This may cost me some followers.
There are a lot of posts out there with these types of titles. Usually lists of stupid things people do on Twitter which cause the author to roll their eyeballs and not respond. You’ve seen these kind of posts before. There’s talk of Twitter etiquette and being courteous and not doing anything troll-like because we all know that blog authors are really important entities and are not to be fucked with.
This isn’t one of those kind of articles.
Because of the nature of my Twitter account, I submit a lot of jokes and one-liners. Probably three to five a day. I’m a decent joke writer so most of them hit and I receive a healthy amount of retweets and favorites. Some fall flat like this one that I just fired out while sitting on the toilet. I found it hilarious. Nobody else did.
Usually I get around ten to twenty responses per tweet. These are often attempts to best my own joke. Many times they do. I almost never respond, though.
Am I a colossal dick whose ego is so fragile he can’t accept someone being funnier than himself?
The truth is that I LOVE when a reader outwits me. It’s a highlight of my day. In a mildly-sick way I sort of use it to congratulate myself. I actually think, “I prompted that person to make a funny! I DID THAT.” It’s sort of messed up that I take credit for the genesis of someone else’s genius. I’ll bring it up with a shrink.
Aside from self-congratulation I dig your jokes because I, well, love to laugh. A good one-liner is not easy to craft. I am constantly amazed how many of you are truly funny people. Seriously, it’s inspiring. I can’t tell you how many times someone has written something that kicked me in the ass to produce better quality content. Not that everything I write is funny. But when you let me know that I’m not the most hilarious guy on the block, that drives me to write better stuff.
So, why don’t I reply to your tweets?
Whether this is a good idea or not, I have decided that most of the time I shouldn’t. Let me explain.
A few years ago I had a massive crush (still do) on Adam Carolla newsgirl Alison Rosen. She was relatively new to Twitter and I sent her a few tweets. The first two she didn’t respond to, but then the third one she did. It was a highlight of my online life. I figured we were tight and that this would blossom into a beautiful friendship. It didn’t. In a weird way I was really bummed out. I think I tweeted her a few more times and never heard back.
I’m sure it wasn’t personal. She has 58k Twitter followers. But I did take it personal. Yes, I’m nuts.
I’m coming up on 80k followers and there is one sad downside to having this number. Yes, it’s cool to get all sorts of great responses. As I mentioned earlier, I literally read them all (no foolin’), and more often than not, I laugh like a bastard.
But if I respond to one person somebody writes me a personal message (or in public) with “you never respond to my stuff!” Good point. That would piss me off, too. I’m sure I’ve lost a lot of followers over the years who have written me dozens of jokes and I never wrote back. I know I’ve upset people because they tell me and then I never hear from them again. They’re gone. Can’t blame ’em.
So, I don’t want some people to feel like I only reply to others but not them. The only fair thing I know how to do is to just not respond to anyone. I mean, once in awhile I do. But rarely.
The other piece is I don’t want to clog up my tweet stream with replies. You read my tweets because you dig my humor or whatever. You don’t want to read me saying, “Good one!” fifty times a day.
So, it’s an unfair and shitty policy. In order to protect my precious tweet stream and not to piss everyone off, I don’t respond. In doing so I piss people off who think I’m so high and mighty I don’t reply to their tweets. It sucks and I can own that. I’m sorry.
But here’s what I can and will do – respond to most (if not all) blog comments. Sometimes I fall behind (currently I’m a few hundred comments behind – ugh), but I’m grateful people read these posts, watch my videos, and listen to my podcasts. I owe it to let you know I appreciate your comments. Less than 1% of you comment, so at this point in the blog it’s something I can still do.
I look at Twitter as a never-ending commercial where I broadcast one-liner humor. Here is where I can engage and thank you in person. If you have great Twitter jokes, I hope you keep replying and sending them over. I love it so much. But it’s a selfish love.
Here I will reply to you. Maybe not the same day – but I will. I promise.