Ah, listicles. The writer's version of phoning it in.
But they're a gift to the lazy reader too. A listicle asks for nothing but a linear read-through. No need for any active context-maintainance or those pesky Straussian readings, no sir! A 100% pure word-to-brain interface for half the attention cost. You know you can't resist!
Last week, the venerable Sirsfurther confidently declared that there is no art to tweeting. He is right, as always. But in my experience, there is a definite skill. The greatest poasters have mastered the art of the information dress-and-serving, 240 character nuggets delivered with practiced ease.
I had a hard time remembering when I crossed over from struggling-to-shape-thoughts-into-words to writing-a-dozen-drafts-a-month until I realised the only difference was the thousand-or-so tweets I’d written during that time. And other people agree. There’s something about the medium that trains the skill of effortless thought-to-text like nothing else does. Maybe it’s just the magical combination of a low bar and high frequency.
Be okay with the idea that not everything you produce has to be an impressive thought which will stun the entirety of humanity - Sasha Chapin
Apart from posting though, there's a bunch of other skills that seperate the experience Twitter user from a rookie. This list is an attempt to distill those factors into JBP-esque insights.
This isn’t meant to be an argument for Twitter. If you want to convince a friend to get on the bird site, you can show them this, or this.
But if you want to teach them how to use the site, then this post is what you nee- oh right, Priya has another guide. As does Visa. And they're both pretty good.
So why am I writing this one? Because I think I have at least a few new points to make, particularly for people that are complete newbies. (So do them a favour and share this with them, hmm?). It definitely is not because I have a weekly post obligation to meet and had no time to write a proper essay. Anyway…here we go.
I] Know what Twitter is. And what it can be.
You may have heard that it's a hellsite; the cursed source of identity politics and creator of dangerous bubbles. I get it, the world is burning and folks want something to blame. But even if it is the home of the shouting class, Twitter is no irredeemable cesspool. At it's heart, Twitter is just an infinite database of text, with the occasional image thrown in.
But like most things, the bird site is what you make of it. And the possibilities are near-endless. To various extents, Twitter is a public commons, the world’s bar, a tool for (networked) thought, TGSCITIC, open journal, micro-blogging platform, political arena, performance art arena, dating site, informal job market, internet microcosm, marketting funnel, and the most accesible version of a global glass bead game.
2] Know why you're here.
Which makes it all the more important that you decide what you want to get out of it, and work towards that. Twitter works marvellously as a journal. And I will (grudgingly) admit that it also works pretty well as professional networking platform. But those two don’t usually go together very well.
Which is why I recommend picking a small handful of goals to work towards. For example, journal + dating site is surprisingly popular, though I prefer micro-blogging + glass bead game myself. Just so you can ignore the other options and avoid slipping into stuff like political activism or worse, horny-posting. You don’t have to make it easy for people to guess what you’re about, but it does help them to know.
Within those roles however, you have complete freedom to jump from topic to topic. Don’t let those stick-in-the-mud followers rain on your illegibility parade!
3] You're in charge. If you want to be.
It’s usually the case that complaints about toxicity and poor quality almost always come from people who haven't put in any effort to maintain their environs. This is true of Twitter and of life in general. Don’t be one of them.
Curation is a fairly simple process. If you’re following boring/angry people, you’re going see a lot of boring/angry tweets. If you want to see cool shit, you’ll have to go looking for it. Luckily, one interesting account often leads to others, but it’s still your job to follow the path.
Use lists if you want your timeline to be less crowded. You can have seperate ones for different topics, or different kinds of people. Here, for example, is my fairly popular joke twitter list, full of pun crimes and snarky takes. Admittedly, I don't open it much anymore, but other people find it cool.
I also recommend turning off notifications if you're using the mobile app. It's 2021 and no one (except your mum) should have the power to interrupt you without explicit permission.
4] Work with the algorithm.
An unavoidable part of being in charge is working with the things you can't directly control. But that doesn't mean you're powerless. As hard as it is to believe sometimes, the algo is training itself on your behaviour. If you show it that you want to get into a bunch of p*litical debates, it will do it's best to ensure you see more of them.
Liking, retweeting and replying are all signals that you want to see more of a user's tweets. Even tapping on a tweet to view the replies counts as positive interaction, although less strongly. Ignoring a tweet or reply works the other way. Hitting the “not interested in this tweet” button is the most unambiguous a hint to the algorithm can get.
In my amateur opinion, profiling people by their timeline would work much better than Myers-Briggs or *ugh* the DSM-V.
5] Learn to use the tools.
Twitter search is broken in a new way every month. But that doesn't mean it isn't incredibly useful. Advanced search has some especially useful features. But there are two simple methods that give you nearly all the functionality you’ll need.
First, from:@username
. Follow that with a few search words and it will return any tweets by @username
that contain those words. I usually use this to find one of my older tweets to riff off of, or someone else’s particularly good tweet whose phrasing I only roughly remember and want to reference somewhere else.
