I've written before about making a conscious effort to not pay much attention to my own twitter numbers. My plan was to tweet what I wanted regardless of losses and gains, which is pretty much how I started. Those who know me well have long since realised that I struggle to filter myself and my poker face is non-existent; my heart is stubbornly stitched to my sleeve and every emotion writ large on my face. I can only assume that my twitter feed is similarly candid. I've tried very hard to keep it so, for despite my relative anonymity it's supposed to be a place to represent myself with a reasonable degree of honesty. However, I do try to follow a policy of tweeting with a modicum of empathy. In spite of my tendency to get on my digital soapbox, kneejerk doesn't have to mean lacking thoughtfulness.
A little over a year ago, I wrote about what I'd noticed about large accounts and the way their owners behaved. At the time I was hovering somewhere below 500 followers, and was looking on with incredulity at how some Big Classics Account owners threw their online weight around. As usual with this blog, there was a specific kerfuffle that sparked off the post (which is more a longform subtweet,) but in the interim there have sadly been many similar occurences. Big Classics Account owners are still sporadically taking aim and shooting off ill-advised attacks on others. They usually choose small targets, numberwise. As I wrote about in the post linked above, I do think that (certain) people believe that large follower/like/retweet stats can justify meaner behaviour, because high stats are easily conflated with mass approval and even encouragement. It's easy to gently mock undergrads like myself for seeing the Melian Dialogue in everything, but perhaps you'll kindly let me have this one.
My own plans to tweet 'authentically,' as I believe I put it, have changed in the last couple of months. This has coincided with breaking the 4 figure follower barrier. And as much as I have staunchly attempted to pay no mind to numbers, here I am writing a whole bloody post about them. That said, I've found that my twitter experience did change as I hit 1k, and I've found myself thinking about why. For clarification, I'll state now that this isn't intended as a whingy post. I'm regularly astounded that people ever care about what I say, let alone sign up for regular doses. I am grateful for and perplexed by every follower in equal measure.
However sporadic my blog posts may be, some posts did gain a little traction over the last year. Moreover, I was quietly thrilled to have written for other websites as well. All of this has luckily increased my 'profile' a little. I'm not sure I would ever class myself as an integral part of Classics Twitter and I'm equally unsure of whether I would want to be, but I'm gratified that a lot of people I admire who are have clicked "follow back." Even if I am swiftly and subsequently muted,(and I suspect I am,) it never fails to thrill. Even more of a thrill is when I get positive feedback and encouragement about my work from such people. Don't get me wrong, encouragement is welcome from any source, but it is particularly exhilarating coming from those who you've cited for uni and whose books grace your shelves. A higher follower count has equalled a wider readership, which fortunately have increased such happy incidents.
Simultaneously, I've noticed more inexplicable likes, retweets and follows. I presume that many are bots, or perhaps what were before throwaway tweets get sucked into the 'followed topics' algorithms more frequently if you have a larger following? I have a suspicion that the number of likes from non-followers on certain tweets has, on average, disproportionately grown. I shall never understand algorithms, but this may be a way to explain why some tweets get four or five times as much engagement from strangers than mutuals. Some tweets get 'picked up' when more carefully thought out tweets get sucked into twitter's Bermuda Triangle. This is usually a mere niggle, but does trouble me when sharing more private things, like anecdotes about my daughter. A year ago, when nearly all of my followers were mutuals, I never thought twice about sharing one of her malapropisms, drawings or exploits. It was like sharing with friends and I like to share her because I made her from scratch; she is my Sistine Chapel. But now, if I share something, it snowballs until likes and retweets from strangers far outweigh those from people I 'know.'
I have been becoming more cautious with whom I follow back, so the follow/follower numbers have not grown at the same rate. It's not that I regret many of the people I've given a reciprocal follow, (though I have learned how to softblock and have had to do on occasion,) but I realised that the more people I follow, the more I was missing amidst the noise of my timeline. I wasn't gaining anything apart from chaos and din. So one thing that I did consciously do was to curate the list of people I follow more carefully. In the early days of my account this was never an issue, and I was so grateful to the many people who gave a fresh account like mine a chance, simply because we share a common interest. I feel a pang of guilt whenever I feel I can't do that for someone else now.
