Tweet me Harder, Baby

Tweet me Harder, Baby

As far as Twitter goes, I'm just a recent hatchling. I'm okay with that, because I've only been genuinely 'active' on my account for about four or five months, really.

But it's no lie that we journalists harness Twitter as some superficial networking merry-go-round, as well as a tool to express our notable opinions - it's all about building up a large and tangible group of contacts as part of our never-ending quest to conquer social media and all its resources. I'd be a fool to disregard it completely.

And while I'm at ease with my still sub-100 followers, it does cause me a fair amount of dispassion when probably half of those are porn stars. Not even very good ones, probably, if they're having to promote themselves on Twitter.

Like David Attenborough when he spots a polar bear, I do get quite excited when a notification pops up: 'Josh! You have a new friend!' Only to realise that particular follower is advertising her penis sucking abilities, and where you can find videos of her demonstrating such. It's rather upsetting that she's almost certainly entirely disinterested in my political insight or football musings.

Now the right and just way to meander this blog down a suitable path, is to go on to denounce such a ridiculous and unnecessary group of followers - band them with the companies and would-be business successes who pluck random '@s' out of the Twittersphere and use 'mentions' to seek recognition.

But nobody complains when their followers are South Virginian pharmacists, or Kenyan soap distributors; yet all too often I hear a periodical moan when friends - or acquaintances I should say - see a new sex enthusiast has added them to their love web. A fair proportion of such are whimsical, of course, but I have encountered many journalists who aptly curse at the discoveries.

And fine, we've all struggled with the porno spamming, but I'm going to stop, because the thing is: I need her, I need all of them; every journalist - or somebody in a job that requires networking - knows it looks a whole lot better the more followers you have.

'Oh look, that sub-ed Simon's got over a thousand, he must be good.' Or at least he slams comical anecdotes by the hour, which shows effort - if nothing else.

While it's almost definitely commonplace to wish that my followers included more MPs, famous footballers and Susan Sarandon, for the time being I'm content to stack up the follow count with pornography advocates - at least they remain relatively quiet.

And sure, the lovely little blue bird could do more to peck out these users and abusers - I'm sure most Tweeters would prefer a 'cleaner' environment in which to sow their seed. But for now I'm hoping it stays somewhat riddled; I'd look far less popular if it wasn't for sexy college girls and lonely housewives.

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