Second, and even more powerful, is filter:follows
, add that before a normal word-search and it will fetch tweets that match those words, but only from the people you follow. This is incredibly useful if you want to see what those people have said about…literally anything. I nearly always run this kind of search before I get down to writing one of these posts.
6] If you think about blocking someone, go ahead and do it.
Obviously, this doesn't apply to everybody. You could be one of the thick-skinned folk that loves confrontation, or have a weird kink for epistemic humiliation. In which case, go right ahead and wrestle other people's brainworms. But know that there's a better way.
All it takes is a couple clicks, and you'll never have to see them again. Blocking is wielding a pair of pruning shears in your digital garden, a harsh but oft necessary step. FOMO is fake, you're not likely to miss anything important from one particular account. Especially not one who's tiresome enough to deserve a block.
Sometimes though, they might be a friend who’s tweets happen to be the worst part of them. In which case, Twitter has very kindly provided a mute option.
7] It's bad on purpose to make you click.
Remember the terrible take on climate change? Or the article that recommended emasculating yourself with estrogen supplements in the hopes of beating COVID-19?1 The dumbest-idea-you've-ever-heard-of? The one you can't believe they knew what they were doing when they hit "publish" on? Yeah, they knew what they were doing.
Maybe (and it’s a big maybe) the writer sincerely believed what they were writing, and deserves to be told why they’re wrong. But you can bet their editor knew precisely what reaction the article would get, and eagerly sent it out into the web. There's no such thing as bad press. Especially when you literally are the press.
Experienced tweeters know that controversy can be depended upon to rack up the numbers. Engagement is engagement, and every angry retweet, outraged reply and empathetic like is proof of the strategy's success.
8] It's about the people.
No veteran tracks their progress in numbers. After a while, they all fade into the underlying trend. Likes and follower counts may seem like a big deal, because on most other platforms, they are. But Twitter is the open townsquare. There's no barrier to stop you posting in public, or replying to the best of tweetes.
Heck, after a point, numbers are the opposite of having a good time. There's probably no alpha left in following an account with more than 50k followers. God forbid I ever cross a thousand myself. This seems to be an common rule: the bigger the account, the more accurately their tweets can be reproduced by GPT-3.
Instead of just seeing one lonely tweet, you'll see conversations...these can be far more interesting and insightful than a 280-character tweet. - Priya Ghose
Numbers are numbers, but people matter. You know you’re doing it right when you care more about the tweeters than the tweets themselves. Reply to their tweets. DM them. Offer help. You’re a person, you matter too :)
9] Create your own filters.
What sort of people do you want to hang around? How can you let them know you're cool in the same ways they are?
Filters come in an infinite variety of forms. Robin Hanson may annoy people with his "everything is signalling" bit, but that doesn't mean he isn't right. Everything about you signals your taste and abilities in some way or another.
The first big one is the bio and profile picture. Are the two lines of text sufficiently witty/impressive? Does your profile picture display exactly the right amount of taste/nonchalance?
Your tweets are secondary. Because for most accounts, the tweets can be predicted fairly well from the bio. For the few people who do scroll through your latest tweets, here’s a rough idea of what they’re looking for:
Are you someone who tweets often, or sticks to retweets?
Are your tweets playful or sincere?
What does the pinned tweet say about you?
Are you human? Are you dancer?
You don't have to overthink it, but it's good to recognise how much this stuff matters. If the point is to attract who you want to hang out with, and these filters are big part of that.
10] Don't be a dick.
No really, even if being rude is something you enjoy. You'll be losing out on most of Twitter's benefits by being a ornery hater. The most thoughtful, helpful and all-round interesting people don't particularly enjoy rudeness. You can be slightly evil if you want to. But if you're only looking for a place to rant and rage, there's always room on HN.
You don't have to bend over backwards to let people know you're nice. Even respectful disagreement and simple courtesy will be a pleasant surprise. Attacking ideas is okay, even encouraged. Attacking people is cringe.
11] Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street timeline.
Yeah, I stole this one. Because I promised you 12 rules, and I ran out at 11. Sue me. Even if I haven’t actually read the book, this seemed like the best one to steal.
It applies more when you’re a slightly bigger account, but anyone can be kind. It’s the interent, giving a compliment takes two seconds and requires none of the anxiety of real life interaction. I think most people fail to appreciate the disproportionate effects of being kind, especially online where the cost is near-zero.
Tell that kid their painting is cool. Answer the question in the tweet with no likes. Tell that poet that the second line in the first stanza is particularly lovely. As a bonus, they’ll probably follow you back. ;)
12] When in doubt, send tweet.
Anything fun or interesting is on the edge of weird and TMI. Like Sasha says, if you have writer's block, stop lying. All the comfortable takes have been priced in and the people demand quirky freshness.
everyone should strive to contribute to the absurdity of our timeline - @ashishgpt2
If you're really worried about your tweets affecting you, go anon. Everyone loves a poaster with a cool profile picture and an air of mystery around them. In my opinion, self-censoring too much is a worse failure mode than filtering too little.
No, I’m not going to link to it. Are you even paying attention?