"It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led the young men are dead." - Chief Joseph, Nez Perce Chief
I gave it a go, but in the end, my social networking pursuits ended in frustration. Therefore, I shut down my Twitter account. It was a form of surrender, I must admit. I couldn't commit to stopping my actual life, which needs so much attention these days, to develop a virtual one, that wasn't helping me anyway.
And it was at the very moment I decided to sacrifice my tweet life that I thought of Chief Joseph. When I met him in 11th grade English class, I thought him a hero of sorts. He refused to move his tribe to a reservation. Instead, he attempted to move his people to Canada, but they were defeated 40 miles from freedom. He gave a formal speech of surrender, understanding the needs of his people and choosing them over his pride. That's guts! Instead of dying with his people, he decided to live with them, even if it was on land that no longer belonged to them.
Twitter backed me in a corner in a similar way. I thought it would help me bring attention to my blog, which would bring attention to my writing. But that didn't really happen because people got lost in the hype of Twitter. And I began to feel smothered by the pull of trendiness, which I've never really been a fan of anyway. Once I gave up,Twitter made sure I felt excommunicated with the following message (take special note of the red):
You deactivated your account.
Account restoration is currently unavailable. Here is the message you agreed to before deactivating your account:This action is permanent.
Before you deactivate your account, know this:
• This action is permanent: account restoration is currently disabled.
• You do not need to deactivate your account to change your username. (You can change it on the settings page. All @replies and followers will remain unchanged.)
• Your account may be viewable on twitter.com for a few days after deactivation.
• We have no control over content indexed by search engines like Google.
• If you're creating a new account and want to use the same user name, phone number and/or email address associated with this account, you must first change them on this account before you deactivate it. If you don't, the information will be tied to this account and unavailable for use.
Information from your deactivated account (username and email address) will be unavailable to use on a new account.
And then, as if the Twitter team knew I would want to come back, it added, "Click here to sign up for a new account." What nerve!
Well...I will not be back... Twitter gave me a feeling of icky-ness. Following others who have no real original insight or ideas. Trending topics that would never change the world. Verified accounts of celebrities whose only job is to update followers about their pursuits (so that would make their tweets 140-character commercials). I don't know. It just seemed like communication took a backseat to social networking, which hasn't and never will be the same thing as effective communication. In short, I was thinking too much, making me unfit for Twitter.
And it was at the very moment I decided to sacrifice my tweet life that I thought of Chief Joseph. When I met him in 11th grade English class, I thought him a hero of sorts. He refused to move his tribe to a reservation. Instead, he attempted to move his people to Canada, but they were defeated 40 miles from freedom. He gave a formal speech of surrender, understanding the needs of his people and choosing them over his pride. That's guts! Instead of dying with his people, he decided to live with them, even if it was on land that no longer belonged to them.
Twitter backed me in a corner in a similar way. I thought it would help me bring attention to my blog, which would bring attention to my writing. But that didn't really happen because people got lost in the hype of Twitter. And I began to feel smothered by the pull of trendiness, which I've never really been a fan of anyway. Once I gave up,Twitter made sure I felt excommunicated with the following message (take special note of the red):
You deactivated your account.
Account restoration is currently unavailable. Here is the message you agreed to before deactivating your account:This action is permanent.
Before you deactivate your account, know this:
• This action is permanent: account restoration is currently disabled.
• You do not need to deactivate your account to change your username. (You can change it on the settings page. All @replies and followers will remain unchanged.)
• Your account may be viewable on twitter.com for a few days after deactivation.
• We have no control over content indexed by search engines like Google.
• If you're creating a new account and want to use the same user name, phone number and/or email address associated with this account, you must first change them on this account before you deactivate it. If you don't, the information will be tied to this account and unavailable for use.
Information from your deactivated account (username and email address) will be unavailable to use on a new account.
And then, as if the Twitter team knew I would want to come back, it added, "Click here to sign up for a new account." What nerve!
Well...I will not be back... Twitter gave me a feeling of icky-ness. Following others who have no real original insight or ideas. Trending topics that would never change the world. Verified accounts of celebrities whose only job is to update followers about their pursuits (so that would make their tweets 140-character commercials). I don't know. It just seemed like communication took a backseat to social networking, which hasn't and never will be the same thing as effective communication. In short, I was thinking too much, making me unfit for Twitter.
I believe in ink and ideas, so I'm wholeheartedly embracing the sore thumbiness that is my awkward social identity. I'm going to pour myself into this blog, and even if no one ever finds and follows me...
"I am tired; My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will [tweet] no more forever."
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| This is not my hand, but I did take this picture... :-) |
I am actually surprised you ever tried to tweet. hats off to you boo.. i heard facebook also makes it difficult or impossible to deactivate. such nazis.. all of them.
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