Published on 01 July 2012
Over a year ago (but not much over), a friend and I were sitting in one of my favourite cafés at the time, Black Medicine, in Bruntsfield, Edinburgh. We were talking about Twitter, and about what sort of posts were allowed – and what sort weren’t. We began to wonder: what if we had private twitter accounts, and no followers? What would the posts be like?
A pact began to form. We both set up new accounts, and didn’t tell the other their names. We promised to never follow anyone; to never tweet at anyone; to never retweet each other or anyone who might be able to identify us; to not talk about it, except in generalities; to tweet when we wanted, but never because we felt obligated to. At the end of the year, we’d see who had more followers, and what the tweets looked like.
A year passed.
My friend, @simonv3 (his public account), won the contest, with four followers. We have no idea why any of them followed him. I had no followers - and frankly, I’m not surprised.
No, I’m not going to give you the name of my account. This is largely because around 95% of my private tweets were swear words. Around 20% of them aren’t fit for public consumption, and around 10% of them are midly socially incriminating. But in between the drunken rants and swears, there’s a few very tender moments. Posts about how much I miss people; or home; or a girl. Posts that really show what exactly I was feeling at the time, and some that show how quickly a mood can change. Posts that speak of the heights and lows of last year (one of the most dynamic in my life, I suppose.)
While I’m not going to post the twitter handle here; if you’re a good friend, and are brave enough to risk being told Sorry, No to (I’m not giving it out to everyone), feel free to ask for it. If you’re curious as to what you might do - well, I suggest setting up your own account. I’ve learned a lot - mainly, I’ve learned what social networks really mean, and how the old adage of ‘I tweet about my breakfast’ only holds up when you know others are listening.
For the record: there were no tweets about breakfast.
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