Happy as a child with a new toy, I was. Just after unwrapping the pretty paper around Twitter, I didn’t quite know how to go about it. I was awkwardly pushing buttons, and often rubbing other Tweeps the wrong way. But merely a week later I just couldn’t leave it alone. I was so very excited!

Well, I’m a month older now, and less thrilled. Oh, sure. I haven’t outgrown Twitter and still spend way too much time tweeting and reading the tweets of other tweeps. But there are some things that really get on my nerves. Of course, I’m happy to share them with you.

Things I hate about Twitter

Twiarrhoea patients
Some tweeps suffer from twitter diarrhoea. If you’ve been dumb enough to follow them, they will fill your Twitter-page with all kinds of uninteresting shit about their measly boring life. Don’t be mistaken… these are people that have interesting jobs, live hilarious anecdotes with brilliantly funny friends and even have the capacity for being zany in 140 keystrokes. They just drown their pearls of wisdom in endless boring details about making coffee, and train rides where nothing happens, which of course needs to be documented and presented in many neat 140 keystroke packages.

Ass kisser tweeps
Some important and influential people are using Twitter. Like Barak Obama (the president of the US), Maxime Verhagen (Dutch Foreign Affaires Minister), Britney Spears (female pop star), Jane Fonda (American Actress) and of course Francisco van Jole. What irks me, is the tweeps who follow these celebrities and actually try to engage them in conversation. The way they are actively sucking up to their idols makes me queasy. Of course, I’ve also stolen my small moment of glory by sending an offhand reply-tweet to Mr. Verhagen. But some others are grovelling all the time. Disgusting.

One Twick ponies
Twitter is a great social networking tool. Whilst tweeting you can subtly drop a line once in a while about a project you are starting, doing of finishing, brag about the new client that was drooling over the absurdly well priced high quality work you presented, or point people to a great new article on your web log. But not all the time!. Please try to fit in some tweets of general interest, a well-meant compliment to a competitor, an interesting link to a video or just some goofy remarks that make everybody laugh. Twitter is like a big lounge, where many people are saying things to ears that have once chosen to listen. Don’t go budding in time and again to ride their asses with your hobbyhorse, no matter how crucial it is to the world’s wellbeing.

Tweetreactors
The ‘reactors’ are tweepers that never initiate a tweet, but just reply to others. If you follow them, you only get their feedback, like:
@JohnP You’re so right!
@Sulula We are looking to go Saturday. It’s supposed to be grand!
@Happyslap NO! And if you do, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.
Aaaargh! You don’t know what they are talking about, but some of their answers are really intriguing. So you have actually have to go look up the person they are answering, to see what he or she twote. And chances are, you will never find out. Tweetreactors are to be unfollowed as soon as possible, if only to retain a minimum of mental sanity.

Tweetspeak
So you like Twitter a lot. Good for you! But do you really have to use all these cutesy ’twords’? I can’t stand people who say ‘Twexit’ or ‘Twoff’ when they leave (which they usually don’t even do, because each ‘page refresh’ opens new reasons to tweet). Some go ‘tweep well’ before they sign off for bed. Others lovingly call each other ‘twitterazzi’. At all those I would like to beg: “Twease, twut the twuck up!