We love Twitter here at T3 Towers. It's the social media platform that lets you connect with people you have an interest in, however it doesn't rape and pillage your personal privacy like Facebook or Google+. Unfortunately however, this Garden of Eden is being increasingly defiled by some appalling abuses, with the verified and unverified alike posting some absolute clangers on a daily basis. Here we list 10 of the things that you should absolutely, like even if Hell freezes over, never do on Twitter. You've been warned!
Be a Twitter s****er
Right, seriously, this is not cool or edgy or, as increasingly seems to be thought, funny. Tweeting while on the toilet and hanging a lantern on this fact within the Tweet is an instant and permanent ban in our eyes. Nobody wants to picture you on the toilet and nobody thinks it's subversive or challenging, it just makes you look like a bit of a turd really. Next time you're sitting there, the porcelain resting against those cheeks and you're about to tweet something hilarious about that fact, instead apologise to the 8-year-old you for the crass imbecile that you've become.
Asking, “So what did I miss?”
Just who the hell do you think you are?! Just because you've been empowered with an ability to instantly communicate with hundreds or even thousands of people, that does not mean in any way that you are important enough to demand zeitgeist and event briefs from them. Want to know what you missed? Then scroll down you lazy piece of bilge and find out for yourself! What? But your timeline is just full of parody accounts and pictures of cats? Well, simply close Twitter and open up your news source of choice and do some reading!
Tweeting, “Morning”
How can you not see this is friendship-destroyingly annoying?! What's that? You're just being friendly, like you would be when entering the office? Ah, but you're not are you. You're tweeting to let everyone else know that you're up at some ridiculously early hour and they are not. You're hanging a lantern on your perceived virtuousness and go-gettery, sliding in a subtle brag and massaging your own ego, knowing all along that this will likely be the first Tweet any of your misguided followers see. Insecure children behave like this, not grown adults. Shame!
Food boasting
Talking of repetitious subtle bragging, taking pictures of every plate of food you have and then posting it to Twitter is just fabulously annoying. You know what, if it's your birthday and you've gone out for a nice meal to a posh restaurant and the chef has made you a super impressive, three-tier chocolate cake laden with sparklers, popping candy and gold leaf, then sure snap and tweet away. I really want to see that spectacular dish. It's something one-off and holds a particular significance to my friend's big day. You know what I don't want to see? Pictures of every sodding Tesco sandwich, ready meal or box of bland, flavourless sushi you are about to shove down your gullet. Oh, you thought you were all hip and cultured eating sushi? The Japanese wouldn't even feed that supermarket tripe to their pets.
And while we're at it, fitness boasting
God this has been annoying over the past month. You know what I really don't want to read about every bleeding day? Your recently discovered passion for [insert fitness activity here]! Being updated once more that you've just “killed” your latest half-marathon session and are now “chillaxing” while “re-energising” with a health shake just makes me want to throw up everywhere. Why? Well, one, those Tweets are super look-at-me pretentious and, two, this fitness push is just another massive fad that you've jumped on the bandwagon with. Come February 17th, those £135 Nike running trainers are going to be gathering dust at the back of your wardrobe, while your followers list will have halved.
Moaning on Twitter
There seemingly isn't a day that goes by now without somebody moaning on my feed. Late trains, late buses, slow service at the supermarket, queues for the toilet, incorrect items placed in a home delivery of groceries, too many Big Issue sellers on the walk to work, cloudy or rainy weather, busy shops and bars, expensive taxi rides, mobile phone data allowance is too low, the Wi-Fi connection in the local coffee shop isn't very strong, there's not enough hours in the day. JUST SHUT UP! Shut up you entitled, self-centred, First World Problems-laden git-wizard. Your life if just like everyone else's, maybe asides from the Queen, so stop tweeting that guff and realise that other people experience these things just like you and don't need to be bored to death each day with your incessant harping!
Tweeting just “I guess” or “This” alongside a Retweet
Arrrrrrrggghhhhh! What do either of those even mean! Is just Retweeting something with “This” supposed to say that you agree with it, not agree with it, or what? Regardless of whether you agree with it or not, can't you express yourself better than that single burp of an utterance? If you just wanted to bring it to people's attention then surely just a Retweet by itself would have sufficed? Ah, but you wanted to nail yourself to the post in some type of ownership thing didn't you, like a dog peeing up against a fence. Equally, “I guess”, both on Twitter and off of it, is not a valid response to any and every situation or event. We know that you think it makes you sound all cool and non-committal, but in reality it just highlights you as an ignorant, pretentious wannabe who has nothing valid to say at all.
Giving your “official opinion”
Let's be very clear here, shall we? Just because you've got a piece of magical hardware in your pocket that allows you to communicate what you think about an event or issue to lots of people doesn't mean that you should. You do not need to Jackson Pollock your opinion over every, last, single, event that happens. You likely know either nothing, or next to nothing, about the situation or event and you will bring nothing of note to the core dialogue at all. Further, who asked for you to tweet your “official opinion” anyway? Your followers certainly didn't because they, like me, want to hear authoritative opinions from subject experts, as this will allow us to develop an informed, fair and useful opinion.
Assaulting people with hashtags
Hashtags are great, whether used correctly to track or participate in an event, or ironically for comedy effect. What isn't great is you loading a Tweet with eight of them, with every other word hashtagged. Why? Because, one, it's completely pointless in terms of functionality, two, it dilutes the power of the hashtag and, three, it #makes you #look like #a total #tool.
And finally, hijacking your followers' feeds
Look, this surely is something we can all agree on, right? Twitter is so good as it encourages short, to-the-point messaging and conversation, not lengthy, waffle-filled diatribes. People are abusing the format more and more though, hijacking their followers' feeds with 10 to 20 posts at a time, creating a solid column of - and we refer you to back to some of the aforementioned no-nos - often worthless, ill-informed and uncourteous word-vomit. Don't do it! No! Just don't!
-
Sky's best new show has me hooked – over 50 years after landmark originalThe Day of the Jackal is streaming on Sky Atlantic and Now – it's a modern series-based take on the 1973 original movie and 1997 remake
-
When is Black Friday 2024 – this Friday or next? Here's the official answerBlack Friday is on 29 November in 2024 – a week later than the year previous. But that's not stopped retailers putting on their sales...
