How to Get Blocked on Twitter.
A self-referential response to common complaints and criticisms.
A Philosophy of Blocking as Love Speech.
I don’t block out of hate. I do so out of love.
Before trying to argue with me (and get blocked), ask yourself this crucial question.
Is anyone, on any social media platform, more responsive to comments than Cerno is?
I want to read what people have to say, and this means curation of bad / stupid / negative comments are required so that we can find the good stuff.
“Source?” Yes, my source is you’re blocked.
I’m well aware of how burdens of proof work. Unless you’re a judge and I’m in lawyer gear, I don’t owe you any explanation.
Also, let’s be real. You don’t want a source. You want to argue. You’re going to say the source isn’t good enough. This is all about your Ego and feeling powerful. It’s silly.
And if you’re so important that people owe you a bibliography, why don’t you have your research analyst look it up for you? That’s right, it’s because you don’t have one on call. Which is revealing!
“Correcting” me. 99% of the time, you’re inaccurate. There are rare occasions where I’ve made a marginal error.
“Typos.” The only reason you noticed a typo is because the context was clear enough for understanding to occur. That’s the purpose of communication. Was information transmitted albeit in a misspelled way? Good. Move on. (Yes I do block people without warning for this.)
“You should tweet this way instead.” Commonly this is expressed as people telling me to mute rather than block. Oh, you have over 1.1 million followers on Twitter and understand what it’s like having conversation at scale? That’s right, you don’t. For the record, that isn’t a brag by me. Maybe you could have this. It’s more of a “pie eating contest where your prize is more pie” kinda deal. However, I did not ask for your advice on how to do social media.
“Did the article say…” Yes, it did. Or no, it did not. Either way, you didn’t click over to the article and read it beforehand. I’m not your Cliffs Notes.
Spamming your tweets. I’m sure your tweet was a banger. You can retype it. Don’t @ reply to me with links to your tweets.
Whoa that’s harsh! Is it? You want me to promote your tweet. That’s fine. I get it. I used to want to be more widely read. (See above about pie eating contest where your prize is to win more pie.) You’re the one asking for something, not me….
Evangelism.
I truly hope you’re living in a state of love. My replies are not the opportunity for you to make assumptions about my religious faith, nor to tell me how I should be living. Especially when, almost every time I click over to your profile, all I see is sportsball stuff.
“Why don’t you and him fight.” There are adult men who will tag other people to alert them to a Tweet you wrote, in order to start an argument. This is utterly pathetic.
“Fed posting.” When people Tweet out, “OH YEAH? THE TIME FOR TALK IS OVER. TIME TO TAKE ACTION.” Nope, you’re gone. You’re not going to Michigan kidnapping hoax me nor have access to people who read me.
Doomers. I believe, as a deeply held religious matter, that despair is demonic. Unduly negative people are doing the work of demons. Get an exorcism. In the meantime, you guessed it - BLOCKED!
I also believe that “side trackers” and “derailers” are a form of Fed Posting.
Hipsters. There’s a category of people who are too cool for school. If you post a book you read, they’ll go, “Wow, you just now found this!” Well first of all, maybe not. Maybe it’s the first I’m mentioning it. Secondly, what a stupid remark to make. I am glad when people find new information that is valuable and helpful to have.
Another form of this is one-upmanship.
“To be fair.” Either I believed the tweet was fair, or I wanted it to be unfair. In any case, unsolicited “nuances” aren’t welcome.
“It depends.” No kidding. It always depends on some other variable, known or unknown. You’ve added nothing of value. Blocking you has removed nothing of value.
Complaining that my friend blocked you. Basic social skills. I am choosing the friend over you.
Overall bad attitude people. If your sole contribution to conversations is that something will be hard to accomplish, bye bye go cry.
I’m not your personal tutor. This is a big one. People who have never heard of a subject will either begin trying to argue with me, or demand I explain basic fundamentals to them. Touch grass and then find a book.
P.S. I do realize I sound like an insane person.
Doesn’t bother me at all. You might not understand what I am doing, but I understand it well.
No experience running social media like that. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
This made me laugh. Good stuff.