Perhaps the only thing more annoying than the legions of “Social Media experts” on Twitter are the folks who claim they “get it.” Those quotation marks are theirs, not mine.
I’ve seen this time and time again. “It’s all about the conversation,” they’ll say, emphasizing a different syllable of the word conversation to cover up the fact that they’re not saying anything new.
Well, I have a message for these people: Get over yourselves.
And another one: You’re hurting Twitter’s chances at mainstream acceptance, and you’re chiseling away at the very foundation of social media.
I’ve had very few successful, real-life conversations (emphasis on third syllable) with a group of people where one smug jerk stood in the corner and acted like he was the only one who knew how people talked to each other. Well, let me fix that: I haven’t had any conversations like that, but I can’t imagine it’d go over well with anyone.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. Every online community in history has invariably faced some sort of elitism from older members. Calling someone a newbie is a standard Internet insult.
As a result, a lot of online communities have rules agains this type of behavior, because it can rot the community from the inside out. But Twitter isn’t rotting, right? It’s thriving! People are joining every day!
And then 55% of new users never come back. Maybe the problem isn’t the app, but the people who are on it.
Since we’re so completely obsessed with this new social media order, and the manners of behavior on it, let’s add a new unwritten rule: Don’t be an elitist jerk. I think Twitter would be better off for it.
