Last week, I saw Zun’s photo and thought “Yes: THIS is the reason I’m doing this!” But would the mere existence of a stunningly beautiful photo of Staceyann Chin be enough of a reason to include it in the inaugural issue of this project? Probably not. I asked for and was graciously permitted (Thanks Zun!) to use it, but could I just publish this photo without any context? No. Riveting context would require, at the very least, knowing that she just published The Other Side of Paradise, her first book of memoirs earlier this year. Even better if I could get my hands on a copy to read it, quickly, before even approaching her or her PR crew. Of course my public library didn’t have a copy yet. Alrighty then. The big kids (well, the taller ones) got to ride the more thrilling rides; I was never the kid trying to pass on tippy-toes … but here I am, feeling what it must feel like to walk through that gate the first time. Prohibitive list price be damned.
It’s a rainy Thursday morning in Harlem (although monsoon might be a bit more descriptive of what we’re experiencing *LOL*) and I’m taking stock. I’m not nearly as self-sufficient as I want to be. The easiest way would be to commit myself to The Job, but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. (Yes, I’m still looking.) That in and of itself is a difficult enough prospect, but I’m also noticing that no one I know seems to have found that stride either - especially up here in Harlem. I know people who have jobs they don’t mind, but I don’t know anyone employed at doing what they really love doing. That’s always been my focus.
The last time I had sex was over a month ago. Nothing to write home about but judging from the way he was kissing and moaning and carrying on, he might have another opinion. Nope, this is not about prowess but clarity - not trying to fall in love, just trying to enjoy a fleeting sexual encounter with a guy I’ll probably never see again. It was the kisses I noticed; he clearly was feeling something I wasn’t. He was also wearing a wedding band.
(This was originally going to be two tweets - so much for that *LOL!*)
I returned to Twitter because I wanted to recommend it to friends and family as a way to maintain a web presence and social network that was easy to use. I had an account before but got bored and deleted it. (Besides, I’m used to maintaining a web presence regardless of its ease of use.) Some folks recently approached me about setting up ‘websites’ (that means so many different things) so I thought about recommending Twitter instead. It had been a while, so I created an anonymous account to scout out the features and followed people that interested me. My plan was for it to be a temporary thing; I wasn’t trying to establish permanent connections here with people I already knew.
I liked the changes I noticed. It’s easy to control what appears in your timeline - your home page at Twitter. Any user can send you a public reply unless you block (which I don’t hesitate to do if something seems fishy) and whether or not that reply appears on your timeline is up to you. (I highly recommend reading this FAQ for more information about reply settings.) You can also send and receive private direct messages.
I tweet because it’s fun and lightweight. My vintage laptop likes it much more than other social networking sites.
I don’t tweet for numbers. People like Oprah, Ashton Kutcher and his wife Demi Moore have hundreds of thousands of ‘followers’ and follow very few people themselves. I can’t relate.
I want to read what the people I follow tweet into my timeline, so I usually look for people who share similar interests. Sometimes that makes for interesting reading, but not always. I don’t follow someone to return the favor, but if someone follows me I’ll always take a preliminary look. I’m not trying to minimize the number of connections I make, but I am trying to maximize the relevance of and the communication between each of those connections. I’ve probably thought more about my process than the designers intended, but different people tweet differently. My timeline remains interesting to me and easy to manage because of the choices I make.
People I follow tend to:
have interesting tweets about what they’re doing (or thinking)
share my interests
tweet moderately and sporadically, from their phones and from the web
have full profiles and cute avatars
be people I know
have usernames that resemble their names
also correspond with other people, whether or not they’re followers and whether or not it’s me
People I don’t follow tend to:
primarily tweet about their jobs (even if they work for themselves)
primarily tweet to link to their blogs
be followed much more than they follow. I get the feeling they don’t actually read their timelines.
tweet about getting more followers
either have too many tweets or not enough tweets
have incomplete (or non-existent) profiles
only reply to other tweets
wear bikinis in their avatars
People I block tend to:
have one tweet with a link and do much more following than they are followed
have usernames that seem automated (ending in a 4-digit year)
Some of these are hard and fast rules, some aren’t. Sometimes I’ve even gone completely random looking for people to follow, but that doesn’t really work. I’m trying to keep it interesting and fun, but there are no guarantees. As Twitter gains popularity, I predict that keeping my timeline interesting and fun will become more difficult. Like anything else, I’ll do it until I’m bored of it.
