Twitter Weirdos.

You may know that I tweet. I tweet like an addict. (Are you following me? You should be.  On Twitter, that is.  In real life, that would be odd). I tweet from my computer, and I tweet from my iPhone.  My number of followers on Twitter has grown quite a bit in the past month, and while most are some interesting, quality folks, some are just plain weird.  I'm making my weirdo list, and checking it twice.

The Loner. One of my newest followers is following over 1,000 people. He has a respectable 200+ followers himself. And a grand total of 0 tweets. What are you doing? I sort of feel like he's just peeking in my window. Creepy.

The Horny Guy. This is the guy who follows people for the purpose of attempting a hookup. He'll send a creepy direct message about how he thinks my profile photo is hot, and that he'd like to meet me. This is particularly creepy when my profile photo is a picture of my baby son. Begone, horny guy. There's a whole internet full of porn out there for you. And speaking of that...

The Porn Bot. If your profile picture is a photo of your crotch (or, more correctly, some porn model's crotch, as you are actually a 30-something fat guy living in mom's basement), I know that you are just following me because you want me to follow you back so you can spam me with links to your pornolicious website. No thank you.


The eBay/Etsy Maven:  This one is particularly disappointing when it is a person who would be reallyinteresting to follow, if only they would tweet about something besides their latest eBay and Etsy listings.  In my opinion, this is just a step above virtual panhandling.  I don't mind a weekly or even daily update on your listings, but I don't need a daily link to each item you have for sale.

The Retweeter. These are hard to identify at first, but once you've followed them for a little while, they stick out like a beacon. They add no content, no comments, no anything of their own. Their only purpose is to retweet smart things that other people say. Retweeting is great when done sparingly. Retweeting your friend's "OMG I LOVE GLEE!!!1!" just isn't all that interesting to anyone else.

The Dirty Talker:  Some people apparently tweet just for the purpose of saying raunchy stuff their mom would have soaped their mouths for.  A naughty word for effect, occasionally, can be effective.  When you use it all the time you just sound juvenile.  There are a few notable exceptions to this rule, though.  @GaryJBusey tweets like a sailor, but he's so freaking funny that it is worth every cuss.  (Sure - I'll share a recent gem of his: No lube? Grab a shoehorn. That's #howtobeagoodbf.).  See?  Told ya.  Want more?  How about: "Taking the road less traveled" is my favorite euphemism for anal sex.  (Okay, simmer down.  That's enough).

Some folks on Twitter are head and shoulders above the rest.  Their tweets are a perfect blend of interesting links, offbeat commentary, blog updates, conversations and an occasional photo.  Not surprisingly, those that master the perfect blend have a lot of well-deserved followers.  


Don't get me wrong - I don't unfollow all of my Twitter creeps.  The occasional dirty old man or eBay pusher keeps me out of trouble now and again but as my Twitter Weirdo list grows, the list of users I follow shrinks.