The New Social Media Virus: Panhandling For ReTweets

Recently, the Twitterverse has become vulnerable to a highly contagious, rapidly spreading scourge. Throngs of Twirps (my word for careless Tweeps) have begun soliciting reTweets from others, resulting in feeds polluted with “Can I get a RT?” or “I’ve never had a retweet. I’m a retweet virgin.” or my favourite “Can I get a RT for my {insert family member here} who has been suffering from {insert affliction here} and it would really make his/her day.” Puh-lease.

It’s come to a point where this equates to panhandling on the Internet for social capital, online street cred, and ultimately a larger following. Users build themselves up by collecting reTweets. But from who. The other side to this transaction has to be well connected in order to succeed. Who better to hit up than celebrities. Those users who have garnered fame either through being artists, actors, musicians, politicians, athletes who feel the need to connect with “their public”. These users have follower bases in the thousands and reTweets could reach farther and wider than any circle of which you or I are a part. And from what I can see, many celebs are falling for it. Do you really have that much time on your hands that you can sit around and RT any and every request you receive? Wow. I follow a few of you who do, apparently.

But not for long.

If all you Tweet all day long is requests for RTs, you’re not worth following. So I won’t. I have begun unfollowing serial reTweeters. The only way to stop this is to silence the channel delivering the noise. So think about it the next time you so quickly jump for the RT link… your followers followed you presumably to hear what YOU had to say. And if you have nothing more to say than echoing others’ cries for attention, are you still worth following?

Stop the insanity. If you stop granting these useless requests, they will stop. Continue and I predict it will be a very quick death for Twitter.