Hitting On Someone in Social Media: Know Your Platform

I should really start a relationship series. It would go something like: How Not to Date in Social Media

Maybe this is the first installment of that...

The overall theme, of which I've blogged about before, is that guys, for whatever reason are unable to construct the time-honored tradition of, "Hey, wanna go out? I know this great Cuban place to take you for dinner," or "This hot new movie is opening this weekend. Wanna go?" Complete and utter failure on that regard. Perhaps all that is too much of a commitment, and they just want sex. Fine. Just cross me off your list now then.

Here's what I've been getting a lot of lately: "Wanna chat?" or, if they feel really close, "Hey, I wanna chat with you sometime."

First of all, I spent most of the 90s and a good part of the 2000s chatting. I've seen the good sides of chat, and the horrific sides of chat (that being when one guy wanted to "chat" with me while he watched a porno in the background, and showed me said nonsense on his videocam). Chatting, for most guys these days, is the precursor to "sexting." And it doesn't take long to get from one to the next.

Which is why, these days, I only "chat" with friends and family. SELECT friends and family. They had to beg me, in fact, to turn on my FB chat. I used to chat with hundreds, and be open to the whole world, but not these days.

Here's the other thing, though. FB chat (which turns into emails of the person you're chatting with) isn't strictly old-school chat, but it functions as such sometimes. IN NO CIRCUMSTANCE, however, is Twitter to be used as "chat."

Do people not realize this?

Every Tweet you type goes out to your ENTIRE TWITTER FEED. Every one I type back goes out to MY ENTIRE TWITTER FEED, which is close to 2000 people. I don't want to bore 2000 people with this convo: "What's up?"
"Not much. You?"
"Not much either."

SERIOUSLY?

First of all, I am APPALLED at your social gaffe, to not realize this collossal social blunder you are committing here.

And even taking this convo to DMs, which is proper social etiquette, is wrong on a personal level, because in any forum, I'm bored silly by this convo.

"We should chat more," he says. Really? You sure aren't convincing me of that.

Not to mention that because you use Twitter as your own personal "chat" stream, I've seen you hitting on other girls this way. Very uninteresting.

Here's how it works for me.

For the most part, I use Twitter to hear and talk to the masses of people on the Earth. I'm most open to following new people on Twitter, just to hear their voice, and the kinds of things they say.

When I've listened to them awhile, if what I've been reading is pleasing, I will accept a friend request on Facebook. But even there, I get the random, "Let's chat," in email.

This guy, for example. "I'd like to get to know you."

Mind you, my feed on FB, as my friends will tell you, is pretty much Michelle as an open book. There are all kinds of things that I'm posting, which are of interest to me, that you could comment on. We could see if we have similar interests. That's how I get to know YOU.

No. He doesn't do that. He "wants to chat." Tells me, in English and Spanish, that I'm "so beautiful." Not much more than that. As if I'm so gullible that hearing someone call me beautiful is going to make me trip into their arms. Um, no.

Wow me. Impress me. Stun me with your witticisms. Or, for heaven's sake, ASK ME OUT.

Why is that so difficult for boys today?

As for both of the two in this (true life) story, I've unfollowed/unfriended them. Life's too short.

Oh, and another thing: Don't call me "dear." It's demeaning.

And don't describe intimate sexual things you want to do to me if you haven't even KISSED ME. Seriously, people. Have some decorum.

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UPDATE: As I went to unfriend the FB guy, I read that his profile just went from "married" to "single." So all these months, when he's been trying to initiate chat with me, he was MARRIED anyway. *eyeroll*

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Social Media With No Social: Pinterest

Again and again, people talk about the next hot thing. MySpace faded, then Facebook appeared. There's always a next hot site around the corner.

So it was with great interest that I went to seek out this new Pinterest thing that everyone's talking about.

In fairness to Pinterest, it does solve a need that wasn't really being filled. Pictures just by themselves always seemed very out of place on FB. So thanks, Pinterest.

What it does NOT do well, in fact, does really abysmally, is connect one person with another.

Really, of all the social networks out there, the only one getting this right at the moment is Twitter. Twitter knows how to connect people with other people. It knows that's what people WANT.

All these homages to narcissism (and the new FB Timeline is even WORSE in that direction) are all well and good, but I wanna know what OTHERS are thinking, doing, feeling, experiencing today. I already know where I'm at, and everyone in my life does too.

Let me explore others' ideas, thoughts, or, in the case of Pinterest: pictures.

First, of all, it gives you some possible choices that are an SEO's dream. You can just see the potential advertisers salivating as they explore everyone's favorite travel sites, for example. Or clothing decisions. Do I really care to show that to the world? Or to see what beauty soap anyone else is buying? Um. No.

So, ok, let's assume that I love showing people photos, which, as it happens, I do.

Even as a photo site, Pinterest fails. It has no ability to crop or change photos or put together collages. It just lets you pin stuff from the web as it shows up. And then these pictures that you've selected go out into the world, to be viewed, and if you're lucky, "repinned." Woo!

Seriously?

You would think it would at least have (something one would think is de rigeur for any social media site these days), a stream of info available. Things people are currently pinning. If it's there, it wasn't apparent.

I supposedly added a bunch of FB friends, but I can't see them or their Pinterest boards. Not easily, anyway. How will they be able to find mine, should they choose to? Very frustrating.

All these social marketers are just spinning with the newest hottest thing, but they are all forgetting why we are here in the first place. WHERE'S THE SOCIAL? Let us connect with others. If you don't have that on your website, whatever your website is, you are FAILING as a social media site.

Ping is No MySpace Killer

Boy, I love a day when Apple releases (or talks about) new products. So it was with great excitement that I started reading about Ping, Apple's supposed "MySpace killer." A social network that exists right at the site where the music is? How fun.

Mashable's story on the MySpace killer Ping


Eagerly I downloaded the new version and tested it out. Well, yes, Apple, except for one small teeny tinsy little thing here: you forgot the "social" in social network. You also continue to thrust at us old world versions of the music we live today, and this "Ping" is functional for really no one.

There is no chat function. There are no forums. There is, in short, no way for one user to interact with another user, other than to "follow" them. And if you follow them, you'll see, in Twitter feed fashion, what music that person is buying. Great. More along the lines of who cares?

You'll also see which concerts they attended by which artist. Apple seems to have stolen (their format, their content structure) excessively from iLike, which is now partnered with MySpace Music.

But there's no way to ask your friend on this site, "Hey, what'd you think of that concert?" That is, after all, what a "music social network" should be about. Sure, your friend can "review" the album. But there is no connection. It's all distant viewing.

MySpace, at least, has chat and messaging all built in. You can see a band's concert calendar at the ready, and how much tickets are. You can comment when you saw their show in Portand and wanted to immortalize how awesome it was for you. None of that BASIC social networking stuff is here on Ping.

Ping, in fact, is really only a spruced up version of iTunes. The function, thrust at you, is BUYING stuff. Specifically buying their top artists. Upon setup, you have to choose only three genres of music that you like (!?!). Then you get their picks for you ("Artists We Recommend You Follow"). One of my selections was Alternative. Yet the artists they presented me with included Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. And Diddy. The only vaguely Alternative act they presented was U2.

Insert eyeroll here. Don't be worried, MySpace. Don't even bat an eye over this new "killer" in town.