The Twitterverse
April 26, 2016 § Leave a comment
Anonymous asks,
So I guess one question I have is this. What do you do if you feel like you’re just waiting for a response from the cast you tweet with (even just a like or RT), & it makes you sad if it’s been awhile since that’s happened but you see their Twitter interactions with people you know & it creates jealousy? And if you feel like you’ve made a group of friends & slowly start to doubt if those people think of you the same way? All of this feels so junior high. And at my age, feels really really silly.
Interacting on twitter can feel a lot like offline human interaction. Like you’re hanging out on the couch watching TV with friends and even your faves. But it isn’t.
I am hashtag blessed that none of my lady situations have ever been on Twitter. Because I feel like I’d spend my life wooing their attention. Dancing like a puppet, trying to capturing their hearts for just a split second. But would they be liking or responding to my tweet because they thought I was funny? Because their agent told them to engage their fans? Because they handed their phone to their assistant and said, “Here. Talk to people.” We can never know. Because there’s an agenda. It’s their job. They can be genuinely flattered but also working the crowd at the same time. So it’s complicated.
Though people may say “so and so replied to me on this date” in their Twitter profile, that’s not who they are. That’s something that happened to them on the Internet. And we’re not our number of followers or retweets. Because fangirls are also people who deserve flesh and bones in their relationships. People across the table gasping at your crazy work story. People who will hug you when you need it. People who’ve met you and know you’re the biggest asshole, but still love you anyway.
Social media is wonderful. I’ve met my best friends through crying about an actress. But that wasn’t what made us friends. It’s not the glue. Do you want to know if someone is your friend? Ask them. Tell them you want to know them, and that means not just knowing their reaction to an episode or actor. It means knowing all the things they worry about when they fall asleep at night. Listening to them talk about their family or what happens at the office. Not in front of a thousand of your followers. One to one. No agenda. No bragging rights. The fangirl stuff is sweet, but it’s just icing. The friendship is in the cake.
Fangirl Therapy 
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