Several years ago, a friend of mine pointed out that because he read my blog regularly, he felt we had been in contact much more than we actually had (at that point, we hadn’t talked in nearly a year). The same phenomenon occurs in the wider world with Twitter followers who sometimes think they have a relationship with this or that person they follow. @elixabethclaire explains the situation:
Re: last retweet – There's an interesting phenomenon of one->many communications platforms, in that they enable one-sided relationships.
— Elisabeth (@elixabethclaire) November 5, 2014
It's very easy to follow someone, see their tweets in your timeline every day, and feel a false or one-sided sense of familiarity with them.
— Elisabeth (@elixabethclaire) November 5, 2014
As a result, it seems pretty frequent that someone's first tweet to someone they follow assumes a familiarity/ease that isn't there.
— Elisabeth (@elixabethclaire) November 5, 2014
So what might seem to the tweeter fairly innocuous, friendly, or well-intended, is utterly weird for the recipient
— Elisabeth (@elixabethclaire) November 5, 2014
So what might seem to the tweeter fairly innocuous, friendly, or well-intended, is utterly weird for the recipient
— Elisabeth (@elixabethclaire) November 5, 2014
