Anil Dash: Being on Twitter's "suggested user" list is not magic fairy dust

Anil Dash was recently surprised to find himself added to Twitter's coveted "suggested user list," which is widely considered to be a fast route to fame, followers, and whatever riches fame and followers bring. Anil posted a sober analysis of what that anointment really brought him, and today an equally thoughtful update: Nobody Has A Million Twitter Followers.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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The Snowden Principle

Ian70

Goodness, the guy has the balls to imply that Twitter is actually not so much of a big deal? but it’s so easy to talk about! Plus there’s a number that everybody has and if my number is bigger than your number that means I’m more special than you.

He’s right. Twitter still has a whole lot of users and a whole lot of unimportance. It’s a handy tool to tell people what you’re doing, and it’s got precious little use other than that.
_OM_

“Once in a while, I get confused replies from people asking who the hell I am, but for the most part they don’t interact with me at all. The replies, retweets and conversations that happen for me on Twitter have the same frequency and volume that they would have had if I’d never been added to the list. I’m sure celebrities (whether on the suggested user list or not) get a disproportionately high number of people trying to catch their attention, but for a normal person, being on the list just adds followers, not real connections.”

…The reason you’re not getting more people replying is that more and more people are aware that most Big Name Twitterers/Tweeters/Twits are just there to hype themselves, and almost *never* reply to those following their tweets. It’s so much of a given that you’ll never get a reply from that movie star or (c)rap “artist” who’s babbling about their latest stunt at the Grammys or the fact that they just farted in the bathtub and claim it didn’t stink, mostly because they are too busy hyping themselves to bother interacting with their followers.

…Probably time to adapt this into a new OM’s Law: “The more Twitter followers you have, the lesser the time you’ll have to read replies, much less respond to them.”