I remember being in 7th grade. Each home room had to elect a president at the beginning of the year (I think the major duty was carrying notes to the office), it was a scary time. The first year of middle school — just out of elementary school. There were many new kids from other schools that I didn’t know that well and I was separated from my usual crew of beautiful popular girls so I was feeling a bit out of sorts. I never really did well apart from my friends… I was the token dorky jock in the midst of the cool girls.
So, there, I found myself sitting in home room with kids I didn’t know, in a school that was new — hoping desperately not to be noticed while at the same time striving to fit in. The teacher called for nominations for president — silence, of course, was the answer he received. I remember looking down at my paper and doodling — wondering when the bell would ring to release me back out into the hallways and the comfort of my friends, then, a hand went up… “Becky”, they said, “I nominate Becky”.
“Yes!” I screamed in my mind while still doodling nonchalantly on my paper.
“I second it”, another voice said from behind me.
“Yes, yes, yes!” I screamed even louder in my head, “They like me, they really really like me!” But wait… I thought. I don’t even have any lollipops with notes attached that read — Vote For Becky! How could I win without those lollipops?
A few minutes later, it was official… I was the president of the dorks, the note carrier to the teacher in the room at the farthest end of the hall — and proud of it. Fast forward to my sophomore year of college.
Homecoming queen nominations were being sought — the fraternity that my sorority was paired with was going over possible nominations. I wasn’t paying attention because tradition had it that a senior officer in the sorority received the nomination. Then… I heard my name in the distance, “Punky”, I listened closely with all the hearing power of the bionic woman. “Punky would win”.
I tried desperately to pretend to be paying no attention to the talks in the adjoining room but let my imagination cling to that thought a little too long. I saw my picture on posters, I saw me sitting atop a convertible riding through the stadium, I saw me standing in the commons area passing out lollipops with little notes attached that read — Vote For Punky!, I saw… “No, it needs to be a senior”…
:::poof:::
Fast forward to now. There’s a game on Twitter on Fridays called “Follow Friday”. The premise is, you send a “shout out” to the people you find funny and interesting and profound and mysterious (not necessarily in that order and not necessarily all in the same person), you tell others they should follow that person as well — a great big classroom presidential nomination.
I don’t participate too often, I always forget to give a “shout out” to someone and then I feel bad that I forgot them and then when I go back later to remember them it becomes very aware that I forgot them in the first place. The neuroses accompanied by Follow Fridays is complex. And… I think all of the people I follow are funny and interesting and dark and mysterious — that’s why I follow them in the first place.
But, still… I find myself checking in on Friday’s a little too obsessively, just to see. Once, maybe twice or 14 times — to see if I received any of those “shout-outs”, to see if they like me… if they really really like me. I think I should send a disclaimer each Friday morning that says, “I’m caught between not wanting to participate to avoid hurt feelings and desperately seeking a nod in my direction — also, I have lollipops.”
Classroom presidential nominations… homecoming queen nominations… follow Friday nominations… and of course, Facebook friend requests go in there somewhere as well. The yin and the yang, the ups and the downs… the virtual :::sigh:::
I think I’ll go check Twitter for those follow Friday’s, right after I look in on Facebook for new friend requests. But first, I’m going to finish getting ready to go out to dinner with a really nice person who knows nothing of Twitter or Facebook or the failed anticipation of a homecoming nomination. All he knows is I have a big bag of lollipops sitting on my kitchen counter.
Follow Friday, friend requests, or dinner dates? I’m pretty sure I know which one I like the best — maybe I’ll share my answer in a few hours. What about you?
In case you haven’t met her… let me introduce you to the next classroom president, the next homecoming queen, the next smash of Follow Friday and Facebook friend requests — this is the coolest of the cool girls.
Ha! I love that video! Yes I can do anything I want. And yes I am connected! That girl is awesome!
I find I have difficulty with the followfridays too, for some of the same reasons. I am torn between ignoring it and feeling sad that no one sends me any #FF love. But, working overnights I mostly sleep through it so it is easier to ignore now.
btw… thank you for the #FF love yesterday. 🙂
That girl is the definition of awesomesauce!
I’m all about the #ff love for you! It’s all so complicated — we should all be as easy going as Sadie.
Thank you Mary!
Who is that girl?! I looooove her and want to be her. Wow. And I love your post. I too have mixed feelings about Follow Fridsays. I used to do tons. Then I did none. Now I do just when the mood strikes, and not always on Friday. But, when I see someone has given me one of those shout outs, I feel special, loved, and most of all…connected. It’s why I’m here (online). I like to feel connected to a diverse group. Thank you Becky for another great post.
Me too Sue — I think we are connected to a diverse group that expands and sometimes dissolves. It’s all the emotions of the uiverse rolled up in a huge ball of connectivity.
Thank you for being here!
Oh my gosh, I LOVE SADIE. I LOVE LOVE Becky Sain. Funny, I usually stress about similat things & yet haven’t felt that about #FF. Now i’m a bit worried. 🙂
Ha! No worries about #ff. Perhaps my own neurosis playing a role in it.
Sadie is the coolest isn’t she? She seems like an exceptional soul.
This is an awwwww post. Feel not alone, I believe we all have those popularity insecurities. A few weeks back, I spent a couple or three or four hours doing Follow Fridays over a period of two days. I was just over 200 followers at the time and I included every single one of them.
