My (anti) social experiment...and other tales

I was feeling down lately so I thought I would try coming off of Twitter. I know what you are going to ask...how down? Then, why twitter?

Well for about as long as I can remember I have had periods of real lows. I don't just mean feeling a little down in the dumps, I mean full on I could throw myself in front of a bus moments. This got worse (through reasons that don't need discussing here) and became full on depression about 6 years ago. I dealt with the worst of it, but it comes and goes in bouts.

Now for the reason why Twitter as opposed to Facebook or Tumblr or some other social networking site. Facebook has a lot of family and close friends on it. People who I care about and who deeply care about me. They would notice if I wasn't around. Plus, I like talking to people on there. The messages can be as long or as short as you like and my personal experience is generally a good one on that website. Then there is Tumblr. That website is just a crazy world full of fandoms and silliness. Yes there is the odd nasty thing that takes place on there, but generally speaking people are a little unhinged in a funny and sweet way and it is a nice place to go for a few minutes and realise you are not the only one.

Then there is Twitter. I love Twitter, I even have a 'Twitter Addict' coffee mug that I use every day. I have been on Twitter for about four and a half years now and over that time I have used it for everything from keeping in touch with a friend who (briefly) emigrated abroad, to politics to fangirling and everything else you can think of. I run two accounts and during my experiment I kept using the Street Team account that I run for Luke Lucas, partly because I couldn't bear to leave it when I have just set it up and I am doing this good work for him and partly because I know Luke would tell me not to give up that easily. My personal account had to take a back seat. That is the account I dropped for two weeks...well nearly as you shall see.

The things I was reading on Twitter were getting me down. Apart from the obvious bad news about job cuts, dodgy politics, the outcomes of the News of the World debarcle and all the weather there was a situation I could not handle seeing and I knew the shit storm was brewing.

Now, I am going to lose a lot of followers and friends for saying this. I don't care, it is one of my reasons and so I am going to mention it. I couldn't handle the tweets to FVK begging them to stay or not forget us. The worst were the selfish idiots who were saying things like they didn't want the band to get too big because they wouldn't be able to meet the band after shows anymore or talk to them on Twitter or anything like that. This group of people weren't from one age group or background, they were random and varied. Of course the band were not going to forget the people who got them where they are going to be (HUGE!) and they will always love their fans and engage with them any way they can. It might just be that the way it is done changes slightly. If they get bigger they might not be able to meet the fans after a show, but that won't stop them doing meet and greets some other way. Also I want to not be able to meet them after a show, that means they are doing things right and they are massive! On top of that I couldn't cope with seeing the Tweets of one of the members of the band. I had already done my own private experiment and either through the actual meticulous testing or through my own depression induced paranoia had discovered/decided that this one in particular was deliberately ignoring me. Guess which one that might have been...I'll give you a clue...he looks a bit like a panda.

That may not make sense on first reading...so here is a picture of the lads while you are digesting that information...

Anyway, back to the point. I have had a rubbish year and I wondered that if cutting all the negativity from one social networking site for two weeks could help. I also chose my timing because the end of the two weeks would be my birthday and so I was hoping that the excitement of this event would help me to feel better.

So how did I fare? Well I shall break it down for you, that is the easiest way of doing things I suppose.

On Friday 1 November I said goodbye to Twitter. It was a little later than I had originally intended as I was having a couple of conversations with people and I didn't want to be rude enough to just cut them off at my specified time of 20:30. Then I lasted the whole weekend. It was amazing, I didn't feel the need to tweet at all, even though I had seen Thor: The Dark World (bloody brilliant and much darker than the light hearted comedy that the first film was...go and see it) and I had spent the entire weekend with my lovely fiancé, Dave. Plus we had met his best mate's new girlfriend and that was all lovely and brilliant, but no...no tweeting. Then I was back at work and for three whole days I was successful. No tweets and you know what? I felt amazing!

Then I slipped...but for a reason. Last week Kerrang! Magazine jumped on the Bitstrips bandwagon and asked people to send in pictures. Now, if you don't know what this is, it is an app on Facebook and for your phone that allows you to make daily comics of you and your mates. You have to have Facebook to do this and the idea was that if you were friends with someone on Facebook that was in a band and you had made one of these comics of them then you could send them in and they would be printed in the magazine. Well, I have made loads of these things and so I decided to send in the six I had made exclusively of Fearless Vampire Killers (well Drew, Kier and Luke/Pilnahn) to them. Here are some examples of my work:

In fact, that top one made it into Kerrang! as did two more:

Kerrang! published five in total that people had sent in and three of them were mine! This I saw as enough of a bizarre achievement to break my self imposed Twitter ban for one hour and tweet the picture above to the lads in the band. This got retweeted by Kier and Drew and a multitude of other people and also I got a lot of positive comments. I must admit that this positive experience made me tempted to come back to Twitter. Then I remembered why I was doing it and went away again. Still, I think that the above was more worth it on other social networking sites. On Facebook Drew's Dad liked my photo and on Instagram, someone from the band (I always assume it is Drew from the way things are written on my pics, it is just his style of typing and I am convinced that it is him) liked the pic using the band account and wrote: 'Awesome! x' underneath. This also made me feel good and in fact better than the Twitter success.

So now I have been off of Twitter for two weeks as I said I would how do I feel? Pretty good. Will I be going back? Yes.

What this experiment has taught me is that I can live without Twitter and that I can be happy. Also that I don't have to get so angry at the things I see other people put on the site. I have also learned that Laurence may or may not be ignoring me...but that is ok. Plus, I can use it sparingly and have just as much effect (at the end of my first week I had actually gained 12 followers and that was through not even using the site...how does that work?). I am learning that less is more.

Also I am going to be focussing more on the Street Team element of things for Luke Lucas. That lad has saved me on several occasions and I just want to give a little back. I will use Twitter properly in his case anyway. It is merely a promotional tool and a way of helping out someone I see as a dear friend. I don't know if he views me the same way and I am sure there are elements out there that would say that was a delusional view, but I think that he is someone I see as a caring and kind human being who would be a great friend to me.

So am I throwing out the 'Twitter Addict' mug? No. I am a recovering addict and need that daily reminder. Plus, I need something to drink my coffee from.

Thank you for putting up with this incoherent rant. Until my next blog or never.