Before you get offended, which I bet you will be by the time I am done, at least listen to what I have to say. Just the other day, I was listening to a song, by a guy or guys and for the life of me I cannot remember their names – I have this problem. However, besides my dementia I do remember what they said in the song (SA musos by the way). One of the rappers said something to the tune of – girl your face looks so good on Face Book and well, continued to say (in my words) you don’t look like that picture for real. It got me thinking, a lot of people pose and take professional pictures and ask their art director friends to work their pictures so that they can have the perfect face for Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, gmail or whatever else needs a still picture on the web. I am not saying we all do it, but If you are anything like me and end up looking like a monkey in it’s habitat, then I suggest you Photoshop, I am the only person who has the guts to live free like that. It just becomes a bit of a problem when you actually have to meet the people that think you look like Cleopatra Queen of Egypt’s facial reincarnation – can’t Photoshop real life now. There is an episode of Boondocks in season two when Grandad (Jebedia Freeman) starts internet dating and boy does he run into the nastiest women… funny, but it happens. What was interesting about that episode was the hot chick, it felt like her personality compared to her internet personality were not the same person.
Aaaah introduction done let’s get to the jist of what I really want to talk about. Besides the song by people I don’t know, there was a particular Monday when I stumbled on a radio station that, should be off the air (the one with the boring Indian guy in the morning). Well, upon stumbling on this radio station, I heard a lady who was on the 9’oclock slot complain about how real people on FB were and how people on twitter were fake and always trying to be smart. For a moment I was baffled, because if anyone has read my tweets they are far from smart, in fact it is an expose of how juvenile and idiotic I am. But, as usual there I was making it about me.
I picked up the phone and asked a friend he said: “You idiot. You can’t tell me that you don’t know that the people on twitter lie about who they are? In fact most people are doing it, there are very few people that are themselves there. Very few in reality.” Now I was concerned, I mean there had to be a feasible explanation. I decided that he can’t be right, because he is just a moron. So, I asked a girl, she said: “Twitter is full of Narcissistic attention seekers that will lie about anything to feel like they are part of something” (I was offended at this point, yes I like attention, but I don’t lie to get it. I am narcissistic.) She continued to say: “Some people are real though.” I pondered and pondered about this and then I read through my timeline and all of a sudden, it didn’t feel the same. I saw couch revolutionaries, same opinion groups, it started to seem like everyone was following one big tweeting god(dess) and saying what he/she said.
Ok let’s go back a bit, when I got onto twitter, I ignored it for months – then when I was broken, lonely, homeless and at life’s edge, I began to tweet. The people I saw on Twitter gave me hope for some reason. It made me feel like there was a bigger plan that I could not see yet, but somehow it was there. I cannot begin to tell you how twitter healed me. The only friend I had as a couch surfer and the only place where I could be me and not the broken couch surfer girl. Tweeting from my elcheapo phone I would buy R5 airtime and get my tweet on. I felt normal for once. That is how my relationship with twitter started – hence I am so concerned when I find out I am talking to characters rather than people.
So, I went on and un-followed the ones that made me feel that they were unreal and followed rather the more knowledgeable, funny and less pretentious tweeters – the ones that will have that moment of weakness and say: Yes, I feel like crap or yes I am glad Terreblanche is dead, Or those that admit to be big dreamers, but know that they and the world around them is not perfect. Those that love animals, love children, love life, writing, dancing, living, singing, being and are not afraid to leave the web and come by to say hi. I feel quality in those that I follow – they are people I am grateful to twitter know, because every day, I learn something new and I learn to be a better person.
Now the real questions come: Are these people real? Are these people really being who they say they are? It’s twitter, it doesn’t matter, what matters is how they make me feel and I feel grateful.
