Over seven years after joining Twitter, I've crossed the 500 follower mark. I'm sure to anyone with tens of thousands of followers would snicker at that total, but I'm going to take that risk, because I doubt many of them will be reading this post. Instead, this post is for my followers who have given me so much valuable interaction on Twitter, because I want them all to know that I appreciate them very much. Especially because, if they've looked at my profile, they've seen that I only follow 100 Twitter accounts at a time. And yet they've still chosen to follow me...even if there's only a small chance that I'll follow them back.
So, on this occasion, I feel compelled to explain why that's my practice. You see, except when I'm on a digital detox, I try to read every Tweet in my timeline. It's a customized news feed for me. Most of the people I follow are in the geospatial arena, or open data and technology fields. I follow a handful of sports/comedy/entertainment accounts, musicians that I am in a band with, and my employer...but that's about it. This way I hear about news that I wouldn't hear about anywhere else. If you search Google News for "GIS", you get information about General Mills and the Ghana Immigration Service before you find anything about maps. But by following the people I follow, I hear about stuff like when MapQuest removed free access to their basemap tiles, and that's extremely important for me.
Every few months or so, I remove one account and add a new one to mix things up. I've gotten to the point now where it's really hard to decide who to unfollow. I value so many of the interactions I've had on Twitter and I've learned something from almost every person I follow. There are people like Erin Kissane, who I followed, unfollowed, and now am following again. There are local colleagues who have private accounts, and there are my partners in GeoHipster. The mix is about 50/50 men/women, but I could stand to follow more minorities and people of color. Because the ability of Twitter to increase my awareness of injustice and discrimination is one of the things I value the most. (And it speaks to my privilege to say that I've not experienced much harassment by bro trolls, bots, or other jerks.)
A lot of the people I follow Tweet fairly frequently, so my feed fills up pretty fast, but I can still get through it most days, usually just over breakfast and on my bus ride home. And I like it that way. But if I followed 200 people, or followed back all 500+ of my followers, that wouldn't work. Because like the goofy aliens dude above, I'm just not that smart. I'm a pretty slow reader, and my noggin only has so much room in it. So, this is the way I "slow consume" a very "fast" social media platform.
I know this makes me weird. It might even lose me a few followers. But for those I have gained over the years, I thank you. If you Tweet a lot about geo stuff, there's a chance I'll follow you back in the future...but I hope you'll forgive me if it doesn't happen right away!
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