Genesis of Twitter Bots

Image Credit: Gfycat

In 1978 the band Genesis released a ballad entitled “Follow You Follow Me”. It’s not one of my favorites, I’m more of an “Abacab” man myself, but it was their first hit in America. And I’m wondering whether it wasn’t a bit prophetic. I still suck at social networking. I joined Twitter over two years ago and despite publishing over a half dozen works since then along with 38 prior posts to this very blog, I have a whopping 236 followers as of this writing. The majority of people on Twitter do not dig me.

But I’m not sure they dig most writers. Particularly I don’t think they dig most indie writers. When I look at most of my more popular peers on Twitter I see things like Followers 83.9K, Following 83.4K. Hence my reference to the Genesis tune. It seems to me that people follow these writers not because they’re interested in what they post or publish, but simply to collect them in a symbiotic but ultimately empty “Follow You Follow Me”.  I imagine they just follow, mute, then unfollow if they don’t get the follow back. They certainly aren’t reading the tweets of over 83 thousand people.

This doesn’t make sense to me. And this is why I’m pretty sure I suck at social media. I’m reasonably amusing and/or interesting. At least on my better days. But you see, if I follow someone, it’s for one of a few reasons: I enjoy their work. I enjoy their posts. They’ve proven themselves actual readers of my work. I don’t follow them if they: Constantly post advertisements for their work or the work of others. Constantly retweet stuff that is clearly just automated endorsement rather than meaningful sharing. Regularly post content I consider obnoxious. And so my social media circle remains small. Like Phil Collins’ height small.

Perhaps one of these days something I write will go mainstream. I’ll join the ranks of J.K. Rowling (Following 241, Followed by 6.01M), Stephen King (Following 30, Followed by 1.08M), and E.L. James (Following 451, Followed by 947K). Until then I plan to continue to refuse Mike Rutherford’s sentimental late 70s refrain. I think the band hit the nail on the head regarding these false “followers” two years later on that superior song I mentioned.

It’s an illusion. It’s a game.

Or reflection of someone else’s name