by admin | Aug 10, 2015 | Fun, Rant, Stuff I Did |
How Not To Use Your Twitter Business Account…
Not too long ago, the Twitter account for The Walking Dead tweeted out a major spoiler after the mid-season finale aired on the East Coast. A great many people including myself were pissed off by this. However, there were a lot of people that had no problem with the spoiler. I’m guessing their logic is, “Fuck everyone else, I already saw it!”
Here’s the thing, they learned from their mistake and promised not to do that again. But, was it really a mistake? It happens all the time, specially in sports. In fact it just happened to me again, this time with the Hall of Fame Game. I was about 30 minutes behind everyone else watching it live. I prefer to watch TV from the DVR so I can skip the commercials. I try hard to avoid social media at times like this because I know some fucking idiot is going to post a spoiler. However, sometimes, it’s just unavoidable. Some times I have to jump online for a second and check a social media account for something completely unrelated. Never fails, someone has posted a spoiler to whatever it is I was watching. It is so damn frustrating.
So, now that game or show is ruined because some fucknut network person had to tweet the ending! But, should the networks do that? A lot of people think they should, they have that “fuck you” attitude for not watching it live. I tend to disregard those people because their fucking stupid or at the very least shallow. But, the networks, when they tweet out the spoilers, they aren’t doing anyone, any favors at all. In fact, they’re actually hurting themselves by doing it. So, in my opinion, no they shouldn’t tweet out the spoilers directly.
When a network or the like, posts these kinds of things, they show that they have a really poor concept of what their social media accounts are for. TV and sports is a business. They worst thing they can do is tweet out a spoiler. The reason why is simple. They don’t make any money by giving away that information on Twitter.
Let me explain. Let’s say, I’m a football fan and I’m watching the first game of the pre-season on the NFL Network. For whatever unrelated reason I have to check my twitter feed. I open up Twitter and there it is, the score to the game I’m watching on my DVR. Well, as a customer, I’ve now learned that I can’t follow the NFL Network on Twitter because they’re going to ruin every game like that. If I can’t follow them, I don’t see all of their other tweets. Now, they no longer have a chance to make any money from me.
The solution to this makes every happen and it’s better for their business. All they have to do is post a link to their site. A simple tweet like, “You won’t believe who won? Click Here to see!” Anyone that wants to know can click and see it. Anyone that doesn’t want to know is safe. They have kept me as a follower and more than that they got everyone that wanted to know the score to visit their site, and what is their site filled with besides the score? Advertising! It doesn’t matter how many followers you have on social media, if you can’t get them to you website, you’re wasting your time on social media.
So yes, I get it when someone jumps into the conversation saying the obvious. it just pisses me off. I fucking know I can avoid social media and maybe not have the game or TV show I’m watching ruined. My point is bigger than that. My frustration is at the idiots who are running a business account on Twitter and failing at it because they don’t understand how to effectively use their Twitter account. And, I can’t help but get angry at the people who jump into a conversation that I have specifically directed at a person or business. Then to top it all of their response is doesn’t solve the problem at all. They offer up a smart ass answer. It’s pathetic.
There are probably thousands of people that didn’t appreciate having the game spoiled by the NFL Network and they didn’t say anything because maybe they felt it’s their fault for being on social media. It’s not their fault. It’s not my fault I had to jump on to social media. It’s the fault of the network or business for being clueless as to how to run a successful social medial campaign for a business.
by admin | Mar 17, 2015 | Fun, 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.
by admin | Feb 15, 2012 | Rant |
So I am enjoying my morning porcelain thrown time and as usually checking out my CNN App. I read an article titled, “Chris Brown appearance creates tweet storm“. I click on it because I think Chris is a douche. I don’t think he should have been allowed back to the Grammy’s so soon. At least not until he is off probation for beating the shit out of Rihanna. My hope, as I clicked the link, was that a great many tweeters? Twits? Whatever. My hope was that people were outraged by his performance.
Nope as it turns it, the article is about some girl who made a joke. Really? Our lives
have become easy and simple that all people have to protest about now is a fucking joke? This is the big moral problem? It was joke? That’s all. Sure it was in bad taste, that’s what makes it funnier to some people. And, what was this girls big joke? Did she make a joke threatening to kill Chris? Did she make a joke threatening to kill Rihanna? Did she make a joke about both and throw in wanting to kick puppies? Nope, she just said, “I’d let Chris Brown beat me any time.” I get it, it was cute, it was a little funny. It was a joke. If you don’t like it, don’t fucking laugh at it. But for gods’ sake don’t bitch slap the women telling it.
