09.14
Imagine yourself in a cool new bar. It’s still fairly new, so not a lot of people know about you. You like to frequent the new bar, and find yourself going there fairly regularly. You start having some conversations with people in the bar, and really enjoying it. You try bringing a few of your friends to the bar, and they end up staying and having a pretty good time, too. All in all, things are pretty decent.
As it happens, the bar starts to gain popularity. You think it’s pretty great. More people start showing up and you have more people to talk to. As the bar starts to gain popularity, they do stuff to make it more fun to be there – put in a jukebox, karaoke, etc. And don’t you feel great, because you knew about it before it was “cool.”
The bar gets so popular that alcohol producers start to find out about it. The send reps to talk about how great their beer is, but you’re not looking to talk to a distributor, you just want to hang out and talk to you friends. Lucky you, it’s pretty obvious who the reps are, so you keep to yourself and your circle. The bar may be getting a little passe, but you still like it.
Turns out sending reps was pretty successful, so the distributors send more. And so do the competitors. And then, they send more.
Some pretty cool people start showing up to the bar, and it’s pretty fun to stop and listen to what they have to say. Sure, you still talk to your friends most of the time, but celebrity stature certainly warrants keeping an ear on their conversation. Every once in a while you try to shout to the celebs and see if they respond, but they never do because the celebs just like being heard and talking to other celebs. Remember, they’re just people, too.
Unfortunately, some new people have found about the bar, and they find themselves so infatuated with what others are saying that they just stand around repeating what others are talking about. You know they type – “hey, did you hear what so and so just said?” All that training from high school kicks in, and you ignore them now like you did then. They’re just looking for people to listen to them, anyway.
The bar keeps growing and growing, and everyone’s having a good time. You have the tables you like to sit at, the people you like to talk to, etc. But, it gets kind of noisy. I mean, you’re still having fun, your friends are still coming, but it’s just not the same. You’re tired of hearing about how great all the new beers and other beverages are. You find it harder to avoid those repeaters. You even start sitting in the back room – it’s still the bar, just a little quieter. But all those things you used to like about it have changed. And you don’t really enjoy going anymore, either. You start coming less and less, and some of your friends don’t show up anymore, either.
So, what are you to do? Go out in search of a new bar? Yup.
And that’s why I’m done with Twitter.
