unfollow people you don't want to talk with
Unfollowing to keep Twitter a conversation web, not void-shouting
8 tweets · October 2021 · 81 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
this is kind of what I meant to say with this tweet
it's not enough (imx) to follow people you want to talk with and talk with them if you're *also* following a bunch of accounts that - annoy you - NEWS at you - are just self-promotion because it makes the whole room feel like void-shouting, not convo-web
this tweet of mine from Jan 2018 points at an important phase in this whole scenius coming together I'd been following 1200+ people from early years on twitter, and pared that back to <400
I follow a few non-conversation accounts around like @threat_update or @NYT_first_said or funny accounts etc, but all ones that feel playful and like they enhance the vibe—and not very many of them!
I used to follow a lot of ppl I thought were cool, but either I never had anything to say to them in response to what they were tweeting, or I realized I wanted to *impress* them more than talk with them (you know how a room goes weird if a very high-status person walks in?)
so it took a bit of internal clarifying, but it's consistently felt good to unfollow people I don't enjoy talking with, even if I sorta feel like I should follow them and I can always follow them again later
this thread inspired by seeing that @daemonhugger is following nobody, and realizing that it felt to me like he was succeeding at what I meant when I said "follow people you want to talk with and talk with them"
