Why’d you unfollow me, bro??
I see it all the time. “I lost 19 followers and I know who they are, thanks to http://who.unfollowed.me #whounfollowedme”
I’d like to start by saying that yes, I’m familiar with “Who Unfollowed Me”. The first time I saw someone tweet such a thing (@ShaneCarwin, if I’m being specific), I thought to myself “Who does that??” Don’t get me wrong – those of you that know me are fully aware of the fact that I dig Shane, he’s a super dude, but he’s not exempt from my curiosity. I thought maybe I was missing something – some elite little twitter-fiend-only club with an inner circle of cool kids that had enough followers to have a need for such a follower-tracking device. I checked it out. There was nothing day-enriching about seeing which people – most of whom I rarely talked to or wasn’t aware were following me – had put the big kibosh on our faux online friendship. But, hey – to each their own, right?
To each their own. What a novel concept. I’ll spare you my Twitter preferences – that’s an entirely different post for another day. But is “to each their own” a difficult concept? This certainly isn’t to say that I don’t give a hoot about anyone that I follow or that follows me – quite the opposite, in fact. I’ve been incredibly blessed to have made some wonderful “real life” friends via twitter – including (but not limited to): Paige B. (@FrontPaigeNews2), Josh Wood (@JoshWoodMMA), Jenn D. (@ThatJennGrl), Camicia (@SisterSadist), Cat Von C (@catvonc), Hector Castro (@HectorCastroMMA), and Jerod Button (@mrbuttonswa). That said, I’m constantly amazed at the level of offense some people take to being unfollowed. If someone particularly important to me did unfollow me, yes, I’d be curious – primarily because I’d be concerned that I’d upset them. Aside from that? Offended? Nah.. I realize I’m not everyone’s particular brand of cognac.
If you don’t like what you’re watching, all you have to do is change the channel. You don’t think twice when you flip channels to avoid commercials or as soon as you tire of what you’d previously been watching on TV, right? Why do you treat your timeline any differently? As fantastic as such a platform is for networking, relationship-building, and socializing, Twitter is also wholly self constructed. If you don’t like what you’re seeing, fixing it is only a click away. Trust me when I say I’m not what one would consider a twit-snob – anyone can tell you that I love to socialize & would probably tweet at a brick wall if I thought it’d tweet back. The fact remains: If you’re not someone that I ever talk to (or hear from), the bulk of your tweets are retweets, or you’re overly negative or snarky, I don’t need you on my timeline. It really is that simple.
All of this to say: If I’ve unfollowed you, please don’t spend your energy being offended. If I disliked you that much, I’d block you and be done with it – and rest assured, there are only 3 people on my “blocked” list. Every so often, I clean house… 600+ people is a bit much for me to keep genuine tabs on. If I can’t remember why I’m following you, who you are, or you haven’t tweeted in days or weeks, I’m cutting you loose. I accidentally click on the wrong person from time to time as well. It happens, but not frequently.
Who DO I follow, then? I follow all kinds of people! Most of my list is made up of people that I know or have met in real life, various people I’ve interviewed, a handful of artists/celebrities I’m a fan of, a couple of news outlets, and anyone that I find myself enjoyably interacting with frequently. Who do I reply to? I’ll reply to anyone! Starting a conversation is the only way to cross someone’s radar, right? If you missed the Twitter box to the right of the post, you can find me at @amesbelle. Fire away, I’d love to chat! And yes, if we tend toward being chatty Cathy’s, I’ll be following you faster than you can say “TWEET TWEET”!
Feel free to leave your handle as a comment on this post – how else will I know who to thank for reading through my rambling? 😉
Says who?! 
Just to play devil’s advocate here, because I do somewhat agree with you, but nowadays with so many people developing and maintaining friendships online, an unfollow is somewhat equal to a friendship ending. When your entire friendship was cultivated on twitter (or tumblr, or facebook, or what have you), that’s what you see of that person, so unfollowing them can easily be taken as “I don’t want to be friends anymore.”
Personally, if I have my online friends on facebook, and they post things I’m not interested in on tumblr/twitter, then I don’t feel bad if I don’t follow them. But a lot of people only have these online friendships for a variety of reasons, and this is kind of their world, so being unfollowed by someone who you thought was your friend is essentially being cut off from them, because they wouldn’t be seeing what you post, what you talk about and what you’re going through at the moment.
I agree with what you’re saying, for sure. I think I could have probably been a little more specific. If it’s a legitimate “friend” or someone you’ve groomed an online relationship with, then sure, there might be some questions. At it’s initial writing, it was aimed more at the type of people that, for example, had never interacted with me in their lives. So I unfollowed, because I didn’t have any reason to follow any more. No content relevant to me. No relationship to speak of. No friendship. Nada. Then, suddenly, it’s “HEY @AMESBELLE, WHY’D YOU UNFOLLOW ME???”. That’s bananas to me, and it speaks to some people using such platforms more as popularity contests than anything else.
I recently unfollowed someone because there tweets were depressing, others because their tweets had no interest to me. It’s only personal for me nothing against them. I truly don’t know them personally for them to take offense.
Precisely. And hey, not everyone is my (or your) particular brand of cognac. Why follow if you have no interest? Worse yet, why follow if someone is chronically negative or depressing?? Twitter is fun for me, I don’t want to follow people that take that away.
I’m Selly06 on Twitter and I just wanted to say that this is a fab post. I recently apparently really offended someone by unfollowing them. They asked whether I had done s
I totally hit send in error there, silly iPhone. Anyway when they asked whether I had unfollowed them I answered yes and apparently this turned out to be up there with committing a crime. Really didn’t understand this…
Thank you! And yes, I agree. I love my twitter friends (many of which are real life friends as well), but at the end of the day… it really is “just” twitter. It’s crazy how upset some people get.
Many of those “who unfollowed me” type apps are inaccurate at best. I get those “you unfollowed me” tweets every once in a while, but never when I have recently unfollowed ANYONE. (I only unfollow when I have to so that I can follow new followers – thanks to Twitter limits – or is someone tweets content that is particularly objectionable.
I choose to follow almost anyone who follows me. If I don’t want to interact with them, why should they want to follow me? I consider all people born equal and see them as my peers – not my worshipers.
Anyone can follow as many people on Twitter as they wish by using Twitter lists to focus in on segments of their timeline that interest them. How to do that and many more Twitter tips are in my Twitter Best Practices post linked to this comment.
Thanks for the insightful reply! I’ve enjoyed surfing around your page. 🙂
Tweetie bird says hi