What Do I Do With Twitter?

I have been wanting to write a post like this for some time, but now is as good of a time as any to talk about Twitter. More specifically, I want to talk about the state of my usage of Twitter. Twitter is in an interesting position in terms of its public perception (especially of the person who bought the company), and its survivability as a major social media site. Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, there has been this weird shift on the overall climate whenever I scroll through my Twitter feed and explore trending topics. I will get to this later in the post, but I want to talk about how I came to use Twitter and how I enjoyed using Twitter over the years. Then, I will talk about my future on the platform itself and everything I noticed since the Twitter takeover.

The Carrot Rewards App And The Perils Of Greed

There have been many occasions where there was a creation of something, which provided a considerable positive benefit to many people. With that positive benefit, there was a conception and nurturing of a community that was reaping it. Now, imagine a company that is taking advantage of an established community and squeezing it like a lemon for financial gain. You are probably thinking of companies like Electronic Arts and Amway, but I want to talk about a product on a much smaller scale that affected me personally. I want to talk about my experience using the Carrot Rewards app.

Reactions To My Old Facebook Statuses

I was meaning to do this for a while, but I wanted to see how cringe-worthy some of my Facebook posts were, back when I was a bit younger. It's the end of 2014, and I am going to share some of the oddest Facebook statuses I have made from 2009-2011, and give my reaction to those statuses. Some of these statuses expose how stupid I was when I made them, but now I can look at them now and just laugh. So, let me take you on this journey on the Facebook statuses I have made over the years.

Nothing's changed from when I wrote this status way back in New Years Day 2009. In fact, this was my very first Facebook status I have ever made. I had Facebook as early as 2007, but that time, all I was doing was uploading pictures, I had to make a strong first impression wit my first Facebook status, and I think I did that. I drew inspiration from this specific song, and to this day, I'm still cold as ice.

Goodness me, this was the first of many cringe-worthy Facebook statuses I've made. I'm not sure if I was trying to woo a girl, or just trying to show a softer side of myself. Still, even now, I think it's a pretty cool quote. and I got it from an episode of The Real Football Factories International. Back then, I was heavily into supporting Toronto FC and I thought the "Ultras" culture was the coolest thing in the world.

Sex, I clearly meant sex. Nice to see back in first-year university where my priorities actually were.

Again, priorities. I do remember her, and she was a very cute, petite woman, with luscious blonde hair. All I wanted to do was hug her, hold her, and squeeze her. I have no idea what she's doing now, but the last time I heard of her, she was in a sorority with a female friend I knew. Myself and my female friend had some good times together, if you catch my drift.

Why did I quote Kanye West? I'm still baffled as to why I would even do that for a Facebook status.

Yes. Yes it is. A rare instance of "Words of Wisdom" from the 2009 version of myself.

This Facebook status is a lie. Throughout my university career, all I wanted were the cheap thrills! Well, I'm older now, and I really don't want the cheap thrills anymore. Nah, that's a lie too.

Um. Moving on...

When I'm not quoting Kanye West, I'm quoting Nas. If you couldn't tell, I was a pretty big hip-hop buff.

One thing has remained constant, and that is my utter disappointment of the England National Team. This specific Facebook status came from England's exit from the 2010 World Cup against Germany.

Truer words have never been spoken. I've been thinking about making a cameo appearance next year as well.

I'll explain this story in a future blog post.

Using social media while you're drunk is never a good idea. As you can see, I was guilty of that. I would like to think that your phone can detect if you've been drinking or not, so that your phone can disable all social media functions. Also, I forgot who "the crew" actually was.

Ah, the standard "Follow Me On Twitter" Facebook status. Of course, I had people ask me why, and I offered this brilliant explanation:

Between then and now, I've definitely had my slice of the Twitter pie, and I'm not stopping anytime soon.

Also, follow me on Twitter, if you haven't done so already.

Isn't that the worst? Of course it is...

Well, there you have it, those are my reactions to some of the weirdest Facebook statuses I have made. I may do the same for tweets as well, so look out for that too. Apologies for not posting on the blog for a while, I've been quite busy, but I'm hoping to write some more in 2015. Hope you enjoyed this post, and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

10,000 Tweet Milestone!

Yeah, so I finally hit my 10,000th tweet.

I may as well milk this as much as I can, because you only hit 10,000 tweets once.

I never thought I could be truly active on a social network for a long time, but Twitter gave me the opportunity to truly speak my mind on any sort of issue that I wanted to talk about. For the past two and a half years, Twitter has always been my "go-to" social network, and it has been the social network that I have enjoyed the most. I remember the reason why I started to use Twitter in the first place, and the main reason was because of my complete annoyance with Facebook, which I am not very active on anymore. I found that the things I saw on Twitter were much more positive than the negativity and phoniness I regularly saw on Facebook, so naturally, I gravitated towards Twitter, and I haven't looked back since.

