Why I Think I’m Falling Out of Love With Twitter

If I receive one more message of sympathy from a well wisher, I might well give in to temptation and dismantle a certain French super-mini and reassemble it into a robot that will do much more than shift its hips in a funky dance. This one will mete out destruction on a grand scale; which, when you think it about it, is pretty much what it has already done in the Hamstead Heath region of North London this week.

I’m not saying that people’s sentiments are misplaced but they do fail to understand me as a man. I regularly consider abandoning my Twitter account for precisely this reason. It’s fine that people think I’m funny or that I’m upstanding because I always follow my followers and respond to their messages, but I do that because, in my view, it is just common human decency. I was brought up to respect others. So, if somebody takes the time to follow me, then the least I can do is try to return the compliment. If somebody writes me an email, I will take time to write one back.

Broaden that out to my whole presence on Twitter and you will see that I am primarily trying to entertain people and bring people to my blog. I enjoy the challenge of trying to be funny inside 140 characters. If I can make people’s day a little brighter, then I’m happy. The effort I put into the work is considerable, the reward only spiritual, yet it is, nevertheless, a reward.

If I mock a celebrity like Peter Andre, it is because I believe that celebrities slight people without even realising it. To promise, as he recently did, to follow 10 people a day is, in my view, scornful of his relationship with his fanbase. Even if he does Twitter (and doesn’t simply employ a clever publicist), then following 10 people a day is still a ridiculously insignificant number. It would take 10 to 15 seconds out of his day and 63 years to follow all his current followers. Of course, I wouldn’t expect him to follow 100,000+ people, but he could put enough time into his account to show that there’s real investment into the work of connecting with his fans. Stephen Fry managed to follow 54,000 people before it became impossible to keep up but at least he has set the standard by which any other celebrity is judged.

I suppose it’s the problem with many supposed celebrities on Twitter and, to be fair, Peter Andre is far from the worst. In fact, in Twitter terms, he’s one of the more virtuous characters out there. Claudia Winkleman has 41,000 followers yet follows only 30 people. Let me say that again. This is Claudia Winkleman I’m talking about, not Elizabeth Taylor. 41,000 followers yet she follows only 30 people. The question of how she can only follow 30 people is perhaps eclipsed by that which questions why 41,000 people would to follow Claudia Winkleman. Yet, perhaps the worst offender of all is Alan Carr who is followed by 298,343 people and goes to the trouble of returning the compliment to 28. Is he deliberately trying to appear arrogant? Or is he just giving me a reason to dislike the man for something other than his vile, lewd innuendo and teeth-in-a-meat grinder voice?

The numbers game looks and sounds childish when set out like this. Yet what does it say about celebrities when they can’t be bothered to engage with real Twitterers? That they’re arrogant, vain, lazy, insincere, or, as in many cases, merely some sham fabrication created by a PR company to make their client look in touch with the real world?

Which takes me back to the kind comments that people have been sending 'me'. It’s right and good that people look out for other people. What troubles me is that their praise is predicated upon motives that have much to do with my supposed celebrity and not the efforts I’ve put into Twitter. If I didn’t have this name, would they think me funny? I guess not. And, from my side of the equation, it’s hard to feel any sense of accomplishment when you know people are judging you by a show you may have done in 1993 but you really can’t recall. The same, to a lesser extent, is true of this blog. I’m not so big a fool as to think that much of the attention it has received hasn’t had to do with the Madeley brand.

Those few of you who have read me long enough, know that I have this debate with myself regularly. I have yet to decide if I’m giving up Twitter (or even, to an extent, blogging) but I sometimes feel that effort is just not worth it.

So, though this makes me sound ungrateful, please don’t send me any more messages of support during this difficult period. If the person addressing you now is going through a tough time, I can assure you it has nothing to do with some young girl crashing a car into a parked mini. There really are bigger tragedies in the world that never make the front pages of the newspapers.