One topic that has become something of a reoccurring theme is how to get the attention of the cast of The Walking Dead on Twitter. There are varying ideas with this regard, but a lot of fans, us included, don't believe in spamming the cast/crew. Before you get your panties in a wad saying "but we should be allowed to get our follow just like you did", let's preface this by saying most of the cast (including Norman Reedus) does not follow either of our accounts, most of our admins, or chat room regulars. That does not mean, however, that we aren't just as visible to them as those who've been followed are.
Having an account with a following larger than most average Joes (5000+ followers) has taught us a thing or two about a thing or two. For one, if you had to liken tweets to a real world communication, even on a smaller account, it would be a billboard. You post it out there and hope passersby see it, and many will... but even if you post something controversial that sets tongues to wagging, some of your best buddies won't ever even know what happened. Just because people follow you doesn't mean they read what you tweet; in fact the more people they follow the slimmer the chances they'll ever see it unless they decide to visit your profile or you mention them in the tweet. While that's great for people who like to "chat" on Twitter, that's bad for people who DO like to watch their timelines. Because of all the constant noise, once you get past, say 1000 follows/followers, you nearly stop watching your timeline altogether. Imagine every street you drove down having walls of billboards along each side... wouldn't get to read much of it, would you?
What does that mean? Well, it means that just because a celebrity followed you, they're not necessarily paying attention to you. Do they lurk sometimes? Oh, sure they could if they had that kind of time, but chances are extraordinarily slim (especially if they follow thousands of fans). The point is, a follow from a celebrity is just not that important, unless you intend to DM them to death which is an entirely different post/rant/deathwishfromhell.
We're going to talk specifically about Norman Reedus' @wwwbigbaldhead account. Now, several months ago Norman posted a video of what was supposed to be a "Twitter chat" that got overrun by fans and made his laptop sound like it was about to explode. In that video you can see that he is using Tweetdeck to watch his feed, and only watches search results on a few key words such as his handle and name... NOT his timeline. This is something you can do as well to get an exact match to what he sees (unless he's on his phone or iPad). Take a gander and it shant take too long before you see someone tweeting incessant "FOLLOW ME" requests, and some come off very rude. You'll also see people having full blown conversations who've left him copied. on. every. tweet. While this can be an accident, most people know that it's done intentionally to get the celebrity's attention and is choking up their mentions feed just as badly as 'follow me' SPAM. Sit and watch that feed for a while, just watch it, and imagine what he's thinking when he's watching it... or what you'd think if people were constantly doing that to you. It might make you want to throw your device across the room.
Norman in particular is extraordinarily kind to his fans and was very eager to please them, but recently has backed way off presumably due to the high demands people were placing on him... especially the amount of people that have been getting rude about it. We were told a story from a fan who personally witnessed Norman getting chased down in an airport by someone who when she got to him, angrily demanded that he follow her on Twitter. Come on now, people, he's still a person, you know, with actual feelings and everything. Gale Anne Hurd has blatantly stated several times that if you SPAM her, not only will she NOT follow you, she will block you. That should be your first hint... they don't like it. Your followers don't want to see it, either. If someone has done you the favor of following you, you shouldn't clog up their timeline with what can only be viewed as a desperate need for celebrity attention. You should have more respect for them and yourself.
We've said it as a general rule of thumb for behavior in our chat room, that everyone should follow real world social rules. Play nice, share the toys, and no hitting. This should apply to how you treat celebrities on Twitter, especially the more popular ones. Our favorite saying is that if you would run up and yell in someone's face begging for attention every five minutes then you've got problems we can't help you with. So don't do it on Twitter either. We're not saying you can't or shouldn't politely ask for a follow from time to time, just don't get psycho about it.
The last thing we'd like to point out with regard to Twitter is how unbelievably public it is. Several websites exist just to archive social media posts, so even if you go back and delete it later, Tweets never really go away. Let's say that again... Tweets NEVER GO AWAY. One of the main reasons why we opened the chat room was to remove the possibility that 10 years down the road, some potential employer will come across our old handle and read our silly obsessive fangirl conversations... the very thought alone is blush-provoking, let alone if we got caught trolling the celebrity. Plus, if you converse with other fans on Twitter long enough, inevitably you will suffer abuse at the hand of some anonymous stranger hell-bent on belittling you for what you thought was an innocent enough tweet. It can be as hostile as a high school cafeteria full of mean girls. Yes, chat rooms are good, especially moderated ones.
So go forth, children. Play nice, share the toys, and no hitting!
WalkingDeadFamily.com
Thursday, September 26, 2013
New Blog!
Welcome to the new blog for The Walking Dead fans, and the premier chat room at WalkingDeadFamily.com! The site was created in early 2013 and has a regular base of wonderful adult fans ready to have fun and chat with you..
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