Flying off to Twitter

By: Rukee Kaakunga

When my best friend scolded me to open a Twitter account, I would often roll my eyes at her and wonder what the big deal was.

I was at the time an avid Facebooker, being totally engrossed in my blue themed world, with a couple hundred ‘friends’, joining a new social media platform was out of the question. I was joyously happy and did not want to leave my comfort zone in search of a cooler, more ‘in’ alternative to cyber socialising.
Upon joining Twitter, I found myself in a sad state of being. Kind of like my first day at school. everyone else seemed so cool and I wondered if I’d ever fit in. I had zero followers, followed a total of five celebrities and had no idea what on earth to tweet, how to do it and the language was basically Chinese, to me at least.
Twitter is fast becoming one of the most vibrant discussion forums in the country. This is not surprising, given that Twitter was the social network that basically fuelled the Arab spring and cemented the growing force that is social media. The site has even got a daily section dedicated to the funniest most controversial or thought provoking tweets of the day in The Namibian through Jean Sutherlands’ Twittersphere.
One of the main reasons I love Twitter, to be honest, is how I can stalk people and get away with it. I love how I can follow my favourite stars and know the latest happenings in their lives, before any gossip magazines hit the racks. here, no one can cause you the embarrassment of tagging you in a post titled “who has been stalking my profile”. I also use it as a tool to find out exactly what a person is like. Someone’s timeline says a lot about who they are, their interests, etc.
As a journalist, relatively new to the profession, tweeting is one of the ways I train myself to write short, concise sentences. The 140 characters allocated for each tweet was quite a challenge for me at first, but I am becoming better at it each day.
Today, the people I follow are as diverse as the music I listen to, from earthy tweeps with conscious, Pan-Africanist sentiments, to those who give me my daily dose of funny. Information on Twitter is viral. The Oscar Pistorious trial in South Africa was perhaps my first taste of how immediate the social site is.
On the down side, people can get quite nasty on Twitter. hours on can end can be spent ‘roasting’ someone and celebrities have been known to shut their accounts after saying something stupid. Due to the viral nature of the site, malicious rumours have been spread quite easily.
I have found that it is always best to ignore nasty comments and if that proves to be hard, blocking someone may be an option. Finally, in the words of Gwen Lister always remember, “your Twitter history can come back to haunt you: think before you tweet and attribute quotes that are not your own.”

Photo: site-reference.com www.mirror.com.uk

Happy Tweeting, Tweeps!
My top 10 Namibian Tweeps:
1. @naffy101 2. @MsSelmaK 3. @Bubbs07 4. @GwenLister1 5. @nthugbaby 6. @TheMerja 7. @DodoniF 8. @Jeannamibian 9. @ShinOvene 10.@marth__vader

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