Twitter should be understood as representing the free marketplace of ideas more broadly. Dear normal folk: don’t prostitute yourself to every idiot with a loud and uniformed ‘opinion.’ No need!For no matter who you are, nobody has the time or energy to engage with every random moron who trolls you, flames you, or pollutes your feed with random and arbitrary strawmen, red herrings, cynical derailment tactics and unfounded ad hominem insults.
You need to target your energies towards dealing mainly, if not necessarily exclusively, with people who deserve your time; or at least, whose ideas and argumentative strategies deserve your time.
For most of my time on Twitter up to now, I would have felt weak and ashamed to ignore or mute people.
But now I understand that there’s nothing ‘big’ or ‘tough’ or ‘self-reliant’ or ‘independent’ or ‘individualistic’ about pandering to idiots by giving them any kind of response whatsoever.
Remember: it this was real life (pro tip: Twitter is NOT REAL LIFE!!!), then you wouldn’t accept some of the crap you put up with.
So, in the world of Twitter, you should be just as smart…
Well, shouldn’t you?
Note:
This was originally published on IT Emperor; which is being phased out! The IT Emperor articles are being ported to Glossy News. However, you can still follow my normal Medium account.
Image attribution:
By Pictofigo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
