Mr. Know-It-All: Nine Signs You Might Be Twitter Trash

When it comes to Twitter, folks are still asking lots of questions: what is Twitter?  What is it’s purpose? Why am I suddenly licking a dumpster in Tijuana for one more tweet?

As Twitter continues to grow, it’s going to keep changing, so it’s not a big surprise that we can’t definitively answer those questions yet.

But, until that faithful day when Twitter finally is an explicable phenomena of the web, we can be certain of one thing: Twitter is bound to attract the sleeze.  And the sleaze, if that’s how you spell it.

That’s right, the electronic equivalent of this guy is one click away from following you:

"Hold on, I see one of them Twitters on my fence. Gotta get my shotgun and nab dinner. Call you back."

Worse yet, if you’re not careful, people might be turning up their noses at your new avatar photo and wondering if you’re tweeting from a toilet on your porch.

And that’s where snobby people like me (here’s what I look like when I talk on the telephone—totally classy), will decide to unfollow you.  Yes, in my attempt to clear out the trash and start enjoying Twitter again, I’ve been cutting followers left and right.  I know it’s having some effect on my Twitter Karma—after all, that’s the name of the program I’m using to do it.  But I don’t care; it’s time to take out the Twitter Trash.

Fortunately, looking like Twitter Trash is easy to fix.  There are a few simple guidelines that will reduce the likelihood of someone unfollowing you—and increase the chances that they’ll find you as interesting and fabulous as you actually are.  I don’t know much about fashion, but I think it’s almost as easy to spot Twitter Trash as it is to spot a naked guy outside on the telephone—so it’s just as easy to avoid looking like trash as it is following it.

Without further ado, here are nine signs that you (or your newest follower) might be Twitter Trash:

Handles:

• Too Many Numbers in Your Handle.  This is perhaps the easiest way to spot the lowest form of Twitter trash—sleazy spammers.  Think twice before signing yourself up under the name “Melons012576,” even if you’re a cantaloupe farmer whose birthday is on January 25.  (Exception: Lauren Piro (@twoshoes5887), a classy Villanova grad who apparently owns over 5,000 pairs of shoes…)
• Attempting Anonymity. Pretending you can remain anonymous in the 21st century is an act of futility—and disingenuous to folks who really want to get to know you—and makes you no better than the anonymous commenters on HoffSpace.  If you’d like to remain anonymous, you probably shouldn’t be on the internet in the first place.
• Proclaiming the Improbable, Impolite, or Politically Incorrect. @I_Hate_You_All seems nice enough, but I’m not sure I would follow her.  And pretending to be a celebrity on a social networking site is so 2007.  And, whenever possible, avoid account names that include the words “genius,” “millionaire,”  “Nazi, ” or “well hung.”  Besides, @WellHung1MGeniusNazi is already taken.

Avatars:

• Animated GIFs. Please, there are undoubtedly a few epileptic tweeps out there—and I don’t want to blog about the world’s first Tweizure. No more flashing, no more boobies bouncing, no more star-wipe.  You’re just as fabulous in stationary form.
• Sexy, Scantily Clad Girls. Another sure-fire sign of Twitter spam.  Yes, where human media goes, so follows pornography. I get it.  But that doesn’t mean that you have to follow suit with an avatar in your bathing suit or worse yet, your birthday suit.  That’s why DM and was created.
• Old White Guys in Suits, Smiling Greedily. Yes, I’m a white guy who will one day be old, and occasionally wears a suit. But something about gleaming white teeth, Grecian Formula hair, Oxford shirts and matching ties screams “Run! It’s a ponzi schemer!”

Tweets:

• Too Much of a Good Thing. I love quirky, relevant, or profound famous quotations—really, who doesn’t? I don’t love logging onto Twitter, looking for a conversation, only to find everyone repeating the words of dead people at a rate of 39 tweets an hour.
• Too Much of a Bad Thing. I’m prone to whining on Twitter, mostly about Twitter.  Raging tweets fueled by insecurity are well, foolish and trashy—just ask Alice Hoffman or Darren Bent. While a little snark goes a long way, however, no one wants to always follow the little black rain cloud all the time.
• Too Little of Anything. Here’s where Alice Hoffman blows it again.  As The Social Writer’s Tim Beyers says, when the embittered author closed her account, she took herself out of the conversation—like throwing her chance for explanation and redemption in the trash.  If you say nothing at all, either because you’re aloof, afraid or apathetic—you’re throwing away the opportunity to be part of a community that could learn from you—and that’s as trashy as it gets.