You were in that batch, you are popular with me. It will be a while before I attempt that again just because of how much time it consumed. I love ya Becky, you are amazing and bring interest, warmth and generous, loving words to twitter.
I nominate you for Twitter Queen and President of the Follow Friday Sorority. Do I hear a second? 😉
❤ Joanne
Nope — not accepting any nominations for anything other than “Dork who screws up” — is that a category? 😉
My words are not always loving but I hope to change that soon or at least increase my positive actions to fall in line with my positive words.
Loved this post and I completely understand what you mean about Follow Fridays. I’m with Sue: I started out doing them regularly, then stopped because I worried I would forget someone. So much pressure for an adult who is supposed to be doing this for fun!
We need to encourage people when they need encouraging, applaud people when they deserve applause, and pass along their names when we think that some of our other followers can benefit by reading their words of wisdom or by following them too.
You always have a way of tapping into how I feel, and I look forward to reading each and every one of your posts.
Julie
I think it is important to encourage our friends. I think withholding encouragement can cause unnecessary tension — and besides, what’s so bad about telling someone you think they’re special or that you’re proud of them? I think we should all do more of it.
Thanks Julie.
Hmm agree with Joanne. Agree with everyone here actually about the love/dislike of the tradition. Would love to see it discontinued actually, and replaced by a simple occasional #ff whever the mood strikes someone.
I think that’s perfect actually. Encouragement — just like Sadie says! I think it’s important to let the people in our lives know we believe in them at all times, when the feeling hits.
Thank you!
Becky, I love reading your posts. President of the Dorks! As if. You crack me up. Keep writing.
Thank you Kathleen!
I agree with Caroline…it’s getting to be silly and outdated. So many people now have so many friends, the time consumed just doing the #FF’s is something most of us don’t have.
(I’m mostly refering to those who don’t want to exclude anyone, if they are going to do it) Yes, Julie…I worry about that too.
When I did mine, I was surprised at the small percentage of people who actually took a second to thank me for the shout….that is protocal, isn’t it. That did jade me a bit and it will be a long while before I do it again. Manners are extremely important to me. I almost zapped a bunch of people because of it. So in the end, the tradition has ended with me.
And stop, you are not a dork. Love you ❤
❤
I used to love Follow Friday. I used to look forward to sending them out and look forward to people doing it for me. But then so often they just turned into list “#ff @bob, @Joe, @Mel, @pat” etc. Just long lists with no explanation as to WHY you would want to follow the people and so often the person wasn’t even following me. Also I’ve heard people say they don’t like it. I also follow a lot of people who protect their tweets so it doesn’t make sense – to me – to suggest people follow them.
When I received my LOVELY shout out from you I was so happy. Now THAT was a heart warming shout out. I even shared it with my hubby because it made me so happy. Follow Fridays like that are awesome but the lists that people send out and when they don’t even follow you doesn’t make sense to me.
It’s a tough call I think. For me it’s balancing my need to try to not hurt feelings (which I do anyway) and my want to be recognized because we all have a little ego trip inside of us.
I think I will try to find an alternative to the tradition — but, I can send you a lollipop if that will help. 😉
Half the time I don’t even realize it is Friday.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this new avatar! Awesome. You are beautiful.
I need to do a new one. I will do it after my Playshop.
🙂 Thanks Terre! (ps — what is Playshop? I think I want one!)
A PLAYshop what Nia calls a workshop. It is PLAY not work.
I am hosting a Playshop (Oct. 3) and we will be PLAYING with some of the moves that we do in Nia. There are a lot of ways you can do a cha-cha (for example).
Its my first one so I think I need to plan and reveiw and plan and review. 🙂
I wish you could come to mine.
Do you ever get to California?
I pretty much stopped doing Follow Fridays months and months ago. It had reached the point that in order to ensure that I didn’t forget any of the people I followed, I would hand write out a list beforehand. I’d do a few individual ones, then group ones that fit together with an intro like “Fab Foodies” as to why to follow. I even cut down the number of people I followed from about 700 to about 350 (eliminating those who never interacted with a general tweet first telling them to let me know if they wanted me to refollow.)
Then I stopped except for returning Follow Fridays given to me, the list of “my heart”, and a few who I’d been conversing with that week or something similar.
Then I stopped that and started focusing on Retweeting new posts when I had the chance to read them. Whatever the day of the week that fell on. From the response, I think those people appreciated the RT more than they would a FF.
Since deleting my account I don’t have to worry about it. If I do another account in the future, I will limit both who I follow and who follows me to people whose tweets or blogs I enjoy, who are friends and/or who are interesting. No more worrying about numbers. I liked when my little corner of the twitterverse was filled with people I knew and liked, not just random strangers to get my follower numbers up. And I’ll stick to just retweeting rather than Follow Fridays.
I think you are definitely right about the RT’s. I think they hold much more power in fulfilling our need to be recognized than the #ff’s. I think, when someone RT’s a post, I feel very appreciative of them — it says they took the time to read and are taking the time to share with others something that I spent time and put my heart in — I think that is one of the loveliest things about twitter.
I’m horrible with Follow Friday. I try to keep up with it, but for the most part my #FFs consist of my little sister, a dear friend since 8th grade, a guy from college who is like a brother to me, folks I interacted with through that week, and of course, the ever fabulous coffee crew, all of whom I absolutely adore! 😀
I agree — that coffee crew just can’t be beat!
I agree with what Dani was saying about the RT’s too — I think they mean more.
Thanks for coming here!!