change now? Maybe there are others out there who will appreciate my suckage at Twitter and want to follow me for it.  For that reason I am going to use this selfie with some pretty strong reasons to follow me on.

 Reasons To Follow Me On Twitter

 

 

 

I Lost A Friend On Facebook Today Over Polotics!

I Lost A Friend On Facebook Today Over Polotics!

Losing A Friend On FaceBook Makes Me Sad!Yes it’s a sad, sad day on Facebook for me.  As anyone on Facebook knows it’s election time and some of us have strong opinions as to whom we should all vote for.  People posting crap on both sides of the party lines.  I try to be tolerant of it seeing as I have made my share of political posts.

Here’s the thing about me though.  I don’t really care about politics.  I don’t really care who you want to vote for.  What fascinates is why you want to vote for them.  What I have found in the last election and now this one with Romney is that the people voting for him are the most uninformed shallow damn people ever!  Now I am not saying that all of them are.  Just the ones I have attempted to debate.

I am finding that they are being lied to and they completely believe the lies.  They believe them with a passion I find amazing.  No matter what proof you provide for them, it doesn’t matter.  No matter what the source their only comeback is “the liberal media”.

The other day I pointed out an error to a republican in his thinking.  He didn’t believe me.  I showed him printed proof from factcheck.org.  He still didn’t believe me.  Then today he’s rambling on about another lie.  Well it was more of a half truth.  It was one of those misleading statements people use when the facts don’t back them up so they take a quote or an action out of context and try to use that as proof.  So I tell him that he is wrong and that his facts are misguided.  What does he do?  He links me to factcheck.org to prove his point.

Really?  Now this place is ok because it backs up what you’re saying?  Could you be any more hypocritical?  And, the sad part was that factcheck.org didn’t really back up what he was saying at all.

As former Republican, the majority of my life I proudly belonged to that party.  I tend to see things from the outside looking in.  I am now a registered Independent.  I am not a Democrat and thus not a liberal.  I see the republican party leading by fear and lies.  At the last election they were trying to say that Obama was really a Muslim and not a natural born citizen. Both arguments were so incredibly stupid and both based on lies the Republican party spread.  I was again sickened by my former party.  Now, you don’t see anyone arguing those issues any more accept the extremely shallow and stupid.   The party has moved on from that because well, no Muslim would have found and killed Osama.  And, as for the birth certificate, well that was just stupid to begin with.  I mean his certificate was on his website pretty much the whole time, it was an official copy, there really was no question.  And, when the extreme stupid still didn’t give up, he released the long form.

So those issues are now dead.  What are they coming up with now?  It’s the economy.  Finally they are fighting with something worthwhile.  It’s almost encouraging.  It’s one of the main things any election should be about.  The Republicans I thought were starting to get it right again.  Nope!  In their fight to scare people again they have done nothing but lie about the economy.  The sad part is that there is no need to lie about it.  The economy is shit!  Why lie?!  Just tell the truth about it!

Well, I guess it’s because they can’t really tell the truth about it because for as bad as it is, it’s so much better than it was before Obama took office.  These are facts that cannot be denied.  The only thing that is worse now than it was then is the unemployment rate.  That’s it.  The housing market is better.  The auto industry is doing better, a lot better.  The stock market is doing better.  But, that damn unemployment rate.  Oh but wait, it’s been getting better to and has been for well over a year!  Well, shit!

Anyways so when I hear someone support a bigot like Romney I just want to scream, “Are you fucking stupid?”  Did you not learn anything from the last 8 years of Bush Jr.?  But, I try to calm myself and let it go.  And, if I see a picture or an article that speaks the truth about Romney I will throw it my timeline in the hopes that some of the smarter Republicans will read it, fact check it, and see for themselves what an asshole, lying sac of shit this guy is.

So the other day a new friend of mine on Facebook (but someone I knew of in High School) was again posting non-stop Romney bullshit.  Now I will admit that I didn’t fact every damn thing he posted.  If I did I wouldn’t have time to work.  But, the stuff that I did fact check, guess what, all lies! Well on this day he posted a clip to that stupid so called documentary about Obama.  Now look I don’t have to see it to know that it’s all bullshit.  I will watch it when it comes out on DVD just to prove myself right.  But, here’s the thing.  It was made a republican who has a long time beef with Obama.  How fair is it going to be?  About as fair a Michael Moore film.  So I responded to his post with a “Do you really believe that crap?”

My new friend Darmon responded with as I recall, “Yes, I read Obama’s book ‘Dreams from My Father’ and I just don’t like what I saw.

Ok, I haven’t read that book.  But I am impressed.  Looks like Darmon likes to read.  This is a sign of intelligence.  But, what I don’t get is how can he can vote for a bigot and a liar.  So I ask him that.  He respond to this aggressively by insinuating that I am a liberal and that I am not going to change his mind.

