Wanna take a moment now to do a sort of recap/review of my experience on twitter this past year or so. I’ve been tweeting a lot more, about a lot of different things, and I’ve been lucky enough to have had those tweets shared and retweeted etc to a larger audience than I’ve ever had. And I’ve gotten some really cool new followers, gotten to know some interesting people, and even gotten to meet some really cool people in real life.
But this is not without some friction, not without some cost. And I don’t know if it’s as simple as “just ignore it, block or mute and don’t think about it lol”.
I am not a perfect person, nobody is. I have my biases and my flaws and my self-interest. I like to feel like I know what I’m talking about. I like to feel like I have a good grasp of things, like I know what’s going on.
I don’t actually like it when people fawn over me. It’s a little weird, a little creepy. My favorite type of engagement is one between peers – where we can just discuss things openly and clearly, without any sort of weird burden. Sometimes Indian guys call me “sir”, which I find particularly exasperating.
I also sometimes get some weird criticisms – almost always from anonymous types – saying that I’m narcissistic, arrogant, manipulative, messianic, that sort of thing. And you know what… maybe I am? Like, I’m not going to lie and pretend that I’m just some guy, just hanging out with my buddies, just trying to live a simple and normal life. I’m sorry, no, that’s not me. I’ve met people who seem to think that it’s somehow immoral or sinful to even think about “building an audience”. Like, how dare you? Who are you to think of yourself as someone deserving of an “audience”? Do you just want people to worship you? Do you want to be famous? A famous celebrity who gets free stuff? (I think these people dramatically overestimate the amount of free stuff that’s given out, and underestimate the amount of nonsense and abuse that celebrities have to endure.)
I’ve done my fair share of reading and learning about celebrities, and the findings are not pleasant. Celebrities aren’t particularly happy people. A lot of them get there without much pre-existing knowledge about what it’s really like to be a celebrity, and tend to get there with rosy expectations. Bieber describes feeling like a zoo animal. Many celebrities have committed suicide, or otherwise live with substance abuse problems…
Like, I don’t want to be some kind of larger than life figure. I’m a human being. I think there are some people who are naturally larger than life, and they pretty much have almost no choice but to be somebody like Prince or Freddie Mercury. But that’s not me. A part of me once wished that that was who I was, but I don’t think that’s quite the case for me. I’m a bit more of a bookish nerd.
What I’m really looking for is a sort of library of minds. Kind, thoughtful, intelligent minds. They’re all over the world. Even if we’re talking about people who are 0.0001% of humanity, that’s still 7,000+ people – more people than you can humanly keep track of in a natural way. I just want a life surrounded by those people. I think when that happens maybe I’ll even take my Twitter private! (Maybe. I don’t want to promise anything unnecessarily.) But so I’m in this stage of my life now where I’m trying to expand my mind, expand my worldview, expand my sense of self, expand my sense of what is possible. And I think a big, big part of that is done by meeting people from around the world.
Ha, it’s funny. Some people explore the world by personally getting out and travelling. And I do want to do some of that. But I realize that I explore the world by trying to get inside other people’s minds, trying to see through other people’s eyes. The point is that there are all sorts of ways of being, that the way I’m currently being isn’t necessarily correct or good or right. It’s just how I am.
And like, more trivially – I also want to make a living as a writer some day. And doing that is going to require having some sort of mailing list, some sort of audience…
Geez, look at me, trying to defend myself against this projection of an anonymous troll who came at me out of the blue. People are free to do what they want. If they want to subscribe to my ramblings, on any medium, via any channel, that’s their prerogative.
I guess I’m just frustrated with all the dumbshit I encounter on the internet. People dumbshitting at me. It’s so unnecessary. We could have disagreements without condescending to one another, without being dismissive, without being snarky, without having all that attitude. Like, why you coming at me like that, bro? Sigh, I know why, again, it’s because your life is hard and painful and nobody ever taught you a better way to do things.
And of course, as always, I have to wonder if maybe I’m the asshole. It’s always possible. There was a period of time in my life where “Is Visa being an asshole?” was a useful question to which the answer was often yes. I’d like to think that I’ve made a lot of progress on that, and that I’m mostly kind and good-faith most of the time. But a place like Twitter can really trip you up sometimes. And you just have to… be clear about what you’re there for. I’m meeting a friend for dinner tonight and it’s going to be a lovely, pleasant experience. That’s what I’m here for. That’s what I’m focusing on. I make no pretense to be perfect, or even particularly good. I’m just a person, tweeting, in search of kinship.