Way back in mid-November (which feels like a decade ago), I announced to the world that I had joined Twitter, albeit incognito. ‘Twas a big deal for me, a truly momentous occasion, and I devoted a whole blog to it … so, so sad.
Why did I join Twitter?
1. To tackle my ingrained technophobia: Nothing like overcoming a fear by going for the kill, and I did it! Registered, logged on and off, Tweeted, Retweeted, quote-Tweeted (don’t ask), replied, liked, hash-tagged (eh?), searched and found, did follow and was actually followed, maybe stalked but I’m still flattered.
2. To hone my debating skills, specifically the art of the short retort: Easy-peasy. Pithy one-liners came without trying. Once or twice I wrote more but didn’t break a sweat keeping to the character limit.
3. To pick up on news, thoughts, ideas and updates as early as possible: A curate’s egg. While I spotted a couple of great soundbites to be researched in depth later, most posts had no context (or I couldn’t work out how to reveal the whole thread), or were badly written, sad, pathetic, or appeared several times or in multiple guises;
4. To prove that, when faced with a ridiculous comment or something with which I vehemently disagree (must be the best example of a tautology ever), I can resist the urge to respond, or at least can respond without throwing toys around: Passed with flying colours. When anti-Brexit posts appeared, all I had to do was wait for an economist or whomever to respond oh so sweetly, and my honour was satisfied. For example:
A Remoaner Tweet slammed GB’s economy. The rebuttal sounded brill and I followed some leads to find a fuller explanation, as follows: “The UK is on course to considerably outperform the EU in terms of GDP growth in both 2021 and 2022. The OECD estimates that UK growth will hit 6.9% and 4.7% in those two years, versus 5.3% and 4.2% in the Eurozone. Much of this growth is likely to come from non-European markets. The US has already overtaken the EU to become the UK’s main financial services export market, and growth in the export of financial services to the rest of the world has more than made up for a fall in exports to Europe. Britain has also concluded a digital services deal with Singapore. This will be a blueprint for further such agreements, helping the UK steal a march in the digital economy on a ponderous Brussels.”
I did get into one mini spat with a silly woman who seemed to think it was ok to penalise the less-well-off in order to achieve net-zero targets. Talk about alienating the very people you need on board to deliver necessary outcomes. But I was cool, measured and of course correct. I even let her have the last word when I could have again shot her down in flames. (Well I do have a German line in my family tree – maybe I’m distantly related to the Red Baron).
5. To prove that I can prudently avoid or deal with any potential tensions or embarrassments that might arise with my personal views, my organisations’ views and Hubby’s: Aced it, and not just according to the gospel of St Moi. Back in October – which feels like two decades ago – someone suggested there might be a conflict between my environmental activities and Hubby’s corporate interests. But having viewed my blog and Twitter activity (he’s the only one to know my pseudonym, other than Vladimir Putin I assume) and a brief email exchange, he has conceded that his fears were unfounded because, in his own words, my “judgement is sound”, and I could “ably counter any accusations”. As the delicious Big (Chris Noth) said in an early episode of SATC: “Abso-effing-lutely”, (or something like that).
6. To learn the Twitter-ropes and take over an organisation’s account to share the workload: which seemed like a good idea at the time, but after about a month trawling through ever-lengthening, confusing, repetitive, low-quality feeds and posts (see point 3 above), I can’t see that any rewards (which to me appear to be rather tangential) are worth the effort.
All in all, having painlessly proved that I have nothing to prove, either technologically, judiciously or emotionally, and not getting anything out of Twitter that I can’t find elsewhere – such as new information, camaraderie or naked excitement – I closed my account before Xmas.
Any regrets? Nah, other than the withdrawal of my favour to take over the organisation’s account. Not sure it was ever accepted anyway, so I can close that chapter with a clear conscience and crack on with stuff I’d rather be doing, including finding something else to blog about, because …
… having devoted one whole blog to joining Twitter, I have now devoted one whole blog to leaving Twitter. That is so sad and pathetic, it’s almost worth a Tweet.
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