Taking It Up The Twitter

Some things are inevitiable in life; a bird will shit on your car within 24hrs of you washing it, Bridget Jones Diary will be on ITV2 at least 3 times a week, Joe Swash will make any TV appearance he can, and more certain than anything I will pop onto Twitter at least once a day. Why do I go on Twitter? It is simple - it is a great laugh.

Twitter is like a magnet that brings so many different people together that it is never boring. Where else can you flirt, argue, pontificate, tell rubbish jokes, and insult people? Well the pub to be honest but Twitter is better because you can stay away from arseholes easier, not have to put up with bad breath, and if you are handy enough with your phone you don't have to miss any of the action while having a poo.

To be honest I only joined Twitter initially because my brother convinced me that it was fun to tweet celebs. I was up for a laugh and so I did join and started following the usual suspects like Stephen Fry, Wossy, Davina etc. I even convinced some of my mates to join purely to play a game of Celebrity Top Trumps - where the person in the lead would be someone who could get a celeb to reply to them, and the Holy Grail of which would be a follow back from a celebrity. Do you know what it got boring quite quickly (well apart from when Keith Chegwin followed me!) and it wasn't long before we all dipped out of Twitter again. To me Twitter became a disgarded mistress, who joined the other social networking strumpets MySpace and Friends Reunited drinking gin in a bar and telling each other about what a using bastard I was and that my cock wasn't as big as I thought it was.

However, little did I realise that Twitter was the Elizabeth Taylor to my Richard Burton and I gave her another go. It was looking very much the same as last time until one man changed that - and that man was Duncan Banatyne. He introduced #duncansdream which was where he wanted his followers to follow eachother. I thought "what the hell" give it a go so I bought into it. Within 2 days I had gone from 20 followers to 150, and it hit me that was what was missing from my Twitter feed. Real People. As I started talking to the real people it suddenly became more fun - my tweets started to mean something - the fact that I had had Cocopops for breakfast or that I thought Shabby from Big Brother dresses like a street urchin from Oliver! meant more because people responded. That is what kept me interested in Twitter and has still kept me interested in it to this day.

It is the interactions that make it for me. The more followers I got the more I enjoyed it. I get to talk to people who I would never meet in real life, but that is a good thing. I enjoy my real life - it is a great life, but it handy to know that if I am bored at work, or waiting for something that I have (currently) over 900 people in my pocket that I can play with. That is Twitter people by the way - I don't kidnap Borrowers and make them perform for my own sick pleasure!

For those of you new to Twitter you might wonder how I got so many followers - the answer was:-

1) Being Myself
I like to think of myself as a nice, genuine person. Who I am on Twittter is exactly who I am in real life (only my face isn't as scrunched up into a little square) - I am a piss taking bastard. I do talk to everyone who talks to me. I do swear a lot, and I do on occasion get drunk. These traits are all the same on Twitter I think - if you tweet me I will reply. If I have the chance to take the micky out of you in a fun non-nasty way I will (just ask @MuppetFitz or @iBoozy), if I get the chance to drop the F-Bomb then I fucking will and I will on occasion drunk tweet ("God bled autocrrct")

2) Hashtagging
I have come along way since the days of #aaronthediscardedwigand #punnilingus - don't get me wrong these worked for me - people kinda loved the cheesy puns I think, but it was when I joined in on the big hashtag games that my follower count rose - #fivewordsaftersex #foodmovies anythingthing of that ilk I recommend you join in on. People will appreciate your humour and follow you

3) Flirting
Never ever underestimate the power of the flirt. I literally flirt with EVERYONE on my twitter timeline given half the chance. I don't know if this makes me look like slut but I don't care. I know I am not a slut and the fact that I flirt on twitter does not mean that I would act upon it in real life. I see it as a good thing - one it makes people feel good, two it can be a good laugh and three I like it!


That probably makes me sound like I am follower hungry but do you know what that is not the case either. I want quality not quantity - I only let tweeps who chat follow me - I block all the spambots and motivational coaches and people who just post links or phrases. I went on a website recently that told me I block as many followers as I have - If I was follower hungry I would have over 2000 followers - I'm not arsed about that at all. The ones I've got now are all real people (well apart from the fake ones!) and even though I don't chat with all of them the ones I do chat with are brilliant.

That is why I like to take it up the Twitter. I speak to people who I would never get to meet in real life. I don't think I have ever been on Twitter and not laughed at least once! That is why I keep coming back and why I wrote this blog. I will be doing a follow up to this blog at some point to about the tweeps you can tweet with on there, but for now I'll let you get on with something more interesting.

Much love @Gazabell