MANTALK: The colourful characters of #KOT

Are you on Twitter? No? Why aren’t you on Twitter? Come on, you should be on Twitter. This is 2016. Don’t let the ‘new age’ train leave you at the derelict station. What sort of uninspired life do you live if you aren’t on Twitter? Aren’t you enticed by the lure of fame and importance? Don’t you want to have an opinion and shout about it the loudest? Don’t you want to join a gang of marauding members who torch and burn? Don’t you have a righteous bone in your body you want to exercise on the masses? Go on, get a handle. It’s free. No name is off boundaries – the racier the better. 

Twitter only requires 140 characters for a post. Anybody who went up to Class Eight can handle it. You don’t have to qualify your thoughts on Twitter. Do you know how cool that is, to say practically anything and not be held accountable? I know what you are thinking – that this is a marketplace. You are right. And all of us in it are mad men and women. Here is a little glossary to get you started.

THE ACADEMICIAN

This could be you – if you know or pretend to know everything academic. Nobody will find out you Googled anyway; besides, not many people bother to check or verify. Why substantiate when you can RT? One rule applies; if you read it on Twitter it is probably true.

Note: RT is to ‘retweet’, which means to repost or forward anything that you want your followers to read. You will see a scores of people adding the disclaimer: RT’s are not endorsement. You will get used to that level of grand oxymoron.

THE KNOW-IT-ALL

You should be able to know everything under the sun. You will fit right in if you are the kind of person who wants to have an opinion on everything. Why wouldn’t anyone want to know what you have to say when you are so brilliant and engaging and fun and beautiful and relevant? So you will have to join every conversation and pitch your two cents. Literally.

NIGHT OWL

Do you feel sad when the whole country is going to bed? Do you feel purposeless? Afraid that nobody will engage you, or read from you, or laugh with you? Do you feel some sense of trepidation of nightfall, when there is no one to read your incisive opinion on a matter you really know very little about? Don’t worry, you can be the sentry on Twitter, the one who prowls handles in the dead of the night, a lonely soul looking for someone to tweet.

Note: ‘Tweep’ is what they call themselves on Twitter. I’m sure this is purely coincidental, but it rhymes with ‘dweeb’.

THE LYNCHER IN CHIEF

You can earn recognition by burning people at the stake. All you need to do is troll one user then round up a few lynch tweeps and wait for them to follow your lead. Don’t worry there is always someone who you can pick on. There is always someone minding their own business who you can start a fight with. Pick the strong and the big. They will give you validation.

Note: A ‘tweebie’ is a newbie to the platform – in other words, you when you finally join Twitter.

THE ANGRY FEMINIST

You don’t know it yet, but there is never a shortage of sexist bait online. It’s rife. There is always some idiot who will say something chauvinistic and it will be your duty to go at them hammer and tongs and remind them in the loudest, crudest and most insolent way that they have erred. You have to set an example to others like him who might say something else like that in future, because you know how these men are, they need to be taught a lesson. So don’t worry about good sense, just be snooty and entitled and downright ugly. That’s the only way to send such strong messages to men. In fact, it’s the only way they will listen to you.

FLY-ON-THE-WALL

Are you the kind of person who doesn’t like attention? You log on and stay logged on but you never say anything. You never cause trouble. You are the guy at the party who sneaks in and sneaks out. You just want to do you; observe and stuff.

THE COOL KIDS OF TWITTER

You know those rich kids in high school who used have two metal boxes and never ran out of Blue Band or pocket money? Yup. They are on Twitter as well. They tweet about fashion high tea (don’t ask me what that is) and post TweetVids (made that up to mean videos) of them wearing all-white and eating creme brulee at some posh restaurant. They project privilege, real or imagined. Please don’t confuse this for happiness or contentment. Some are just a projection of deep insecurity and loneliness.

THE RELEVANT

FOMO. You know what that is? That is a new lingua, some sort of colloquial to mean the ‘fear of missing out’. You experience it sometimes, don’t you, when you feel like the world is moving on and leaving you standing still? You want to be relevant too. You want to show that you count. So sometimes you start senseless fights with people who are not your size. Sometimes you stand on the shoulder of giants, who on Twitter are called Twitter Bigwigs.

Talking Of Twitter Bigwigs…

Twitter is like the Animal Farm. There are lanes, and your lane is determined by the number of followers you have. The people with hundreds of thousands of followers are called the Bigwigs. They sit at the head of the table and drink from silver goblets. They change conversations. They create conversations. When they sneeze, the whole of Twitter catches a bad cold.

But here is the thing: When you get 1,000 followers don’t imagine they are your friends. They are not. They just follow you. They don’t owe you anything. Neither do you them. Twitter, you will realize, can be a great tool for being on top of thing – pop culture, news and conversations. However, be careful because Twitter might get into your head. It might make you imagine that you are someone you are not. It might make you imagine that you matter. Twitter is a big illusion fuelled by vanity, ignorance, hubris, great hype and quite often a cocktail of imbecility with no known antidote.

Does this help? Great. Jump in and good luck. Please RT this as your first task, but only because it is not a representation of your personal views.