I know, I know. Everyone is talking about Twitter. So many people are tweeting and talking about tweeting, it's nearly jumped the shark. But I don't care - I love it. Mostly because I love following fabulous feminists. I can see what Sarah Haskins is up to, or what Latifa Lyles (running for NOW president!) is thinking. I can even follow the bloggers I like.
How about you, do you tweet? Who is your favorite person to follow? (And of course, if you'd like to follow your friendly Feministing bloggers, our twitter profiles are listed after the jump. /self-promotion)
Feministing on Twitter
Vanessa, Samhita, Shark Fu, Miriam, Ann, Jessica. You can also follow Feministing's posts!
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I use it for work (an early adopter), because many of my colleagues tweet.
To answer your concluding paragraph's questions: God hell no and N/A.
Diablo Cody is HILARIOUS, her tweets always make my day.
Mine is Twitter.com/DeafMuslim if anyone wanna follow me ;-)
I've just started tweeting, and not quite sure if I'll stick with it. I'm following Yoko Ono and she graciously follows me (and thousands of others). Now if Yoko Ono can follow a pleb like me, why can't we all be as courteous?! I think it's rude of a person to not reciprocate -- unless there's a person who is truly offensive or one has good reason not to follow... Does anyone else feel this way, or is it just me?
I do not think its rude not to reciprocate. You follow someone if you think their feed is interesting, its like a bookmark. They don't necessarily have to think you are interesting-- besides, some people don't even post anything, they just read other people's stuff. I mean, if I read Feministing, it doesn't mean the authors have to read my blog, does it?
What I"m wondering about though, is what's the etiquette on tweeting at celebrities that you don't know? Or any person who isn't following you? I just sent a tweet to a semi-celebrity but only because I couldn't find an email for them and I wanted to send them a link they might be able to use.
I don't like their sudden change today where you don't see replies to other people in your home feed.
I don't use Twitter all that much, because I mostly use my Facebook status for those sort of random updates and I know way more people read that than my Twitter. But I signed up and I figure either the craze will end or I'll slowly accumulate more acquaintances on there.
I still think it's the polite thing to do. If I receive a message that a person is following me on Twitter I feel like I want to reciprocate. But again, maybe that's just me (though I'm sure there must be others who feel the same.)
Anyway, I don't want to hijack the thread! That would be rude!
Ah, but what would you do if you were a popular celebrity? If thousands of people follow you that's fine, but if you have to follow thousands of people you will immediately lose track of what's going on unless you spend ALL of your time reading it. Most people want to use their twitter home page to read the feeds of people they find interesting, and they don't want it cluttered up with tons of other people.
No offense, but if Yoko Ono follows everyone who follows her on Twitter, it tells me that she either has nothing else to do or she doesn't read her Twitter home page.
Personally, as a non-celebrity, I also don't care to have people I'm not interested in on my feed. If someone adds me I'll check out their page, but if they either have no tweets or all their tweets say things like "its hot today" then I'm not going to clutter up my home page with their comments. I'd rather be able to easily read the updates from people I actually am interested in: either people I know in real life, or people who consistently write interesting enough things.
I also use Flickr, where adding someone as a contact is like adding their photo feed to your RSS reader. It means you think their photos are interesting. It doesn't necessarily mean they think yours are interesting. Now if someone on flickr sends me a personal message that they like my photos, I'm more likely to add them. But I'm not going to feel obligated to add every person who adds me, and if I add someone famous I especially don't expect them to add me back.
Note that even on Facebook, where friendship has to be reciprocal, you can block particular people's updates from appearing on your home page. No one wants to read tons of updates from boring people that they don't care about, no matter what website it is.
Most people don't auto-follow, because then the feed is impossible to read! (You'd have thousands of messages everyday).
If yoko ono auto-follows (follows everyone who follows her) she's probably not reading those people's messages, or only looking at the messages that mention her. That's more of a PR strategy than a way to use the service.
Lots of twitter ettiquette and styles, but that's also my preference.
Miriam, I can see in your case where you most likely have hundreds or thousands of followers it would become unmanageable. I guess I just have a problem with "following" anyone or becoming a "fan" (as on facebook).
Of course, if you like to follow anyone who follows you, that's fine. But its not practical to expect everyone to do that.
It probably isn't practical. To be honest, I am a Twitter newbie, so probably should keep my opinions to myself. But I have noticed that people do enjoy it when others "follow," so why not be nice? But again, if a person has hundreds of followers, then it's not practical as you say (but I'd probably still reciprocate, but that's just me.)
The real problem with auto-follow is that a lot of spammers follow people. So if you have auto-follow, then you have to deal with their crap.
I recently started using twitter and I like it so far. I don't think it's always rude not to reciprocate, but it's nice when people do. I'm following Yoko Ono too, and she sent a message and followed me back. I think it's cool when celebrities use it to interact with fans, but I don't expect someone to follow me back if they don't know me, especially since I don't post that often. I mostly follow musicians, music websites, and bloggers I like.
