Human Interaction

Okay…I admit it, it’s a guilty pleasure!

Twitter seems quite suited to my personality.

Short quips. One liners. Observations. It’s a short-and-[not always] sweet way of social interaction across the planet. And you get to meet and interact with some interesting people—some of them famous—that you’d never otherwise have a chance in Hades of meeting, you know, if that’s your thing. But it’s not so much about Hero Worship as gratefulness. You can thank these actors and writers and producers for their great work that you’ve watched and followed, and that is kinda cool. Sometimes you can even interact with them.

A couple of weekends ago, I joined in on an Intruders tweet-a-thon, and I had to admit, it was fun! All you do is tweet while watching the show. See what your fellow folk are tweetin’.

Now, it’s not something I want to do all the time…when I watch TV, I want to relax, but if it’s a special event, I could get into it once in a while. Had some good interaction and played along with some funny comments from the handful of us tweeting the show.

BTW, if you haven’t heard of the  Intruders, I highly recommend it! The first episode had me a little baffled, but I like baffled, so just hang in there if you feel the same way after watching the first installment (where to watch episodes, since the season ended and they’re no longer broadcasting on their website). It’s a really cool show involving the paranormal. It’s my new X-Files replacement, and I’ve been looking! The show is based on the Michael Marshall Smith novel, The Intruders.

But, all that said and done, I think the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of Twitter is just meeting people!

There are a handful of tweeters I call “my Twitter friends,” because we’ve been tweeting since pretty close to when I started Twitter, in 2009. Yes, you can be hoodwinked, but I think, for the most part, you can get to know people over Twitter—or blogging or whatever else it is you do with social media. Even when you get to know people through actual, physical contact, how much of “you” do you show to the public, right? It’s no different. Sure, it’s easier to hide over social media, spoofing and conspiracy theories and all that, people can’t read your body language, et cetera, but I do feel that you can get a good gauge of most. Just like with anything “public,” you have to be careful and err on the conservative side. And sometimes, yeah, you may piss each other off…but it’s also interesting to see how your new friends handle these situations. The really good ones will—in some way—reach out and try to correct an intentional or unintentional wrongdoing.

And that can speak volumes to the type of people they are.

Again, spoofing and conspiracy theories notwithstanding. Just be careful out there.

Just remember we are all people out on these things, we’re not just avatars and bylines. We have real feelings and good and bad days. Deserve to be treated with respect. Consider the words you are about to send out into cyberspace before hitting the Enter key…and if you screw up, be quick to apologize and make it right…leave room open for others to do the same.

In short: cut people some slack.

None of us are perfect.

But, do have fun exploring the world through your chosen mode of social media!

Feel free to contact me at my Twitter handle of @fpdorchak