Brian Wetjen

Tapping into the collective consciousness of Twitter, it appears that there are several things that regular Twitter users are ready to not be subject to seeing anymore. My opinion is that a lot of these are things that we’d like to not see or hear anywhere, but they appear consistently and repeatedly in written form on Twitter on an ongoing basis. So it makes it easy to point out.

Some of this reminds me of the early days of the Internet when newsgroups were the way that we’d all communicate and collaborate online. There was an etiquette that was generally followed, and it quickly became apparent who the newbies were. Some of that prevails today, in that many Tweeters consistently repeat behavior that is more or less seen as annoying, amateur, or just unnecessary.

So here’s the list I’ve started compiling from other Tweets that I’ve seen where someone calls out the undesirable Tweet behavior. I concur with many of these, and I recommend you take a look to see which #TweetCrime you may have participated in as well.

5 Things We’re Ready to Stop Seeing on Twitter

• The status of your inbox
  Frankly, nobody cares. Plus – it’s not only a little braggy, but it’s assuming that your method for managing and organizing your inbox is superior to everyone else’s, and the goal all should strive for. Frankly, we just don’t care. 

  “Went to bed with inbox zero, woke up with 30 more emails. It’s never ending.”
  “OMG. Zero inbox for the first time in months!”
  “854 new unread emails in my Inbox. Clearly, vacation is over.”
  

• Good Morning / Good Day / Top O’ the Mornin’ to Ya
  Sure, it’s polite and nice, but is it really necessary? If I follow you, and you Tweet a “good morning” every single day, it’s just one more tweet filling up space where I’m trying to pay attention to the actual information going on in the world. 

  “Top of the morning to ya…Treadmill time!!”
  “Top of the morning twit fam!”
  “Good morning. Give God the glory.”
  

• Vague or ambigious Tweets that are just phishing for a reply or follow-up
  If you’re begging for attention, please don’t do it on Twitter. Give up the goods or wait until you have things worked out more before sharing it with the world. 

  “Four times in one year. A personal best.”
  “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
  “I love waking up to good news!”
  

• Endless inspirational or motivational quotes.
  I like a good quote or words of wisdom as much as the next guy. But if a significant number of your Tweets are dedicated to someone else’s words, maybe you need to reconsider why you’ve got a Twitter account in the first place. If I wanted a carbon copy of the unabridged dictionary of famous quotations, I’d just follow that on Twitter. I want to know what you are thinking.
• Pointless Nothingness
  It’s pretty simple. If there’s no value or meaning to something, and the general public doesn’t care about it and doesn’t need to know about it, go ahead and leave it off Twitter. 

  “Just got home”
  “Nice day outside today”
  “Gym.”

This list is likely only a beginning. It’s also focused more on the things I’ve seen people mention that are pretty universal. One candidate on many lists is those who Tweet about food or what they are eating. While that can be mundane, there are times when it’s relevant or even interesting in the way that someone does it. Not universal.

What are some of your least favorite kinds of Tweets?