Well I was little offended by his harsh tone.  After all I was just asking questions.  I wasn’t trying to be mean.  So, I took my time with my next post.  It became a lengthy reply.  (I will post it here at the end of this rant.)  I tried to explain where I was coming from, why I felt the way that I did.  This was Thursday or Friday of last week.  I hadn’t heard back from him.  I had looked forward to his response.  I thought I brought up some valid points.  Maybe I came across as too harsh?  I don’t know.

Today I am posting on another friends page where another pro Romney person is spouting bullshit and I basically tell the friend that he is arguing and it’s a waste of time.  You can’t argue with stupid.  Nothing you say or do to some people is ever going to change their minds.  It was reminding of my conversation with Darmon. So I thought I would post a link to the page of comments.  But, I can’t find the link?  He killed it.  No debate, no screw you.  Just a simple delete.  I was so disappointed.  Part of me is actually sad he deleted me from his friends list. But, there’s another part that thinks, what a coward.

As I said, I don’t care who you vote for.  But, if you’re going to vote for someone, at least do it because you’ve taken some time to look at the facts.  And, by that I don’t mean just reading your regular news sources.  Check out some of the places you don’t normally read as well. Inform yourself, open your mind.

For example, a friend on my list posts a lot of liberal stuff. Some of it is true, some of it is not.  In one instance she had posted a link to an article that was bashing Paul Ryan the Republican VP candidate.  I don’t recall the actual article but it had something to do with “Paul Ryan says that Rape is a legitimate way to get pregnant.”  Something like that.  A real crazy statement for sure.  So I stop what I am doing to watch the video.  I mean if he really did say it then I need to re-post it and people need to hear this.  I watch the dumb video and I don’t hear him say that?  So I watch the stupid video again.  I mean I disagreed with what he was saying but he never says what was claimed that he said.  What he did say, in a poorly worded way, was that no matter how you get pregnant.  It doesn’t change anything for the baby, it’s still innocent.

Like I said, I don’t care who you vote for really.  Just make an informed decision.  When someone posts some bullshit liberal photo bashing Romney or some bullshit photo bashing Obama, look it up?  Do a Google search.  Chances are you find you will find that there’s some truth to it.  But, that it’s totally misleading.  In my searches I have found almost every single Pro Romney comment to be either completely misleading or factually wrong, a complete lie.

An example of this was a photo posted last night by a very sweet friend who is sadly a Romney supporter.  I think she’s a total sweetheart and like with most my friends I try to just ignore their anti-Obama shit, because it’s just so stupid, I don’t have the time educate everyone one of them.  I can only hope that some of them will read my posts when I do comment and see that I am not biased, I am always fair in my opinions and if I post a picture or statement bashing Romney you can damn well bet that I have already looked it up and found it to be true.  I do not pass along lies, ever!

Anyways, she posts this photo and I fly off the handle.  How completely outrageous the photo was.  YouRepublican Lies About The First Lady cannot look at the photo and not suddenly be disappointed in our First Lady Michelle Obama.  The photo I plan to post but in case I forget, shows a picture of the first lady and her smiling as the text reads that she spent 10 million dollars of tax payers money on vacation.

Who wouldn’t be offended at that?  Ok, but here’s the thing.  Every President takes vacations. Some more than others.  I explained this very harshly in a response to that stupid photo.  In a nut shell I said that Obama has taken 61 days of vacation at this point in time.  (Actually now it’s like 78) but at the time of posting the article I had read was from several months ago.)  At the same time in Bush’s Presidency he had taken 180 vacations days.  In fact, he was vacationing during the first 5 days of Katrina.  If you remember, he was laughing and joking and playing guitar while Katrina flooded three states and killed hundreds.   One of the worst natural disasters in US history and Bush did nothing for 5 days.

I have no problems with the president taking vacations.  Take a lot of them, I don’t mind paying the bill.  But let’s get this straight.  We only pay for transportation and security.  We’re not buying them dinner and paying for haircuts. Well, unless you’re Bush Jr.  I do believe we paid for a hair cut while on vacation but I could be wrong.  But, honestly, who gives a shit.  It’s the President it’s not like he can just load up the family in the station wagon and head to the local Motel 8.  He’s the President of the United States! He has to be protected.  It’s not cheap.  So if you’re gonna bash Obama’s wife of all things implying that she’s spending all the money.  Get your facts straight.  Bush Jr.  Spent almost 3 times as many days on vacation.  Do the math yourself and you’ll find that Obama’s 10 million is fucking bargain!

Now, I’ve ranted a lot here.  But, let me get to the most important part of my rant.  If you still want to vote for Romney, go ahead!  Vote for a bigot I don’t really care. Sure I will be disappointed in you and think you’re an idiot.  But, who the hell cares about what I think?  I am certainly not perfect and I certainly don’t want lose you as a friend. When it comes to cars I am a complete idiot! Seriously!  Just because we have different political views doesn’t mean that I don’t like you.  Most of us are more than just a political view.  Well Accept for Darmon.  I am looking at his page right now and he apparently has no life.  Every single post is slamming liberals and almost every single post is either misleading or a complete lie.  But, the rest of my friends, you post the best stuff.  Some of you post how you’re diet is going.  Some of you post random thoughts of life and love. I love spending my mornings reading all your posts.

