# Twitter. Can someone explain to me how this works? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 10, 2013, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837 "2013-02-10T01:04:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/41 "2013-02-14T02:15:04Z")
I am kind of lucky in that a few of my friends have a lot of followers, so if I tweet something suitably amusing or interesting and those friends retweet it, as happens every couple of months or so, then potentially thousands more people will see it, and thus they may choose to follow me in the hope I will be consistently amusing or insightful or whatever. I also have some followers who read my profile and see things they have in common with me. I tweet a lot, sometimes 10-20 a day, though many are replies or retweets or desperate shameless attempts for my favourite celebrities to like me (it rarely works, but it can happen). I have no interest in Facebook, which is everyone I know sending me screeds of info I don’t give a shit about; I am passive and get bombarded by crap. Whereas I like Twitter because it’s a few people I chose to connect with, saying brief things that I can easily ignore and skip to the next thing if I wish; I am proactive and selectively seek out people and things I am interested in. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/42 "2013-02-14T02:17:20Z")
Pretty much the same as **Strainger**. I get links to interesting news stories, one-liners, commentary on current events, a little back-and-forth with friends, etc. (I have no idea what you’re talking about re funny spelling, by the way, **elbows**.) A few tweets from my feed this evening: @phylogenomics Genomic insights into Darwin’s finch - BMC series blog [BMC Series blog Genomic insights into Darwin's finch](http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/2013/02/12/genomic-insights-into-darwins-finch/) @pourmecoffee Alexander Semenov’s undersea photography is just amazing. [http://j.mp/X9dHIZ](http://j.mp/X9dHIZ) (h/t @OceanPortal) @nancykress View from my new study: Puget Sound, blurry (blame photographer). Does it make writing easier? No. [ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs](http://yfrog.com/ke6a9kxj) @JackLScanlan Hey, when you (_points wildly everywhere_) moved out, what did you forget to take that you really needed? Kinda don’t want to miss anything. @Beschizza Hey, America has its creationist state education boards, Britain has socialized homeopathy, we’re all stupid together Etc., etc. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/43 "2013-02-14T18:45:35Z")
Ok, MsWhatsit. I think I’m following you now. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/44 "2013-02-14T19:12:44Z")
Well, my mystery follower abandoned me sometime last night. I think it was my retweet of _The Colbert Report_’s pseudo-anagram of Reince Priebus’s name that finally did it. On a brighter note, Sen. Al Franken is now following me :). ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/45 "2013-02-14T20:12:52Z")
I use hashtags upon occasion, like when I’m attending a conference and I want to catch all tweets about that conference. What I _really_ want, though, is a way to block all tweets containing certain hashtags. I have, for example, a Twitter feed specifically related to my tea business. I follow only tea people and I’m (mostly) followed only by people interested in tea. That doesn’t stop the feed from cluttering up right before a major awards show or sporting event or election. Is there any way to say, “do not show me any tweets containing #emmy or #superbowl or #lipsync”? ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/46 "2013-02-14T20:18:07Z")
> [@Sudden\_Kestrel](#): > > Well, my mystery follower abandoned me sometime last night. I think it was my retweet of _The Colbert Report_’s pseudo-anagram of Reince Priebus’s name that finally did it. > > On a brighter note, Sen. Al Franken is now following me :). And why would that be? I thought you only had one mystery follower? If I could get some of our congresspersons to follow me, it might be worth signing up for. But I still dont get the need for it, unless you are a reporter who wants to get the nugget of news for someone before anyone else (which is what reporters seem to do now), or you are a fan of a team or player and you want to follow their every thought. Which I would never want to do. I just saw that Steeler linebacker James Harrison caused somewhat of an “uproar” because he “tweeted” that he signed with another team for a one year deal, and it wasn’t the Steelers. Turns out, he signed up for some volleyball team/league. Apparently he sent reporters and fans on a google-fu-fest to find out more information until he gave up the real story an hour or so later. I cant imagine being interested in anyone at that level, unless I could pick some of my favorite females, and they “tweeted” pictures of themselves as they got out of the shower, tried on the days lingerie, etc. THAT could be interesting. :D. Not informative, really, but interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/47 "2013-02-14T20:23:32Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:45, topic:649837”] I use hashtags upon occasion, like when I’m attending a conference and I want to catch all tweets about that conference. What I _really_ want, though, is a way to block all tweets containing certain hashtags. I have, for example, a Twitter feed specifically related to my tea business. I follow only tea people and I’m (mostly) followed only by people interested in tea. That doesn’t stop the feed from cluttering up right before a major awards show or sporting event or election. Is there any way to say, “do not show me any tweets containing #emmy or #superbowl or #lipsync”? [/QUOTE] This is an across-the-board annoyance for me with almost everything I do online. Why _can’t_ I tell Amazon never to recommend any book with “Harry Potter” in the title, or any book written by Stephen King, etc.? Probably about half the time I spend on Amazon (and most other sites) I spend sorting out things I have absolutely no interest in, and lately I’ve just abandoned the effort altogether. Hell, there are still a lot of used books I haven’t read. I’m already experiencing this with Twitter, as you describe. I really have no interest in any news related to Valentine’s Day, for instance. I’d love to be able to opt out of crap like that. