Facebook has always (to me) been about keeping in touch with friends from school, Uni, work, wherever. So the idea of exposing yourself to meet new people through it seems a bit silly in my opinion. However, we have other services for that. I use Twitter, and DailyBooth, and YouTube, and more recently tumblr. All these services are based on the idea of having "followers" and "following" others. I follow lots of people, some I find more interesting than others but all in all I enjoy seeing their thoughts and what they get up to. I also have many followers. A not insignificant number of them are spam-bots, which I dislike but as long as they don't tweet at me, who cares.
What has been recently brought to my attention is a new "follow me" culture that seems to be developing on these services. When I come across a new person/profile I look at what they've posted, what they're like, and if there's something about them I like, I follow them. Following means I'm interested in what you have to say, and I'd like to be kept in the loop if you don't mind (some people mind, and put their profiles to private). Unfortunately the number of followers we have seems to have become the yard-stick with which we measure our success as a person, how amazing and incredible we appear to others. This is a preposterous attitude. Saying "I'll follow you if you follow me" is completely stupid. I want a follower who's interested in what I say, who wants to know what I do (without being creepy), who finds me funny and engaging. I don't want a follower that will bump my numbers in exchange for bumping theirs.
I look at the profiles of some of the people I follow and am amazed at all they talk about and say. I have no idea where to begin to be that interesting! And sure, there are some that aren't that interesting, but happen to be pretty good looking so I won't lie, I might follow them just for that. But whilst it's not the most satisfying thing to see that my Booths don't get many replies, or that I'm hardly ever retweeted, I know it's not because the world hates me, or that I'm such a victim of society. Simply: I'm just not that interesting. It may be that I haven't quite managed to find the right way to convey myself, but until I do things are unlikely to change much.
I saw so many people on DailyBooth's Live Feed post a "last post" swearing at the users, saying how lame we all were because they weren't getting replies any more. I found that quite often, and I didn't think "oh god, this place is lame, screw these people!" I thought, 'what can I do to make myself more interesting?'. I looked at other people's profiles, tried to determine what made them interesting to me, and see if I could pass that along somehow.
I was looking at who of the people I follow don't follow me back using some Twitter add-on. I was not surprised to see that some of the most interesting people I follow, don't follow me back, because I'm not interesting enough! Sure I reply to some of their tweets, and they kindly reply back sometimes. That's the point! I follow them because I like them. I have no right to force myself upon them. You can't meet someone and really like them and say "OY! LIKE ME BACK!!!" Life doesn't work like that.
I think to a certain extent this is perpetuated a bit by celebrities. Usually "C-List" celebrities. These people chase the ever increasing number of followers, wanting more and more. I find that with stardom the followers will come anyway, I think it's a bit tacky at times to self promote yourself so directly! If a celebrity came up to me and said: "Please follow me on twitter! If I get to 200,000 I'll give something away" I'd be less inclined to follow them than if I just met them and WANTED to follow them. The word of mouth has so much more power when it's spontaneous rather than prompted. Also why I think advertising companies that design adverts to "go viral" are retarded because they're missing the point entirely.
So to all the people who are obsessed with getting followers: Stop it. Please.
Follow people you like, get to know them, and become friends with the people that like you. Drive this social experience, don't let it drive you!