For contrast, here’s the last time we did a full close-up on a beauty contestant in a similar predicament:
Personally, as an openly Black gay guy, is our world safer for kids (who may or may not be lesbian or gay or bisexual or transgendered, but who get teased for being so to the point that theycommitsuicide) because this particular white openly gay celebrity chaser tried to railroad this particular white, blond beauty pageant contestant into his belief system? Something tells me, no.
Yes, we do need marriage equality (which is really just equality) in America. Any two consenting adults should be afforded the same rights and class privileges of …
… but if kids can’t even grow up within a safe environment to make those adult choices for themselves, who does that help?
The ability to disagree as adults is another issue. Perez Hilton (both a fake name and an homage to the type of celebrity he chases) wasn’t trying to have an intelligent conversation about marriage equality with an equal. He was judging her and knew the title of Miss USA could depend on her answer, reducing the importance of marriage equality down to a predictable publicity stunt. Well, there you go. You chose to act like a crackhead trying to bumrush someone on the street for a dollar - and she said “No.” I’m sure that the legions of activists and politicians who struggled to actually make marriage equality a reality in our lifetime will stand with me to applaud your tireless efforts. Especially at such an illustrious forum where conversations between straights and gays aren’t exactly high at the top of the list of things to do. Thanks so much for representing.
Seriously, our kids need us to be dedicated to making sure that there’s a place for everyone at the table and that we’re communicating with each other - not diversity because it’s a trendy way to attempt to shut people up who you assume do not agree with you.
This particular woman said, “No, you will not.” Because of her religious beliefs, she opposes same-sex marriage. It was a fleeting moment, but she knew the game and decided to play it. Yes, ultimately she’s saying, “People like me are normal and people like you are not.” - which looks like inequality to me. Still, what happens when people like her become teachers and other adults who supervise children and when one of those children look to someone like her for support because other kids are driving them to question whether or not they should continue to live because they might be gay? (Yes, it’s a run-on sentence; that’s why I blogged it.) The truth is that scenario is more real than it isn’t: unfortunately, kids committing suicide because either they question their sexual orientation or have it questioned for them isn’t a new phenomenon. Even if that supervisory adult (or another kid) chooses to support that kid, that usually happens within a framework that doesn’t support either of them. And many adults who don’t support kids like this are just fucked up uncaring people who just happen to have jobs supervising children. Heteronormative? Okay. Although that’s probably the way that most of us got here, heterosexuality has never been nor will ever be the only way we exist sexually. No matter how many buxom cheerleaders, musclebound touchdowns or beer commercials you throw our way. Instead of artificially stratifying ourselves into red and blue states, let’s make sure we all have a chance to define what is normal within our own lives and that little people all get chances to grow up into big people who are afforded opportunities to make adult decisions.
Online social networks are kinda scary. For one, there are the corporations behind the scenes. I think I understand a little about why they’d want to protect themselves - the Internet is global, so they’re global corporations - but assuming ownership over other people’s content is more than a little shady. If someone left a comment on my blog and wanted to later delete it, I wouldn’t say “No, I own it now and you gave me person to do whatever I wanted with it when you left it on my site.” I’d probably just go ahead and delete it. After all, my blog is mainly about my opinion. Sure, I want blog about things to make people react and interact - if I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t blog.
I’ve been a freelancer for a while now, but one without a real strategy for how to make it actually work. I’m rethinking that strategy a bit. Part of it involves touching up my own site and developing more of a presence on sites like LinkedIn. I’ve had an account there for years now, but can count on one hand the times I logged in. It just didn’t seem like either anything worth putting energy into or that I wanted to manage.
Which brings me to the other side of online social networks - managing the connections I make with other people. That’s even more difficult for me; I can delete my account from a corporation’s site much more easily than I can click a button that instantly defines both me and the person on the other end as less than the friends we once were. But people change - and sometimes people grow apart. I hate having to be the person to say “Look, what’s going on between us?” but that has a way of falling into my lap much more often than not. Sometimes, it’s just too much.
Maintaining my LinkedIn account (which I’ll link to once I’ve edited my profile) is primarily about being available for freelance gigs, but there’s still a person on the other side of that account that I’m linking to - or that I choose not to link to. Not quite the same as less business-related social networks, but still not the same as dealing with a faceless corporation. I know that I’ll just have to take it one step at a time.
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