Diary of a Twitter Addict
[This article appeared in today’s Times of India, ‘Crest Edition’, titled ‘Why I’m Part of the Twittering Classes’. Also available on the Crest website here.]
I slept through last night, which would be good normally but i missed all the replies to the Narendra Modi joke i had posted before sleeping. Normally i get up at least once during the night to go to the bathroom, but trust the prostate gland to fail you just when you need it. Got up at 5, refreshed my replies on the phone and felt some joy for the 4 retweets i had got.
No new followers overnight. Disappointing. At this rate, i won’t be able to achieve my target of 10,000 followers by the end of the year. The wife later mentioned that i was mumbling something while asleep. Something about an ‘unfollow’, she said.
I got up, turned on the computer, checked Twitter replies, confirmed latest follower count, checked the ToI website for anything worth tweeting and was left with ten minutes to get ready for office. Couldn’t get any time for breakfast. The wife reminded me to not tweet while driving and also to finalize the research for this new fridge we are planning to buy. I nodded in agreement though i was more busy refreshing Twitter on the phone. She’ll remind me if it were anything important anyway.
At work, she called up to ask how the fridge research was going on. I asked my Twitter fans which brand they thought was best. Of the 23 replies i got, i selected the one that came from the person with the most followers, and went with Cool-Cool refrigerators, even though I had never heard the name before. A man’s gotta respect Twitter follower count.
People don’t appreciate it, but Twitter work takes a lot of effort. You need to keep track of new followers, people who unfollowed (to unfollow them back) and most importantly, make sure that you are up to date on latest happenings. You need to be pro-active to be successful on Twitter. You need to be funny. You need to have good timing. You need to have an opinion on anything going on in the world. You need to tweet all the time if you need to get anywhere in life.
The ladies of the house don’t realise this. To them, Twitter is just an annoyance which stops me from doing important stuff. Apparently, getting milk and bread in the morning are more critical tasks. Sigh. Who can argue with them? It’s not like someone’s going to die if the groceries get delayed by 5 minutes. On Twitter, timing is most important. Tweet a joke about Twinkle Khanna’s baby a day after she’s born and you won’t get a single RT.
The day finally got over. Reached home, logged on to the computer and checked my Twitter replies. Disappointed to see there were none since the last time i checked, which was while parking the car outside. The wife saw me on the laptop and went Bofors on me. She now wanted some more stuff from the market, so off I went to the nearby grocery shop and ended up getting into a fight with the scoundrel owner. I threatened that i will ruin him forever with just a single tweet to my army of followers. The illiterate man didn’t even know what Twitter is. With such levels of ignorance, no wonder India is not getting into the UN Security Council.
I am beginning to get a little worried now. Not getting enough retweets these days, while less funny people pile up RTs and followers. At this rate, i may soon need to do an “O- blood required. Please contact XYZ.” tweet just to get some solid RTs. Or maybe some jokes about our Prime Minister. Those always work.
PS: I tweet at @amreekandesi, in case you aren’t following me already. Come one, come all.
[Image courtesy: Oatmeal]
Rofl.. agree.. being on twitter is a very very very hard work.. ;)
haa :) this was hilarious especially the part bout India not getting into the UN general Council..first time on your page..ya i am pretty ignorant that ways :) but glad i dropped by
*wipes tear* Seconded so true.