Young woman waving goodbye as she leans out of a railway carriage window

Quality over quantity is a good social media mantra these days, I’m finding. In the prehistoric era (i.e. yesterday?), the number of friends and followers you had might have mattered. No more. I’m starting the culling process now! New rules: If I accepted your friend request due to a chance encounter at a cocktail party that I barely recall, you’re de-friended. If you’re a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, we can’t be friends. If you’re following me for no apparent reason, I won’t follow you. If you’re overly political, preach your religion, say mean things, or behave like a jerk, you’re done. If you lecture me on social media because I eat meat and you don’t, or I praise the accomplishments of a friend and you then criticize that friend, or you’re in any way mean or a jerk, you’re still done. It’s my Facebook profile, my Twitter stream, my Instagram account — and I’ll decide who gets to be there. Quality over quantity.

The freedom to unfriend goes both ways.

I’m getting a lot of social content lately about babies (which suggest that the world is full of perfect, brilliant, never-before-seen-on-the-planet small humans of extraordinary gifts) and pets (who are capable of all kinds of human mind-reading emotions …and like to wear human outfits). It’s making me feel less bad about my singular social media obsession: bike racing. Every June, I post a disclaimer, just a few weeks before the Tour de France starts. I tell people that they can un-friend, un-follow and un-subscribe, and I won’t mind. Because I’m about to become a one-woman cycling content factory. No one’s ever taken me up on it (to my knowledge). Probably because they’re posting a new album of their kid eating carrots or their cat in a bikini. The dot complicated world relies on tolerance.

What’s your Dot Complicated story? Email us at stories@dotcomplicated.co for a chance to be featured on our site!

Posted on 11/11/2013

Written by Cindy Wall

Comments

comments