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/48 "2013-02-14T20:35:35Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:45, topic:649837”] Is there any way to say, “do not show me any tweets containing #emmy or #superbowl or #lipsync”? [/QUOTE] Not with the regular Twitter interface, but if you get a third-party client, it can. I know for a fact that Tweetdeck can do this; not sure about any others. **Nzinga** , I’m not showing any new followers in the last day or so, for what that’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/49 "2013-02-14T20:52:00Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Not with the regular Twitter interface, but if you get a third-party client, it can. I know for a fact that Tweetdeck can do this; not sure about any others. > > **Nzinga** , I’m not showing any new followers in the last day or so, for what that’s worth. I know you said this really isn’t that hard, and I feel really dumb, but I swear to god, I can’t get the feel for tweeting. I get lost trying to understand the flow of what’s going on. I like the rapper Azealia Banks. So I searched her and followed her. But then, when I tried to find info about her with a search on one of her songs, I just saw all of these tweets by random people, and each of them seemed to know who they were speaking to and responding to, but I couldn’t catch up. I followed MsWhatsit. After that, it said ‘wa8st of sp8ce’. I kinda knew it wasn’t you. What the hell did I do wrong? ETA: knew it wasn’t you because ‘waist of space’ isn’t the same phonetically as wa8st of sp8ce’. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/50 "2013-02-14T21:05:05Z")
Ha! Yeah, that bugs. How are you supposed to pronounce that? “Wuh-aste of space.” I am not sure who you followed but pretty sure that’s not me. Here’s a direct link to my Twitter page if that helps: [https://twitter.com/mswhatsit](https://twitter.com/mswhatsit) As for the rest, getting the hang of the replies and retweets and stuff can be tricky. It starts to make more sense after you look at it for a while, in my experience. Often if you see that a tweet is a reply to someone else, you can click Expand (or View Conversation) underneath the tweet, and it will show you the original tweet plus the responses. (This does not always work as well as it should, though, to be honest. Sometimes I know something is a reply, and I’ll try to expand it, and the original just doesn’t show up. Worth a shot, though.) Also, doing random searches on topics on Twitter is going to bring up a lot of stuff, some of which is interesting and some of which is worse than what you find in YouTube comments. I don’t have a lot of luck with searching out specific topics. I usually just find people I like or think are interesting and follow them. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/51 "2013-02-14T21:07:25Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Not with the regular Twitter interface, but if you get a third-party client, it can. I know for a fact that Tweetdeck can do this; not sure about any others. Thanks! Now that I have two different Twitter feeds, I’ll have to check into Tweetdeck. I used it for a while about a year ago, but wasn’t using Twitter enough to make it worth the trouble. That’s probably different now. I’m following you now, in case you care 😉 > [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > I followed MsWhatsit. After that, it said ‘wa8st of sp8ce’. I kinda knew it wasn’t you. What the hell did I do wrong? There are two parts to your ID on Twitter. Your real name and your username. You followed the person who used “MsWhatsit” as her real name. Put a “@” in front of it (“@mswhatsit”) to find our SDMB **MsWhatsit**. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/52 "2013-02-14T21:09:57Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:51, topic:649837”] There are two parts to your ID on Twitter. Your real name and your username. You followed the person who used “MsWhatsit” as her real name. Put a “@” in front of it (“@mswhatsit”) to find our SDMB **MsWhatsit**. [/QUOTE] Oh man, thank you for figuring this out. I could _not_ figure out where this “w8stofsp8ce” person was who was apparently using my handle, and it was driving me crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/53 "2013-02-14T21:27:56Z")
Ok. Thanks again everyone. I’m following the REAL MsWhatsit now. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/54 "2013-02-14T21:40:08Z")
I am anxious for you to update on how you’re finding it, some time in the future. I feel very much as you describe. I’m willing to be swayed, perhaps, but still not really feeling it, to be honest. A public conversation, in two sentence bites. Can’t quite see why anyone would sign up to follow me. Plus I still can’t imagine what I’d tweet, to be frank. (Thanks **MsWhatisit** , seeing you tweets was helpful to me!) ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/55 "2013-02-14T21:47:19Z")
I know a lot of people just read tweets and don’t really ever send any out themselves. I’m subscribed to a lot of science bloggers and authors, so I get a lot of information that way. I go through phases of posting a lot myself, and then I’ll have a long period of time where I just read other people’s. It depends how I feel. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/56 "2013-02-14T21:54:11Z")
And elbows, it depends on your personality type, of course. But I like people who can spit out a clever little phrase in few words. It’s fun to see how people express themselves when they don’t have limitless space. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/57 "2013-02-15T00:11:32Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Ok. Thanks again everyone. I’m following the REAL MsWhatsit now. Accept no substitutes. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/58 "2013-02-16T16:41:16Z")
How does anyone have time for multiple online “time-spenders”. I’m wasting too much time right here (well, usually lurking in the Pit). If I were on The Faceybook or The Tweeter, I’d never get anything done in The Life. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/59 "2013-02-16T17:16:33Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > I am anxious for you to update on how you’re finding it, some time in the future. I feel very much as you describe. I’m willing to be swayed, perhaps, but still not really feeling it, to be honest. A public conversation, in two sentence bites. Can’t quite see why anyone would sign up to follow me. Plus I still can’t imagine what I’d tweet, to be frank. (Thanks **MsWhatisit** , seeing you tweets was helpful to me!) You don’t need to tweet anything if you don’t want. I’ve been on Twitter since 2008, and I almost never tweet. I follow people or organizations involved in fields that interest me, mostly news, technology, and music. It’s become my first source for news, because most news organizations will tweet links to stories as they come out. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837/60 "2013-02-16T18:39:45Z")
The U.S. [**gubment**](http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2010/04/how-tweet-it-is-library-acquires-entire-twitter-archive/) keeps every tweet forever. Of course, it’s the closest to a library many people will ever get. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twitter-can-someone-explain-to-me-how-this-works/649837.md?page=4)