Last night on Twitter I saw a couple of tweets with our subject hashtag, #ETL523, that made me stop and wonder.
@LizzyLegsEllis I followed you because I like netball & sport, NOT to have #etl523 shoved in my face every 5 minutes!!! #dullasdishwater
— Emma Broadley (@emmab_891) March 30, 2016
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@emmab_891 @LizzyLegsEllis You’re not the only one who is sick to death of it – cya Liz, we’ll enjoy @ANZChamps while you enjoy #etl523
— Julia McCrae (@thatdamnjulia) March 30, 2016
A bit of exploring and I discovered:
@LizzyLegsEllis is Liz Ellis the former Australian netballer (who is not, as far as I’m aware, a student of ETL523).
@LizzyLegsEllis has been retweeting tweets from @KathEllis74 (who is).
I might be making a huge assumption, but I suspect Liz and Kath might be related. That’s nice, I thought, showing support for your sibling/cousin/?’s studies by retweeting.
Clearly not, according to Emma the egg (who won’t be taken seriously, according to SocialTimes). Here’s the tweet that preceded the first one:
@LizzyLegsEllis my God Liz, could you possibly be any more BORING?!?!? Stop spamming everyone with this online education crap #unfollow
— Emma Broadley (@emmab_891) March 30, 2016
I thought (fleetingly) about replying to Emma and that damn julia, but no, on their current form that could easily turn ugly and I am a better digital citizen than that. But gee, doesn’t what these two have tweeted just sum up why we need to teach digital citizenship, and isn’t it funny/sad/ironic that it’s turned up in the #ETL523 feed?
Here are some things I’d like Emma and Julia to know:
- It’s the nature of Twitter that not everything tweeted by the people you follow will interest you. This is not rudeness. Move on, get over it, you are their follower, not their master.
- If you see tweets that don’t interest you…<<drumroll>>…ignore them. There’s no excuse for rudeness in response to perfectly polite retweets.
- If you don’t like much of what someone tweets it is entirely your choice to unfollow them. They probably won’t even know (unless you tell them) and most likely won’t be hurt or care if you do – it’s your Twitter feed, make it what you want it to be. But tweeting them with #unfollow is just a bit off.
- If you are really worried that you will hurt someone’s feelings by unfollowing (I suspect you’re not, though) you can mute someone you follow, either temporarily or permanently.
- Using certain Twitter clients it’s easy to mute a particular hashtag or keyword. That pesky #ETL523 problem can simply disappear using Tweetdeck, Tweetbot or Twitterific.
I guess what surprised me the most about these tweets is just how some people must think it is ok to be rude. Of course, I’ve read and heard about trolls and all sorts of nasty commenting that goes on but I’ve never really come face to face with it, either personally or in a hashtag that I’m particularly invested in. I’ve had plenty of lively conversations in Twitter and there’s certainly nothing wrong with disagreeing or expressing opinions…politely. Why is that so hard for some people?