Alternative Title: This is Why Iowa Passed a Law Against Driving and Texting
Disclaimers:
People disappear all the time. *Poof* and they are gone. If this happens to be an attractive white woman or child, Nancy Grace will make a show about it, and she’ll shill some product or another for a few exploitive bucks.
There’s little difference on twitter. They say if you go missing for 6 months then you too will go *poof* but look through your oldest inactive followers and you will see someone is lying. Twitter is no more likely to bring themselves to delete an inactive account than a 14-year-old lesbian is to throw away a two-year-old issue of “Cosmo Girl.” The main difference here is no one cares when you update on twitter, so no one cares when you stop either. Well, no one except for me.
Take Cheryl Finello for example. She asked on Apr. 16th, “did any of you miss me???” and again on Dec. 16th, “anybody miss me?” (this time with a singular question mark signaling a spiraling descent into obvious despair. The narrative here is easy to reconstruct; presumably no one missed poor Ms. Finello so she went away… hopefully forever. The only other possible explanation: she realized there was no money to be had in her get-rich-quick schemes so she set out to get a real job.
Now, prepare for a tale of true sorrow. Exit one Lisa Holmer (this story begins with her departure). I present a transcript of her final 10 tweets:
Who is this?
1:57 PM Aug 30th, 2009 via txtWhat?
11:30 AM Oct 14th, 2009 via txtI do not know who you are and am about to complain!
2:27 PM Oct 15th, 2009 via txtI am calling my phone company if you do not stop texting me!
12:31 PM Oct 19th, 2009 via txtStop spamming me!
10:48 PM Dec 7th, 2009 via txtStop texting me!
11:20 AM Dec 8th, 2009 via txtI am calling the fcc now. You are breaking the law.
12:50 PM Dec 8th, 2009 via txtPlease stop texting me!!!
12:44 AM Dec 9th, 2009 via txtStop calling me!
12:21 AM Dec 24th, 2009 via txtSomething is wrong with me. My eyes are doing something odd. I am not sure i can drive. Give me a few minutes.
1:30 PM Dec 25th, 2009 via txt
These final updates occur over the course of four months! She’s getting texts and calls from from someone that is making her unhappy.
This is either brilliant performance art and the MOMA will be acquiring her twitter feed (like they did @) or something has gone wrong in Ms. Holmer’s life. A true reconstruction of the events leading up to the disappearance of Ms. Holmer is impossible, but this does not preclude wild speculation and a quick google stalking!
Wild Speculation:
Stalking:
You’ll have to do your own stalking. Sure I could do your work for you, but I firmly believe that if I give a man a fish I should be paid for it (or something like that). But things you can look for: 1. A Facebook profile. 2. Additional twitter accounts. 3. A Linked In profile. 4. A business webpage. 5. Her email address. 6. Her middle name. 7. Her ring size. Consider this a virtual scavenger hunt. I found all but one of these! (If any of you figure out her ring size let me know.)
I couldn’t find any internet activity for Holmer in 2010, but to be honest, I’m lazy and didn’t try to become her Facebook friend, nor did I join Linked In, and lastly, I couldn’t be bothered to actually email her and ask. For all I know I’m worrying needlessly!

Quick, someone call Nancy Disgrace, and let her know a white woman has gone missing!
(image shamelessly cribbed from babble.com)
—–
Thank you to Christopher L. Jorgensen, aka: Jackassletters, for taking the time and energy to look into and report on this serious(?) issue. You can read more of his investigative writing on his blog or follow him on twitter.
Another great Guest Post from Honorary Fail Bird Handler @jackassletters, who, when he’s not writing funny letters to companies who deserve a nudge in the ribs, torments “social media experts” on twitter as @smmonkey.
—
When someone comes along and says “you’re using twitter wrong” it generally means they don’t get the medium. If they think you’re doing a shitty job of putting yourself out there, they have some options: they can not follow you, they can block you, they can report your ass (the efficacy of this is questionable, but it’s an option). So it’s pretty unproductive to point out to people when they are fucking up on twitter. In fact I’d say it’s pretty much pointless.
Oh, crap. What’s the focus of Twitter Fail Blog again? Sorry. I forgot. Like I said, people who tell other people how they should be using twitter generally don’t get twitter. That’s fine. I’m the first to admit I don’t get it, which is why I feel free to tell people when they are doing it wrong. I’m guessing this is also why @tweet_fail has a site dedicated to telling people about twitter failures (no one tell her she’s tilting at windmills).
