You Are What You (Re)Tweet!

Why you (re)tweet?

• Sometimes you do it because your buddy tweeted it.
• Sometimes it is just to make the other tweeter happy.
• Sometimes it is to keep your tweet-stream (seem) populated.
• Sometimes you are bored and have nothing to say of your own.
• Sometimes you hope they will return the favor someday.
• Sometimes you just want to show you are supportive.
• Sometimes you just want to be part of the group (or hate feeling left out).
• Sometimes you do it to want to be re-tweeted yourself.
• Sometimes you do to promote a brand or campaign.
• Sometimes you hope the buzz will get you more followers.

And sometimes, just sometimes, you re-tweet because you believe (or want to discuss) the message or link. Sadly the more of the earlier reasons you do it for, makes the last one seem a little weak. The emphasis of “owning” your tweets extends to “owning” your retweets. The Twitter stream is saturated with twitter parties and re-tweets that there is barely any conversation happening. Tools like Triberr, in my opinion, are not helping by having automatic retweets from “tribes” set up. I admit I tried it and was super worried and bailed out by the 1st day since I realized I had NO idea what I was automatically retweeting.

Sure you can be specific as to who is in your “tribe” but here is the thing: while I love my friends, I don’t necessarily share all their beliefs (and diversity is a good thing people). So if I go around yakking all the time about say artificial food colors or high fructose corn syrup and end up re-tweeting something that is totally opposite to that, am I not giving off mixed signal?. Many of us share different views on politics, religion, food, healthcare etc so in blindly retweeting are we not leaving ourselves open to scrutiny?

I personally don’t want the liability of passing on a blind message and worry about a controversial message being tacked on as mine (especially if I sit on the opposite side of the fence of the issue). Truthfully the chance I will click on anything most people retweet is minimal now. Not only are there just so many retweets, but thanks those automatic retweets I see that post being retweeted at least 4 times consecutively – my brain ends up registering it under “junk mail” as I search for fresher picks.

Worse still,  I have lost faith that you actually believe what you retweeted because I know it was some automatic program doing it and not you. It feels akin to listening to a pre-recorded message rather than a live one. I won’t even go into the fact that someone is wasting someone’s time by retweeting at some God-forsaken time (that only peeps like me are awake at).

While I will not unfollow you for the automatic retweets, know that I will not be clicking on them too…

You really are what you (re)-tweet!