PoliTwits
Politicians often make the worst twitterers.
How do I define a bad person to follow on Twitter? Someone who tweets the painfully mundane without even bothering to make it witty, amusing, or informative. For example tweets about getting a haircut, driving home, what part of your body aches, what you’re drinking…I don’t care where you are unless it’s a public event, funny, or in some way informative.
I care about issues and if there’s nothing issue-related going on then put the blackberry down unless you have something amusing to say.
Sadly I think politicians are used to the idea that any exposure that isn’t negative is therefore positive – this is not so. The painfully mundane is not positive.
Politicians should be made to follow Wil Wheaton on Twitter for a month before being allowed to tweet. I joined Twitter in October to follow and support a local political hopeful. I didn’t start tweeting in earnest (i.e. more than 1 tweet per day) until February. I took the time to look around, figure out how stuff worked, but most of all discover what I found interesting and made me want to check the site and follow specific people. I learned what worked for me and what didn’t, for example…
Wil Wheaton made the mundane fascinating.
John Hodgman made the mundane incomprehensible.
Levar Burton mostly self-promoted in a geographically constricted area I was not in.
Brent Spiner either had his entire life turned upside down or decided to write a romance-detective novel in tweets.
Al Gore rarely tweeted but when he did it was mostly just links to dense material.
Rock Band DLC told me about upcoming downloads in case I forgot to check the forums.
My girlfriend’s mom was a voracious twitterer but it was almost entirely specific responses to other people and it quickly got to be too much to process – I lasted about a day before overload set in.
Rachel Maddow made the odd witty observation or humourous link but her Guest List account quickly bored and annoyed me.
The Save Chuck accounts helped me get organized to help out to save the show but once that was accomplished they became repetitive – when you’re not trying to save the show Zachary Levi is enough to follow.
Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode keep me up to date with 2 of my favorite bands and the odd political issue.
Kevin Pollack spent most of his tweets self-promoting.
I’m judicious in who I follow – bore or annoy me for long enough and I’ll unfollow you. I think this process made me figure out what was good and bad about Twitter and hopefully I strike an amusing and relevant balance in my tweets. Here’s a couple examples of what I thought were amusing tweets on my part “Just got in from watering the dog”, “Fixed my PDA without the need of new hardware or software but now the battery’s at 5%…kinda feels like the end of Short Circuit 2”, and “The sky is very blue today. Almost creepy blue, not even a hint of pollution. I think it might even be 1080p.” Informative tweets of mine look something like this: “I think I found out why we’re seeing Conservative-run attack ads: http://bit.ly/p1gE6”, “Sad but true RT @makeitseven A frank look at why Winnipeg would have issues supporting an NHL team: http://is.gd/CYCy”, and “Linger coming out on Rock Band DLC next week…might have to dust off the ol’ drums…”
So in conclusion if you’re a politician people aren’t following you because they desperately want to know where you’re sitting or what you had for lunch – people are looking for information, opinion, context, and amusement. Tell me more about Bill C-25 or EI reform, don’t tell me about your apartment, your sleeping habits, or how you travel unless it includes information, opinion, or amusement – these really should be the fundamental rules of whether or not to tweet something that just came into your head.