Nothing is going to change anything here. No one will modify their behavior off of what’s been written. So why bother?
Well, because you’re doing it wrong, and we have fun mocking you for it.
Today I am here to laugh at follower counts.
I’ve done it! I’ve finally managed to get my followers below 4,000!
I know what you’re thinking, “But Mr. Assletters, people want more followers, not less! Also, what do you care who follows you? You don’t have to follow them back.“
And I have answers to these questions.
First off, the follower game is rigged. It’s a masturbatory experience that feels good while your numbers are climbing, but eventually it gets boring. Yeah, I know, this is a poor analogy, since I’m mostly 40 and I’m not sure masturbation ever ceases to be fun (I’ll ask the next old dude I see and get back to you!). Regardless, in the end, number count isn’t satisfying to any but those new to twitter and the superficial.
Some might accuse me of being envious here, since I don’t even have 4,000 followers. Others might wish they had half as many followers as me. I honestly have gotten to a point where I want fewer followers. Sure, I want people to follow, but I care more about whether the person actually engages, is funny, entertaining, thoughtful, caring, interesting, etc., than I do about that one extra number.
I’ve written previously about how easy it is to amass followers. I think I may have also mentioned that it was a bad idea. I’d easily have over 10,000 followers on this account if I allowed it. According to twitblock.org I’ve blocked 6,402 people. According to twitterholic.com I once had 5,500+ followers. It’s a pretty safe assumption that if I let every pornbot, spammer, and Social Media Expert follow me I’d have well above 10,000 followers (especially since these accounts attract more of the same). But to what end? Not one will read anything I write.
There’s a fairly consistent breakdown of new accounts that follow me. I ignore half, block a quarter, and follow a quarter (this discounts the obvious spammer accounts that get reported). Of the 25% I follow I end up unfollowing about half of these. This formula has served me well.
Recently I decided I was going to focus on getting the number of accounts I follow down as well, so that I could engage with more people on a deeper level. I fired up Twitter Karma to see how many accounts weren’t updating. I was able to bail on about a thousand people that haven’t updated in 100 days or more! I then used The Twit Cleaner to find the people who only post links or engage in “other dodgy behavior.”
I was shocked that about one in five of the people following me hadn’t updated in over 100 days. That’s pretty staggering if you think about it. I’m guessing this might be a universal truth. Check it out yourself, let me know if I am wrong. But if I am correct this means Ashton Kutcher has 900,000 inactive accounts following him. What’s the point of this? It’s pretty likely if a person hasn’t updated in 100 days they never will again. So unfollowing is obvious.
But why boot someone? Why not just let them hang on like one of those lampreys on the side of a shark? Well, the only answer I have is that I’d rather have 3,000 real followers than 4,500 with 1,500 being inactive. When I look at that number I know it’s curated. I know the majority of those people are real. I also know there are damn few questionable accounts. A follow by me really is an endorsement of sorts, and someone in my following list is probably safe (at worst just uninteresting) since I get rid of obvious asshats.
Once I unfollowed all the inactive accounts my counts seemed a bit dishonest to me. I’d look at the number of people following me and know that many were now just ghosts. My follow/follower ratio was such that I looked like I was an aspiring celebrity. So I forced them to unfollow.
How do you do this? It’s fairly easy. You block them, then unblock them. Don’t just “undo” the block, since this makes it as though it never happened. Fully block, then unblock. In the unlikely event this person decides their twitter absence was a mistake, and you’re truly missed, you can be followed again later (of the 1,500 people I’ve done this to exactly 1 has refollowed).
I like having fewer followers. The only thing that sucks about this is I haven’t figured out a way to charge for my Get Fewer Followers system. Seriously, I know that for the most part that anyone in my following column is actually amused by the stupid crap I spout and is there because they want to read what I have to say and engage me on it.
My challenge to you: Give the stale accounts the boot. Twitter should be doing this for you anyway. Pick a timeline. Three months, six months, whatever you like and start blocking and unblocking. You won’t get anything from it other than the satisfaction of knowing you’re not playing the numbers game.
Check in with me again in a year. I really doubt I’ll ever climb above 5,000 again.
—-
Take a chance; see if @jackassletters will let you follow him on twitter. Then, blow off work for the rest of the day and read his blog.
If you’re aching for more from @jackassletters, see his guest post “Art for Art’s Sake” on @stinginthetail’s blog.
© of this post belongs to @jackassletters, a.k.a. Christopher L. Jorgensen