A Guide to Not Following People on Twitter

Facebook is the wine aunt of social media: angry, sloppy, ranty, it is a place to complain, post cat pics, sell a few household trinkets and stalk old flings. Instagram is her slutty cousin: vain, shallow, a grammatically incorrect but nobody notices because we’re not looking at her captions (if you know what I mean). Truth Social is an echo chamber of MAGA blather, TikTok a Chinese PsyOp to dumb down the already struggling American masses, and Mastodon “a honeytrap for hall-monitor personality types.”

Twitter is a different animal, and not because its censors (RIP) no longer police the N-word. With a literal genius at the wheel, Twitter is poised to dominate the social media industry, and it deserves to.

“[T]he incredible thing about Twitter,” Will Clemente tweeted recently, is “you can post an idea or a question, and depending on the size of your audience, you can instantly get thousands of bright minds responding (often passionately) to your tweet. In some ways, even better access to information than Google.”

There are great accounts to follow on Twitter — GhettoBitch Fights, Cigarette Aesthetica, Catturd, for example–and plenty of guides written on who to follow and where to find them. But what the world is missing is a guide for who not to follow and why.

Not following people–in conversation, in real life, online–is one of my greatest skillsets. I’ve not followed some of the dumbest people on earth. Not following people is my calling.

Here is my guide to not following people on Twitter.

1: Topping the “do not follow” list is Trump Train accounts. For conductors, swingers, and autists, trains can be fun and exciting, but on Twitter, Trump Trains lower your IQ by 12 points per week. These #followforfollow accounts post sexy pics of Melania or majestic eagle gifs and tag anyone with a MAGA, KAG, or QANON hashtag in their profile.

It’s bottom feeder Twitter and should be avoided by anyone with an ounce of self respect.

2: Profile bios with food emojis. The only thing worse than a Ukraine flag in your profile is fruit. Unless they’re a proud resident of Georgia or a hardworking picker from Mexico, peach emojis should be limited to sending unsolicited DMs to porn stars from the privacy of your Hyderabad hut. The same rule applies to every other food emoji. Unless it’s literal–like they farm corn, own a hamburger franchise, or have testicles that look like a pair of cherries–it’s not cute. Do not follow.

3: Under 100 followers? Having less than a hundred friends in real life is fine. You’re not a loser. But on a platform of 400 million users it means your “hot” takes aren’t. Users with no followers are either ugly, mean, unfunny, some combination thereof, or too eclectic in their interests to think about any one topic deeply enough to say anything interesting. Celibacy is more noble than dating a 1. Following an account with less than a hundred followers is the Twitter mathematical equivalent of dating a 0.000025.

4: Tulsi Gabbard Conservatives: Politics is show business for ugly people, so an attractive Democrat is somewhat of a political unicorn, but being anti-war doesn’t make the hot Hawaiian an ally, much less a Conservative. Tulsi is an anti-sanction, pro-immigration Liberal who supports the Green New Deal, taxpayer-funded college, and universal health care. She was a member of the LGBT Caucus in Congress who has flip-flopped on gun regulation and supported–but didn’t have the balls to vote for–the impeachment of President Donald Trump over his “perfect” phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Yes, it’s nice when Democrats find their own party as loathsome as the rest of us do, but Conservatives who are horny for a Tulsi conversion are too desperate to be liked by the other side. As Momway Twitty (a must-follow) recently tweeted–sarcastically–“Let’s just be led by disaffected former libs who still hold all the neoliberal framework?” Conservatism needs to stop ceding ground to the opposite side so long as they agree with us on one thing. Do not follow.

5: People with profile photos that inadvertently look like something else. Like John Fusek. His profile photo is of him standing in front of a big rock with his dogs, but unless you click on it and zoom in, it looks like an old lady’s wrinkly foot in a high heel. You will never not see it, and you will never be able to not think that everything John tweets is somehow related to an old lady’s weird leg. They should do better.

6: Childless women: The end of civilization is nigh and all liberal women want to talk about is killing the unborn children of men they regret sleeping with. “You’re an idiot.” An “incel.” A “bigot.” “Yes I literally said that but I’m reporting you for retweeting it” is code for “Do not follow.” Unmarried men should mingle with unmarried women in person, then marry them and have kids in order to the world–and the future of Twitter–slightly more sane. Women already avoid childless women. Even childless women hate childless women. It’s the greatest discrimination scandal in the modern era, and it’s warranted. The angry and humorless have no place in your life.

7. Normie Republicans. Die-hard party-line Republicans who bang on about all the things “their” side would do if only they had a majority in Congress are dull in every sense of the word: tedious, boring, stupid, and thus unworthy of attention–even if they do have more than a hundred followers and no fruit emojis in their bio. Republicans spent two months after Trump lost talking about “4D chess” and the great plan to stop vote certification, the lawsuits that would “right this electoral wrong,” the voting machine “scandals,” the laptop from hell, the coup. They were so sure that “something big” was coming, and nothing did. They had so much faith in the Republican Establishment, and nothing came of it.

They are the intellectual equivalent of Democrats who genuinely though Biden would ban assault weapons or codify Roe or cancel student loan debt.

Two years later the GOP has a House majority in their pocket after spending an entire election cycle boasting about the impending “red wave” and lambasting Democrats for inflation, Afghanistan, Ukraine, COVID, and gas prices. They squeaked out a win (while squandering the Senate to candidates like John Fetteredbrain), and the only thing Republicans have planned is an investigation into the same Hunter Biden laptop they’ve had in their possession for two years.

They campaigned on fixing the economy, but all you’re going to get is more coke-head selfies.

As for the “new direction” of the GOP, well it turns out “new direction” was code for “same guys from before.”

The Wall ain’t built. The Swamp ain’t drained. But somehow “this time” will be different.

Normie Republicans are the abortion doctors of American greatness. Don’t honor them with a follow. Don’t even give them the satisfaction of assuming your loyalty by staying registered as a Republican. Re-register as Independent. Make Conservatives work for your vote. Make them earn it. And don’t clutter your Twitter timeline with conspiracy theorists and con artists promising a future they have no intention of working toward.

Originally published at FLAPPR.net: Political Satire and News You Shouldn’t Use