I will admit that up until a year ago, I blew raspberries at the Twitter community. Why would I want to share my inner most secrets and why would I care about irrelevant events in the life of strangers. How stupid. What a colossal waste of time.
Then I read Crush It, by the highly energetic Gary Vaynerchuk. He blew raspberries at me and all the other naysayers. I have always thought of myself as open minded and think out of the box type guy. How could I criticize a community that I never belonged?
I joined Twitter. First lurking in the shadows, listening and watching. Then I marshaled my courage and ran out into sunlight. I was fully exposed. I composed my first 140-character tweet. With the same reluctance that I pulled a trigger on a gun for the first time, I hit the enter key and watched my first tweet tumble out in the world. Nothing happened. No cataclysmic platonic shift occurred. I was safe. I jumped in and followed a few people and they were nice enough to follow me back. The successful author John Locke, of the Donovan Creed novels, also assured me in his nonfiction book that Twitter was indeed safe and again provided reassurance to me.
As time marched on, so did my conversing. I had always enjoyed spending time with my fictional characters. They were my friends, the good looking and tough detective, Kate Alexander and her partner, the tough and insolent Frank Duffy or the spunky and resilient bullied victim, Nikki Chambers. They were therapeutic friends during times of stress.
Instead of hanging out with my fictional buddies, I found a stronger connection with my Twitter Friends. They were advocates of bullied victims, the teachers, sports fans, the writers and readers. Some are wacky and crazy, but it is an eclectic canvass of relationships. I know my twitter friends better than I know many of my neighbors and I enjoy a closer relationship. Who knew that in less than 140 characters, you could develop deep friendships with people that you may never meet, but would like to one day.
To all my twitter friends, thank you for allowing to me to lurk and step out of the shadows into the warmth of the sun and enjoy your companionship.
Great post, Mike. Welcome to the Twitterdome.
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Love it, Mike. I have found some of my greatest supporters and closest friends on Twitter, and at first, I was a raspberry blower, too:-) Welcome to the new age of “friends”. Thanks for sharing a great post.
What a lovely post!
That’s exactly how I feel.
It’s amazing how such little clusters of individual thought still reveal a person’s true character within a short number of exchanges. It’s a good thing you did step out of the shadows – because you were keeping your own light hidden. A bright one at that!
Thank you!
Thanks for this great post Mike. It’s good to know I’ve not been alone in my difficult journey to social networking! And here’s hoping we can learn from this and never again criticise something from the sidelines that we have not first experienced!
Love this post, Mike. I feel the same way and it makes me feel better that someone else feels the same way. We really can relate in 140 words, can’t we? Sometimes, I think it’s more powerful BECAUSE it’s so limited. Thanks for writing this.