I am reminded of a time several years ago. My mother had this Toyota Rav4. It was really old. The rear door was actually a door and not a tailgate and window. So it opened out like a door and the little min-hydraulics that should hold it open had long since stopped working. In Southern California, in the small city of Rialto when it gets windy, it’s no joke. My mother had just been shopping and was bringing in the groceries. She opened the back door of the Rav4 and started to grab some bags. The wind blows, the door sings shut and slams into her eye. She gets this horrible bruise.
I get a call from mother telling me about it and how now my father doesn’t want to go anywhere with her until it heals so people don’t think he’s beating her. I explain that I don’t blame him and we laugh about it.
A few days later my mom calls again, she wants to go shopping, I need to pick up some things so I think, cool, I will go with her. I drive over to her house and pick her up. As soon as she walks out of the house I see that black eye. I think shit! Now everyone is going to think I beat her!
Sure enough everyone is looking at me as I walk with my mother through the store. By the time we get to the checkout stand I can’t stand it any longer. I had asked her a question, I don’t recall what it was. Something like, “Didn’t you get chips?” She nods her head “No” and I shout back, “Women! Don’t make me tell you again!” We both just start laughing and I am sure everyone else had no idea what just happened. But, we just laughed and laughed. it was a joke. We weren’t condoning anything, it was just a joke. It wasn’t a comment on society or a support of violence against women.
Some jokes are just so wrong they are funny. I believe there is a fine line between what is funny and what is not. However, I don’t think anyone person should be left as judge, jury and joke police. There are a lot of people in this world that I don’t think are funny.
Few comedians were as bad as one of my all time favorites, Sam Kinison. For Christmas one year I got this Sam Kinison DVD set. It had three of his biggest stand up events. A ton of special features by family and friends. At the time I had gotten this, it had been about six months since I had a break up with women that I loved dearly. She broke my heart, cheated on me, was an alcoholic and she was married. The relationship was doomed from the start. But, you can’t help who you love. I hadn’t smiled much in that six months since I left her. But, that Christmas Eve, I got home and put on that DVD. His first special, the best one. I hadn’t heard it in years and I never laughed so hard in my life. It was such a release. His comedy was so wrong but damn it, he was funny. I was in tears laughing so hard.
The other two stand up specials on the disks weren’t that funny to me. Even with my anything goes sense of humor, I found it to be not so much funny as just mean spirited. That kinda humor, I don’t like. I am not sure what makes one joke about some kinda abuse funny and another mean spirited. So, for me, I don’t analyze it much. I personally feel the intent behind a joke is what makes it funny. It can be “racist” or “sexist” as long as the intent behind it I feel isn’t racist or mean spirited. For example, one of my favorite jokes is about Helen Keller. “Why couldn’t Helen Keller Drive? Because she’s a woman!” Now, I think women can drive just fine. But, there is a stereo-type about them being bad drivers. I get it! Now, that same joke could be told by someone who really believes all women are bad drivers. Someone who really hates women, he could tell the joke and it changes the whole thing. It would go from being funny and absurd to not so much a joke but a social commentary on a woman’s ability to drive.
So for the most part, I don’t try to over analyze jokes, if it makes me laugh than it’s funny, if it doesn’t than it’s not. However, if I don’t laugh at it, I don’t go shouting to the world about how said comedian isn’t funny and mean spirited.
I just find it sad that in this day and age the best some idiots can come up with is to use a joke to bring attention to their cause. Shame on them. Their actions are disgusting. There’s a difference between telling a joke about domestic violence and actually beating the shit out of a women. And, if you’re too stupid to see that, then obviously you’ve never had the shit beat out of you by some dude. Or, you have, and in that case, you really are an idiot because you actually think a bad joke is just as bad as domestic violence.
The point to all of this is that for the most part, a joke is
just a joke. It’s the wrongness of jokes that usually makes them funny. When “Henny” Youngman joked, “Take my wife, PLEASE!” It was just a joke, he really didn’t want you to take his wife. He loved his wife and they stayed married till her death. When Ralph Kramden joked, “To the Moon Alice!” He wasn’t really going to beat his wife. It was just a joke by a fictional character on an old TV show. These are
classics of comedy here and what Sarah did is no different! So get off her back you moronic, hypocritical idiots!
Most of you are nothing but attention whores and I refer specifically to Dana Edell, the Executive Director of SPARK and Jennifer Pozner the director of the media analysis group, Women in Media &
News. Your comments on the topic are shallow and self-serving. You should however be proud of your attention whore status. I guess if a man abuses a women mentally or physically it’s a problem. But, when you two attacked Sarah and the others who made similar comments, it’s all good. You’re hypocrites and so much worse than just a bad joke, because you actually meant the shit you said.
