Writing on Twitter: It's Madness

This happened last week. I have to get it off my chest.

Ocellated Turkey. Photo: Ray Wilson/Alamy

Hi, friends! I hope you had a fine Thanksgiving, with no real casualties besides the turkey. Families still intact and speaking. No food poisoning. Everyone vaccinated and happy about it. Ours was quiet and lovely and, like so many of you, I’ve had my fill of turkey, maybe forever.

I want to thank you for hanging around. I mean that. Between preparing for Thanksgiving and packing and closing up the house for winter, I’ve been busy and slightly out of touch. We’ve left our beloved island and we’ll be spending a month or so in Southern Michigan with our daughter. Then, just before the New Year, we’ll be heading further south, along with a whole mess of other snow birds heading to those places where our old bones can keep warm.

All that to say writing here may be sporadic for a while until we get settled. But I’ll no doubt find time for Twitter. And sometimes Facebook, where, for the most part, I mind my Ps and Qs and stick to my own lovable community.

But you all know by now that I have a thing for Twitter. Most of the time I love that place! I worry, though, that all of those short utterings take away from the real writing I should be doing. But that doesn’t stop me from spending hours there. Nearly every day. (So if you’re looking for me, I’m usually there. That is, here.)

It can be frustrating, though. I don’t get nearly the attention I think I’m due—especially when I’m in a snit and I think I have all the answers. (The world would be a better place if everyone in it would just listen to me.) Or—especially this: when I post a piece I’ve written that I think is super good and something my followers would absolutely want to read, and I get nothing. The usual tiny, loyal group of followers might notice it and either ‘like’ or retweet, maybe out of sympathy because they know it hurts my feelings when nobody shows up. It begins and ends within mere minutes.

That happens a lot. Nobody showing up. Other Twitter writers say the same thing. Links to our own works are like “Keep Out” signs. Verboten. Danger! Danger! Something happens when we try to promote our own work, and it’s baffling.

But I’m here to tell you about something really baffling. I still can’t get over it. And I can’t believe how much it pissed me off. It was the day everyone was making a fuss about the Vice President’s side trip to a Paris cookware store, where she bought some pots and pans. You would think she’d stiffed the Secret Service by charging exorbitant lodging rates for them to stay at her own hotel. What a ruckus!

I watched that crazy reaction long enough and finally had to spit this out:

Ramona Grigg—True Blue Liberal @RamonaGrigg

I don't care if Kamala Harris paid $375 for French cookware. Do U?

That’s it. That’s all there was. Do you see that number of likes? The number of retweets? It doesn’t show it there but so far there are more than 4500 comments. Can you imagine? From that one simple comment.

More from Twitter Analytics:

So, what, you ask, has pissed me off? I’ll tell you. I’m a damn writer. I sweat over words and I use lots of them, making sure I get it just right in order to get readers to read what I have to say. I’ve written things on Twitter so profound I’ve felt like chiseling them in stone. And, come on! I can be funny! And what do I get? Crickets.

So, tell me…

Why the hell did 20,000 Twitter people ‘like’ this? It’s not as if I’m the only one saying the same thing. We all did! In all my years on Twitter I’ve never had such a reaction to anything I’ve written. Not even close.

I should be glad, they tell me. Look at the reaction it got! But it’s like spending hours cooking a five-course meal and getting no reaction, then throwing hot dogs in a pot to incredible acclaim.

But there’s something else: In one of the last scenes in “Moonstruck” the old man begins to sob. When they ask him what’s wrong, he says something like, “I don’t know what’s going on! I’m so confused!”

That’s me. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m so confused. I’m not sobbing, but I am old and partially Italian so I know how the old man feels. Everything changes. Nothing stays the same. And nobody bothers to tell us what’s happening.

But enough about me. Tell me—what’s happening where you are? Go ahead. I’m listening.

---