The Hierarchy of Twitter

Its early 2006 and three regular people; Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone have just created a new social network of which we now love and know as Twitter.


But what causes us (mostly) intelligent beings to be in a frenzy when it comes to Twitter, when its basic function is to tell other people all around the world what we're up to, is it a sub-conscious human instinct to want to know and to be known by as many people as possible?
As well as allowing you to connect with your friends and family, it is a connection between you and other worlds of which you wouldn't normally step into. All us regular twitters have been there, when you log on, and notice your following number has risen, and instant uncontrollable excitement fills you, who could have followed me? was it my favorite celebrity? etc. Maybe this feeling relates to us wanting to be known. In today's culture many of us seem to be obsessed with being famous; the 'Celebrity Culture'.
It's obvious that in last few years the internet has worked as a catalyst making many people huge stars, dare I say the name 'Justin Bieber' who is an extreme and excellent example of 'internet phenomena'. It's fare to say there's a side of the world's population that long to be famous or known for doing something, you feel you were born to do something in this world, its in your blood. If I'm honest I have this feeling myself, not to be famous but to be successful, I along with a lot of others have seen and learnt that social networking can be a great way to start your journey to being successful and therefore joining sites such as Twitter.
  There's obviously a system to Twitter, there are still platforms and 'rules' that 'twitters' have created for themselves, for example, you use the interests function to find others who have the same interests as you, you begin to follow them however this doesn't automatically mean you will be followed back, as in many cultures this can be seen as a form of segregation in a community. Not necessarily on purpose, but where do you draw the line on who to follow? Again our human instinct to be known might 'kick-in' and we might mention them in a tweet (e.g. @famousperson) desperate for them to follow, using twitter language such as 'RT' (Re-Tweet) and Hash-tags (#). Why is it so important for certain people to follow us?
Yes, Twitter has created a huge community of people, but this community has many walls, you may look into the world of a celebrity but not interact, you can follow as many celebrities as you want, but you still may only have one follower; who's a regular middle aged man from Hackney, called Bob. Do you strive to get that small blue and white tick next to your twitter name? or reach a million followers? Twitter is fueling the huge fame hungry population.
Let me take you back to school, your in the playground, your holding the latest craze in your hand (in this case Pokemon cards) but wait a minute you realise your fellow peers are not holding those precious Pokemon cards anymore.

Instead there are yo-yo's walking the dog and flying everywhere. You don't have what the rest of 'your world' want anymore, your not worth playing with (or following). Unfortunately this can be how Twitter works, if you dont have anything of interest, you cant be that interesting to follow. But you can't follow everyone, because then there wont be any special people that have been followed by someone they look up to etc. I call it the 'Twitter Dilemma'
I know I'm asking a lot of questions in this blog post and not answering, but really these questions are rhetorical, only you as a person can answer for your own actions. I myself am an example of, maybe even 'abusing' social networking to be successful, my ambition is to work for the BBC and be a successful photographer, (which I know is the same as many other people in the world) so understandably on Twitter I follow many people connected with the BBC, and try and tweet as much so I can to be heard.
I still sit on the fence when it comes to the question, 'is social networking a bad or good thing?' in someways of course its a good thing, but in relation to networking and celebrity culture etc. maybe not. Its becoming more easy to be what we might call 'famous', lets face it there's always going to be gossip magazines filled with material and there will always be a hundred flashing lights in peoples faces... the show must go on!
What we need to remember in this crazy world, is that each of our lives is a show, it will have its ending one day, just make sure while it shows, it shows you having a bloody good time!

Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.

Andy Warhol