I would say that about half of my total tweets were about footy/soccer. Whether it was about Toronto FC, Manchester United, or anything else that was in the world of footy, it's pretty obvious that by reading my tweets, a reader can tell that I am footy mad. The other half of my total tweets are about, well, everything else. Usually, it was about the things that go on in my life, whether it was about school or something else. I always tried to strike a balance between the readers that follow me for my footy tweets and the readers that follow me for the other things going on in my life.

I remember when I first started up on Twitter in the beginning of 2011, and looking back on it now, my early tweets were pretty shit, in the grammatical sense, and also that my tweets were very boring. Some of my tweets, when looking back, were also a bit cringe-worthy. I only talked to about two people since the start of my account, one of them I still talk to regularly to this day, and the other I don't really talk to now (let's just say, she got replaced). In the beginning months of my Twitter account, I would talk about anything and everything that came up in my mind, from dirty song lyrics to the attractive woman that passed me on the street that I really wanted to have sex with. Nothing was off limits. Hell, I even talked about what I truly wanted when it came to my love life.

The follower count started to rise, and I started to have more valued conversations with a number of Twitter users. Occasionally I would get the angry disagreement or hater trying to make me feel bad, but overall, the conversations I had on Twitter were overwhelmingly positive. From the Twitter account, it was also the basis for the creation of my blog, which serves as my extended thoughts that I couldn't fit into my Twitter account. Also, this may be a bold statement coming from me, but I would like to think that I pioneered the use of Twitter among my university friends. As soon as I started to use Twitter, one by one, my university friends followed suit, so go ahead and call me a trendsetter.

The months and years passed, I interacted with more people, my follower count kept rising, and I continued to tell my stories and talk about my experiences. And it all led me to today where after two and a half years, I finally reached that milestone of 10,000 tweets. I know a lot of people that use Twitter reach that milestone in almost no time at all, but I would like to have the vast majority of my tweets have some sort of quality and substance, and I also don't really like to bombard the timelines of my followers with constant tweets (except when a footy match is on).

As much as I truly love Twitter, I feel like these days, my tweets haven't been up to the standard that I want it to be. I remember back in 2011 and a good chunk of 2012 when I truly had free reign over what I wanted to tweet, but ever since, let's say, September 2012, I felt like my tweets were getting to be a bit boring, and I felt like I lost that free reign. I couldn't really tweet anything explicit anymore, except for a few swears, and my early Twitter followers know how much I love tweeting explicitly. Maybe I'm a bit more mature now, or maybe I'm not trying to offend and/or disgust all my followers. Actually, I'm afraid that one day I may write a careless tweet that exposes certain feelings about certain people. Nonetheless, I'm going to try to bring my Twitter account to its former glory. I'm going to try to be as witty, funny, and explicit (within reason) as I possibly can.

I just want to say that I value each and every one of my Twitter followers, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the conversations I've had with you all over the months and years. Some of these conversations actually helped me through some tough times, and for that I am grateful.

Well, here's to 10,000 more...cheers!

Random Thoughts 11: An Observation, A Hard Truth, and Another League Title

Okay, some more random thoughts, accompanied by a random picture from last February's Auto Show...

I've had Twitter for over 2 years, and for the most part, it has been great fun. One of the things I noticed when I would casually be on Twitter is that I am able to read certain underlying situations that people are in just by reading their tweets, and I don't mean that in a "creeper" sense. You can tell a lot about someone and what they are going through by seeing what they tweet, how they tweet, and how often they tweet. If people have feelings that they want to express on Twitter, they will do it, but sometimes I see people implicitly express their feelings, either by sub-tweeting, or by other means. All these tweets begin to paint a portrait of yourself, and there are people who can either see that portrait, or they are unable (or too oblivious) to see it.

Now, time to switch over to something else, and it is a hard truth...

If you are single, you may be thinking about a certain someone, someone that makes you feel whole. Unfortunately there is something I have to break to you. You may think this person looks amazing. You may think this person has an awesome personality. You may think this person has big dreams and ambition. You may think this person is the "one" that you want to spend the rest of your life with. But if that person doesn't feel the same way that you do towards that person, then it isn't to be. It is a terrible feeling, yes, but I am here to tell you that you can get over it. Hopefully you'll find someone who is even better and can make you feel even more amazing, so don't lose hope.

Quick thoughts on United winning their 20th league title: Awesome, United blew away the rest of the competition and none of the other big clubs made a reasonable challenge for the Premier League. Man City failed to perform when it mattered, and Chelsea are pretty much a shit-show at this point, especially with the management and ownership. But back to United, I would never expect Carrick to be the standout player in this Man United side. RVP, Rafael, and De Gea have also had big seasons as well. Although they were knocked out of the other cup competitions (don't get me started on the Champions League exit against Real Madrid), I am generally happy with Man United's season. The squad could use a little bit more tinkering, but I am optimistic that Man United can put up more of a fight in the other cup competitions next season.

So until the next part of the random thoughts segment, bye...