And in a related move that may offend, I also made a decision to disable retweets from every single person I follow. It was revolutionary. I was able to curate a little of the chaos again. Does your timeline contain more retweets than tweets from people you follow? Mine did. So I changed it. My line of thought here is that if a tweet from an account I don't know is important enough, the information will get to me via discussion or a quote-tweet. However, and don't mistake this for begrudging people their hobbies, I was increasingly frustrated by a timeline filled with sourdough recipes, cats and politics. I still retweet things, which may make me look slightly hypocritical, and you'd be correct in that assumption, but I try to quote tweet what I really want to draw attention to. I figure that if it's important enough to share, I should state why. To my friends, please don't take this personally. I'm just more interested in what you have to say. I also highly recommend an extensive list of muted words and phrases.
With my words reaching a wider readership I have started showing reluctance to wade in to kerfuffles. This is against my nature. The name my mother chose for me is a masterclass in nominative determinism, for my usual state is to be agitated or outraged on someone else's behalf and to grab my pitchfork. I've never been able to stop myself from screeching about perceived injustices or advocating for those on the receiving end. I'm usually to be found in a semi-permanent state of righteous indignation. I also have to fight the tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. A year ago, I'd be ranting mainly to fellow students and enthusiasts, but now I find myself bellowing to both professors and laypeople with the faintest connection to Classics as a field. It's not necessarily that I fear I'll fall into the trap of punching down, for I'm still quite low on the ladder myself, but that the size of my account means that my whispered complaints have crescendoed. People other than peers have started to listen. One of my swearier rants was even included in a recommended blogpost round up of 2021. By a professor.
One of the ways I've kept myself sane is to create a locked 'alt' account. Nothing will pop an ego as quickly as realising how few of your 1k+ readership will follow an alt. I'm loathe to publicise it, as it rather defeats the point, but it has gone some way to sort mutuals out from friends. If anyone does want to follow it, it's not difficult to find. My single rule is that only longterm mutuals are allowed. It's been a safe space, a very personalised haven. I can't be retweeted, and I can handpick who I include, i.e nobody who would share screenshots. I've been screenshotted before (by an Assist Prof in the States, no less) so that everyone could point and laugh at me behind my digital back. It's not an experience I wish to be repeated. And so my alt is almost like a nursery for my righteous indignation. I can shoot from the hip in a small space among trusted friends, develop my fury into something vaguely coherent, and rationalise my thoughts. Sometimes, if I'm onto something, those same friends will advise me to 'put it on main' or to write a post on here. As my 'platform' (ugh) starts to increase, it's been a marvel having a buffer zone. It's like having those fancy encrypted keys to nuke codes. I've become less willing to share more personal things 'on main' and have arguably moved more of my personality behind the digital lock.
What I'm trying to say, and not altogether succinctly, is that my personal experience of twitter has changed as my follow/follower numbers have increased. It has been harder to control and become less predictable. Despite my ambition to tweet spontaneously with no regard to figures, it's not one that I see myself being able to achieve. It's not just the algorithms that treat you differently once your profile shows approximate figures instead of a transparent three figure number, the way that fringe followers and strangers interact has also changed. Unless I know people very well I'm naturally very shy in person, something that I didn't suffer from on Twitter before. Before lockdown I went to a talk by the same academic who recently recommended that post of mine. I was desperate to ask a question (thanks to a current essay being on a connected topic,) but would rather have thrown myself out of a window that speak up. Twitter allowed me the anonymity to share my ideas and work without needing to be seen in any meaningful way, at least it did at first. It took away that feeling of dread. Without the crippling nerves, I could speak up until people did indeed start to listen and interact with me.
The diminutive size of my online footprint gave me comfort and confidence, but as it has grown I feel increasingly diffident. The pit in my stomach has started growing again. Now, when I make a blunder, the audience to witness my mistake is larger. The fear of revealing a gap in my knowledge is greater. The spectators to my nonsense are increasingly unfamiliar. My social anxiety was diminished by anonymity, but I'm not feeling so anonymous anymore. I can make a silly, inconsequential tweet that for unknown reasons attract a lot of random engagement. Where once I saw familiar avatars smiling back at me, now I see an audience of strangers.
Rereading my thoughts about Big Accounts feeling invincible and inviolable because their stats justify their bad behaviour ( at least in their own heads) has brought this into sharp contrast with my own experiences. I have not found that more followers = popularity, or approval, or feeling invulnerable. 1k has not magically bestowed me with confidence or a feeling of authority. Nor should it. Perhaps it is no bad thing after all, I wanted to tweet 'authentically' and now my online persona is becoming as shy as the reality. And my newfound reticence, even when my temper is provoked, will never feel unalien but is maybe a blessing in disguise. Unlike some, it's unlikely that I'll start throwing my weight around.