So here we go, this was my response to Darmon three or four sentences in which he implied I was a liberal and that I was not going to change his mind.  Keep in mind, he never responded to this.  My guess is, he is full of shit.  He can post all the lies and half-truths he wants but throw real facts in his face and he can’t defend himself.  He un-friends me without so much as a word.  That is a true coward in my opinion and someone not to be trusted or relied upon.

My Response to Darmon:

“I am just saying that actions speak louder than words.  I was a republican all the way until Bush Jr’s second term.  By then I just couldn’t justify his stupidity any more.  I am not a democrat and never will be.  I am not a liberal.  I am just waiting for the Republican party to stop leading with fear and lies.

I am not a huge Obama fan.  But looking at things objectively, between Romney and Obama, Obama is the only logical choice.  Mitt has lied constantly during his campaign, about what he believes and about what Obama has done.  For example, Mitt was supportive gay marriage.  Now he is not.  He was either lying then or he’s lying now.  So if he was lying back then, he is a liar and a bigot.  If he is lying now, he’s just a liar acting like a bigot.  His healthcare reform was almost identical to Obama’s.  Now he’s totally against it and wants to repeal it.

He won’t release specific details on his plans for budget but from the details he has released the average person’s taxes will go up by at least 2k a year.  The average person pays between 25 and 30 percent in taxes, he paid 13 and refuses to release his previous tax returns like just about every other person running for president in history.   Even his father who ran in ’68 released his tax returns for 12 years!  Stating that releasing just one year could be an anomaly.   No one has tried to hide his past more than Romney.

He promises to create jobs and will not say how he plans to do it.  Judging by his past, we’re talking about a man whose business ethic is one of the reasons this country fell into a recession at the end Bush’s second term.  He bought companies and liquidated them.  He’s cost the American people hundreds if not thousands of jobs, not to mention all the jobs he created in China.  I haven’t researched the actual numbers yet.  By that I mean, real numbers…  He fired “x” amount of people by closing plants and businesses.  He sent “x” amount of jobs to china / other countries.

Obama on the other hand, was handed the worst economy since the great depression.  He was also left with two wars to deal with and has been treated with more disrespect than other president in history.  And through it all it all, he managed to end the war in Iraq, he’s saved the American auto industry. Oh ya, that’s another thing, Romney first said he was against the bailout but now says he would have done the same thing and is trying to take credit for it.

Obama also did something the republicans couldn’t do in 7 years, he tracked down and killed Osama.  Well, that’s not completely true.  The republicans, Bush, tracked him down at least once and instead of capturing or killing him, they decided to let the Afghan military go in and get him, big surprise Osama gets away!  Why would Bush allow that to happen?  Either he really is the biggest idiot of all time or he knew that in order to win the election again he’d need to keep the fear alive.  And capturing and killing Osama in the eyes of many would mean that the wars are over.  No more wars, no more money, no more fear, no more Bush.

Any one thing Obama did in his term would have been flat out amazing and worthy or re-election but what he did against overwhelming odds I have never seen another President in my lifetime accomplish as much. And…  He did it all by spending less than other president in history!  Hard to believe because the republicans have been telling us since his first term that he has outspent every other president.  And, guess what, it isn’t true it was just more shit they made up!

I would love to sit here and bash him Obama.  I would love to make excuses because of shit I read in book that has no bearing on his presidency. I would love to use the old excuses that it’s all the liberal media!  Liberal this and that.  But, actions speak louder than words and I have to give credit where credit is due and what Obama has done is literally amazing.

Now you can continue to suggest that I am some liberal when I am not.   You can say I am intolerant and that I somehow I berated you?  When all I did was ask why you’d rather vote for a liar and bigot.  I am sorry my friend but it is obviously you that are intolerant.  And, this isn’t about backing down.  I am not asking you to back down.  I am not asking you to change your mind.  It’s just that every pro Romney person I’ve talked has been wildly misinformed about the facts.  It just seems to me that the republican party wants to believe what it wants to believe regardless of the facts.  And, when the facts don’t work out for them, they just completely make shit up.  If you want more examples of all the things the republicans just made up about Obama let me know.

If I offended you because I am brutally honest, I am sorry.  I do not believe I berated you or that I was intolerant of you.  What I am intolerant of is a man running for president that is an admitted bigot.  I can even handle the lying part because we all know that you can’t be a politician and not lie a little.   But, come one man!  There’s a difference between the lies the parties are telling.  I don’t care if Obama says it or Romney says it. I always fact check it.  It’s just how I am.  I don’t believe anything anyone says until I can verify it and I just haven’t seen Obama lie in blatantly misleading way yet.  And, yet every time I fact check Romney, he has either flat out lied or completely mislead the people.”