Love to Hate

Perhaps we should only follow people we don't like on Twitter.  Bear with me on this, I haven't suffered some kind of breakdown caused by being unfollowed by friends on Twitter.  My point is that we tend to follow friends, celebrities we like (but don't - and never will - know personally), and people recommended to us by Twitter on the basis of the aforementioned people we follow.  Consequently, we tend only to see opinions we agree with and things which won't offend us or challenge our preconceptions in our Twitter streams.  I'm well aware that the overwhelming majority of people simply want their social media experience to be warm and reassuring, there's no doubt that only following the like-minded results in a pretty anaemic Twitter stream at times.  Think how much more challenging it would be to have a Twitter stream full of stuff which gets you foaming at the mouth?  That said, being subjected to an apparently unending stream oh bile and hatred, (which would be the most likely outcome of following people whose opinions you dislike), would also be highly traumatic and likely to turn most people off of Twitter for life.

Whilst I don't actually follow anyone I hate, I do make a point of looking at the Twitter outpourings of a few individuals who, to me at least, represent everything which is wrong with Twitter users: self-righteous self promoters who jump on every 'right on' bandwagon to promote themselves and establish their 'liberal-intellectual' credentials.  These are the people who have an opinion on everything, especially popular culture, and just insist on letting the rest of the world know about them.  Except that they aren't just opinions: they are fact - and if you don't agree with them then you aren't just wrong, but also a misogynistic, homophobic fascist.   To be perfectly honest, I don't read their bile to expose myself to alternative views and challenge my preconceptions, but rather to reassure myself that I'm not as big a prick as any of them are.  It isn't just on Twitter that I keep up with these kinds of people - there are also a few blogs I read which are written by people I find loathesome.  Often they are involved in feuds with other individuals - I sometimes end up following their blogs as well.  Not that I like them because they hate the first undesirable, but because I think that they are a prick as well.  It's quite refreshing to watch two of these idiots metaphorically knocking seven bells out of each other.  So, there you have it - it's like they say: a little bit of what you despise does you good.