Social Media Hack

One of my New Year's resolutions was to get better with using social media. Well, here we are approaching Easter and I'm still just using Facebook and Pinterest and I'm still a total Twitter-phobe. I think that part of the problem is that Twitter is harder to figure out what with its jargon and hashtags and RT business. Also, Twitter seems like urban sprawl to me. There's no there, there. You know what I mean? Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest seem more organized and visually easier to grasp. This is too bad because, let's face it, photography is not my strong suit and my kind of blog is probably best promoted by tweeting clever things, not by posting dark, blurry pictures of my children posing with the largest land-dwelling mammal that ever lived:

The Girl at the new Fernbank Museum extreme mammals exhibit.

I'm seriously trying to make a go of understanding Twitter, so I logged on to my Twitter account yesterday for the first time in months. To my surprise there were 15 tweets attributed to me, which is weird because I've only tweeted twice. Here are some of my fake tweets:

Well, I suppose that if you're going to have a Twitter hacker, it's nice to have one that punctuates properly. I never thought about Angry Birds having a racy back story involving inter-species adultery. Now I can't stop thinking about it. Even though I was curious, I didn't click on any of the links out of fear that my laptop would contract computer-herpes or that I'd be offered erectile disfunction drugs from Canada. I changed my password and hopefully that will foil the Spam tweets.

I know you'll be impressed to know that I have seven followers on Twitter. Yes, yes, I know, don't be jealous. I promise that I am huge on Pinterest. Interestingly, my one Twitter follower that I don't personally know started following me after the hacker tweets. So, now I feel like I might disappoint her with the real me. Here's my tweet for today:

Clearly, I don't know what the hell I'm doing and think that Twitter is a place to tell third grade jokes.

I thought that I might get more comfortable with Twitter if I knew who is on Twitter. So, I made like the CDC when it wants to find out who has the flu and I consulted Google. Remember my old friend Google autocomplete? Well, I typed "Twitter is for..." into my Google search box and waited for my answer like it's the Magic 8 Ball or something. So, according to autocomplete Twitter is for: black people, losers, narcissists, stupid people, idiots, and the birds (get it, Twitter...birds). I thought this was kind of interesting, so I tried it with some other social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Rather than just tell you what I found, I put it in a Venn Diagram. By the way, the new first line in my resume is that I can make a Venn Diagram.

 You're welcome! It's all so easy when you see the results in diagram form. I now understand why most of my friends are on Facebook and Pinterest, but not Instagram or Twitter. The majority of my friends are just like me: old, white ladies, housewives, chicks, women, and girls. Okay, maybe we're not "old" by actuarial standards, but we're probably a tad old by social media standards. Imagine my surprise/narcissistic happiness when I verified my autocomplete research by real data. Here's a chart that shows the age distribution for various social media:

Some information that I took away from this chart is that the kids love social media that involves online gaming and cartoons. Also, senior citizens do not go on Hacker News. Third, Twitter should be properly be "Twittr" so it can fit in with Flickr and Tumblr.

Here's another chart that confirms my conclusions about the lady internet sites:

Confirmed! Pinterest is for ladies, chicks, girls, housewives, women, and any other synonyms for female humans. We also know that guys on Slashdot (a technology news website) are not on there looking for a girlfriend. Also, single ladies you might want to jump over there...the odds are clearly good (but don't blame me if the goods are odd). Also, apparently social media is mostly for women in general. Men must use the Internet for other purposes...one can only imagine what that might be...*cough* porn, *cough, cough* sports.    

For fun, I tried to defy the stats by going on Hacker News (I'm sorry, I couldn't even make it past the FAQ on Slashdot) and deviantART. But dammit all, the stats are right. I'm just happier looking at tie-dyed Easter eggs on Pinterest than I am reading about JVM memory configurations and looking at anime. But I really am going to give Twitter a try. You hear that, Twitter hacker?

It's on.