Behind the Avatars
The night of the presidential debates, I received the above direct message on Twitter from, shall I call her, Frannie FYI.
At first, I was confused. Why is Frannie FYI messaging me? What does “ab” mean? Adult baby? Is that her blood type?
But what confused me most of all was I didn’t post a link to my blog during the debates. Did I?
I went to my profile and much to my surprise I saw that a link to my most recent post had been tweeted…automatically. So technically speaking I did post a link to my blog, however, I was unaware because my blog automatically posts to Twitter and Facebook. It just happened that my automated tweet went out during the debate.
Once I saw that Frannie FYI was technically right I resisted my urge to tweet back some snark—”If u r so concerned about “more important things” why r u on Twitter during the presidential debate?”—because I remembered elections can make people a little edgy. Instead, I decided I would respond to her direct message with an explanation that it was an automated tweet and I’m sorry to have unintentionally offended her. However, she had followed through (no pun intended) and unfollowed me so my message couldn’t be sent.
I don’t like to be misunderstood (Admittedly when your interaction is limited to 140 characters it’s easy to do.) so to be polite I sent her an explanation via email. She didn’t write back and that’s fine because I already felt better after explaining myself.
People follow and unfollow me all the time. It’s the nature of the Twitter but this was the first time I had received a message letting me know I was being unfollowed. It wasn’t as if we had ever been friends and it was going to cause any “weirdness”. In fact, I can’t recall ever interacting with her. What was the point of the direct message? Why couldn’t she just unfollow me without having to tell me so? Did she want to teach me? Chastise me? Did she just need to be heard? I don’t know.
What I do know is that no one likes to be judged.
I wasn’t upset that Frannie FYI unfollowed me. (I’m a terrible twitterer and I’m surprised anyone follows me at all). I was upset because I felt I had been unfairly judged as shallow and self-centered. You know because blogging is not at all self-centered. Admittedly, there are many worse things to be judged by but this stung a bit. However, maybe she was doing me a favor— after all a judgment cast over an unintentional tweet is harmless— by reminding me how much it hurts to be unfairly judged and that I’m not perfect. I want to do better and judge less.
How many times have I judged people by their grocery cart? Their children’s behavior? Their Facebook statuses? Okay that one is totally fair game. 😉 Seriously though, I bet 9 times out of 10 my judgments are wrong because most of the time I don’t know the whole story and even if I do my judgments say more about me than it does “them”.
Secondly, Frannie FYI made me ask myself why do I blog?
Why do I blog? Miss Unfollow seems to assume I blog for pageviews. Sure, there have been times I thought how cool would it be to be a “professional blogger” but, shoot howdy, that takes a lot of work, butt kissing, time, and heaping side of luck. Frankly, I don’t want to live my life in front of the computer.
I’ve been blogging here for over 4 years and blogging for views is like Ralph Nader running for president. Just not happening. Sure, I love it when people read my blog if I didn’t I would just write in a journal tucked under my pillow.
I started my blog as a fitness journal and as a way to stay accountable. Overtime, it became my outlet, a scrapbook, a place to vent, and I, daresay, a place where I could hope to inspire a few people to draw from their deep well of potential. Readers are much more than pageviews. They are people and over the last few years some of them have become friends. Real friends. This is why I blog.
I hesitated writing this because I try to keep my space on the internet a positive one but I think, in the age where there are websites dedicated to tearing apart bloggers, we could all use a reminder that there are real people behind the avatars. We may not like what they have to say or the choices they make but that doesn’t make them any less human.
Hugs and High Fives,
Jenn
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Frannie FYI needs a new hobby! Who cares if an automated tweet to your blog went out during the debates. Is there a tweet law I wasn’t aware of? Who made her the twitter patrol? Take this ridiculous incident as part of being a blogger. I’m sure I auto-tweeted a link to that days post during the debate. I’m so not sorry about it. People should really “live and let live” when it comes to blogging, politics and anything really. We are all individuals with opinions…just respect each other.
P.S. I was more amused by the Fired Big Bird tweets that night anyway 😉
I am completely new to all of the social media world. I just don’t understand why anyone would care if they were tweeted during the debate or not. Presumably they get tweets during every other important point in their life. Why would you expect others to know when is a taboo time?
It is great that you used this experience to evaluate your own feelings about being judged and judging others. I like to think I am above all that, but nope that would be a lie!
Oh that is hurtful. I would have been feeling the same way. And really, to get her panties in a bunch over something like that is really silly. Hurumpfth!
<3's and ((hugs))