I love Twitter. In addition to those mentioned, I follow @randomdeanna, @thecurvature, @frausallybenz, @ShelbyKnox, @EvilSlutClique, @KateHarding, and a whole bunch of other folks. I'm @jmilles
i just started using twitter and i love it. i find out everything that's going on everywhere. i like following afterellen, amanda palmer and blackheart recods :)
@nfprha is on Twitter!
I am, too, though I update much less frequently @hypnagogia
My favorites (in addition to those already mentioned): @sexgenderbody, @matttbastard, @AmandaMarcotte, @Pam_Spaulding, @kaysteiger, @WomanistMusings, @PunditMom
Lots of great orgs on there as well - @Guttmacher, @Advocates4Youth, @NARAL, @feministcampus, @ChoiceUSA, and so on and so forth, etc, etc
Hee. Am pickled tink to be in such distinguished company. *highfives*
Highly recommend my Sensei, @AntoniaZ (who I see has already big-upped herself. ;-)) She appears to have overcome her initial reluctance to immerse herself in teh Twitter (*cough*).
@JillMZ, @blogdiva, @seasonothebitch, @nataliaantonova, @problemchylde, @thecurvature, @MyrnaTheMynx, @racialicious, @SusanneUre, @jilliancyork and @blacklooks are also well worth following (please note: this is far from a complete list ;)).
Aww ain't you a sweet thang, Mattt with three Ts.
Others (aside from those mentioned already) to follow: @dmf71 @TariAkpodiete @hysperia @GloPan @anndouglas
another hashtag by the way is #woc (women of colour)
The best way to find out what is happening in the feminist twittersphere is to use and search for the hashtag #fem2.
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23fem2
Lots of progressive stuff is found via #p2.
I'm @AntoniaZ
I haven't been using Twitter to follow any organized groups like Planned Parenthood, because their posts tend to be all links, and since they use the tiny url links you can't even tell what you're going to until you get there. If I want to see lots of links I'll read a blog. Twitter is for writing short posts, and I will follow celebrities or groups who use that in an interesting way.
Of course we're on there - @EvilSlutClique. As bloggers we really like it as a way to just get a quick feel for what's going on.
Some of our favorites - @sexgenderbody, @bluegal, @BitchMagazine, @veronicaeye, @feministnews, @queerunity.
Hi, Jessica. =)
Personally, I hate twitter. It's just so annoying, and seems kinda poser-ish.
That being said, I've noticed that there are several ads up on this site for "detoxification" and teeth whitening and weight loss. I'm looking at one that yells "SECRET HEALTHY DIET" in bright red font right now. Surely feministing can procure better advertisers than this?
Thanks for the heads up - I'll look into it. For future reference, there's a contact form on our "contact" page that has an option for ads to alert us to any advertisements that pop up that seem out of line. Thanks!
Bad timing for this post... Twitter seems to be down for scheduled maintenance right now. Or is that only in my area? Anyway, I wanted to check how many of the posted feeds here are more like organizations posting lots of links, and how many are more like particular people posting interesting comments.
I have to say that Jessica Valenti and my brother were the first two people I started following on twitter. I was not entirely sure of the etiquette and thought that I might appear a bit stalker-ish if I followed someone I didn't know personally. Yet still I kind of feel a little weird adding someone who doesn't know/add me.
All in all, I like twitter but I have some mixed feelings about it. I think it can be a very useful tool for people in several industries. It can be a great source of real-time information and provides an outlet for communication across vast degrees of social strata, geography and time. It is changing the norms of communication in potentially exciting ways. However, I think that it has a certain danger of overloading users by having yet another device to check/monitor/think about each day. As with any bit of innovation there are great benefits and impediments. I say celebrate the benefits (like being connected with all of the fab people in this community) but still be mindful of the impediments and how to keep them from dominating the experience.
I friggin' love Twitter.
A couple of folks I would definitely add to the Tweeps You Should Follow list would be MadamaAmbi, Renee, GLADLaw, and MassTPC.
@writeaboutit here.
I know it's a little kitschy to use Twitter, but it's incredibly useful. It's a great networking tool for just about anything. And use the search feature. That's how I fixed my macbook. And it was way faster than wading through help forums on the apple site.
Plus I follow @JessicaValenti and @sarahhaskins among many more!
I think its @sarah_haskins isn't it?
@Gular on twitter.
I post random thoughts from the day and get pretty random. I post a lot about work, honestly. lol
@riotgrrrlonline on twitter
I follow @feministing and all of the feministing.com bloggers. I follow lots of feminists on twitter.
I don't really get twitter... What's an average, non-celebrity, non-organisation, non-professional supposed to tweet about? I'm confused lol....
Added some of you guys :) If anyone would like to add me, feel free to, although I'm not particularly interesting (but some have described me as "kinda funny").
@heccibiggs
@jmilles here.
To everyone who doesn't get Twitter, there are two key things to understand: (1) It's just a big cocktail party. Dip in from time to time and you'll find an interesting comment or conversation going on. (2) It's a conversation, not a broadcast. If you can't think of something to tweet, you'll find another tweet to comment on. Eventually you'll get the hang of it and start tweeting on your own.
I use Twitter to post interesting links to news stories, articles and other blog posts that relate to my website's themes of eating disorder awareness and body image acceptance. You can find me at Twitter.com/thefwordblog.