A Jordanian twitter jungle! - "طويطر"

I’m on twitter all day long, on my laptop, my BlackBerry, my iPod, my desktop..You name it! It’s a weird addiction! I’ve never been addicted to something that it’s intangible like that! Not even Facebook.  I like to read what people tweet, I tweet the most ridiculous things, whatever knocks my brain and I just find myself smoothly tweeting it! It’s a strange feeling; it’s like an open window for the rest of the world.

I like reading what others tweet, and RTs, and the discussions when its only for the sake of discussing high scale issues, but on complete ignorance, maybe this is how it is with us when we argue for the sake of arguing, we never show respect for others point of views, we never try to embrace or understand what others are actually saying! We just set behind our screens and argue, in the very same attitude and behavior we argue face to face!

I think it’s hilarious! Seriously, one of the tweeps once told me while we were tweeting about music, that “welcome to the jungle” a track for Guns N Roses that I’m addicted to, applies perfectly on Twitter! And it actually does!

I’ll tell you how “welcome to the Jungle” applies, you’re behind a screen, for me and others you’re just a profile with a cool avatar or a very disturbing one, and all what we know of you is your tweets. So we read, we reply if we’re interested, if it’s highly effective tweet to us we RT, and we might even favor it! And you gain a few laughs and get some attention from other strangers’ profiles and it can go for hours.

Then you’re at the doors of the jungle, and someone disagree with you! Automatically the defense mode is on, and you’re finger tips starts typing faster than your brains! Physically we can’t see you but we can predict the look on your face, irritated, and raving mad! For one tweet that disagreed with you!

And you believe that whatever you’ll tweet now will destroy the person behind that thing we call a screen, and he or she will feel devastated ,embarrassed by that tweet! But ohh boy hell NO! You’ll receive another mention, and oppsie daisy that profile had the guts not just to reply, and may mention few others in that reply which he acknowledges positively they’re the “Groupie” and they’ll back him up! “I’m not referring to any males by using he” for your note only!

Now you’re furious, and you’re even doing hand gestures, yes my dear we can see! And a whole bunch of extremely bad words, and metaphoric, and curses starts rushing through your brains, then type them down on that little box, then you think “no no, I shouldn’t say such things, what will others say about me” so you backspace what you wrote, and reply in a very diplomatic way! And you think “ok, this is over, they won’t dare replying back now”.

Once you’re in the jungle there is no way out of it! You’re stuck. And it’s the law of the jungle now that controls you, survival is for the strongest, kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. And you’ll never give up; you’ll keep fighting over tweets. And sure you’ll ask for backup, you may even be with another tweep over the phone, or DMing and wondering: “this is what they wrote, now what do I say?” and you discuss with others “if I said this, they’ll say that..” it’s hilarious I swear.

Now this is the virtual jungle, when it’s only over the screen, not face to face, the real actual jungle is when u attend a “TWEETUP” ohh my! When I attend some tweetups I barley talk, I listen and observe, I just look at all of these people again each is proving his point, each is gluing his/her feet to the floor, and making sure he/she is 100% NOTICEABLE. You seek the attention of the entire group, every and each one of them, we all have our own way to be noticed, to be seen. Now psychologically human tend to seek attention, we like it, right? I mean I’d be lying if I say I don’t like attention, Im a human after all, nevertheless it’s the way we seek that portion of attention from others we may consider as potential friends or we may already decided this is my enemy!

Some of us in the tweetups are gorgeous, they’ll actually run the extra mile and make sure that they ask everybody simple questions “what’s your name”  “what do you do for living” and if they’re not familiar with one another on Twitter “what’s your handle name” those people are amazing! The 2^nd type are others who run the extra 10 miles and they actually open up a conversation with you once they realize what are your interests. Which is awesome, I just love this word AWESOME! Here goes your 3^rd type, peaceful, they remain in their comfort zone, politely they greet other stranger tweeps, and they sit in their bubble, within the few others they’re familiar with! This is perfect.

Now be aware, careful, be alert to the 4^th type, they walk in the area of the tweetup with ZERO self confidence, then they greet, or NOT! Then they choose a seat next to the most familiar, or even worst they choose a seat next to the most vulnerable familiar tweep! So they take their seat, and by now you’ll start feeling the vibes of law of the jungle, for me when it happens “welcome to the jungle“ starts playing in the back of my head unconsciously, I swear to you you’ll have them coming! When they tend to get abusive, loud, and may run to the extent of rude! You’ll start hearing the tone of their voice rising bit by bit, then in the corner of your eye you’ll start seeing shadows of hand gestures or way too much aggressive body language used by their hands, they’ll start moving and waving their hands, you’ll actually feel worried they won’t “accidentally” hit the one next to them! Now maybe some of the tweeps will feel just annoyed as you are, don’t worry its simple. You just ignore it! If you’re ever to be in such shoes, don’t walk away, if you did that you’ll prove the law of the jungle. Stay away from getting into arguments with the character because believe me it will be endless, pointless discussion, and you’ll just feel thirsty by the end of it!

Be certain such type 4 are only distracted, are in a very low self-esteem level, and they act aggressively, for their belief the attitude will make others scared, and they’ll gain the group’s respect!! For type 4 I’d like to say, my darlings, we show no respect to your attitude, and yes of course we’ll go and bad mouth you, that’s for sure! we may even describe you in a very repulsive way, others may choose to simply ignore the fact that you exist, ignoring you is my choice, trust me you have no value added to me what so ever!

To the rest who’d been in my shoes, nobody buys him/herself a headache, unless you’re the type who enjoys pushing others buttons, and make them feel uncomfortable, I salute you, there is a saying by “Jim Morrison. The lead singer/writer of The Doors band”  Jim said: “I like people who shake other people up and make them feel uncomfortable” so here you go, shake them up, make them feel uncomfortable, unwanted, and prove your point!

Don’t you just love twitter? Behind the screen, in front of the screen! It’s amazing! It’s a very unique jungle, you can move around from virtual to actual!

The point of this piece, is a favor, if you all can do me a favor, and let’s work on some practical and social #ReformJO, let us please try to embrace, respect, and hear what others have to say! It’s freedom of expression when you say what you think is right, and what you believe is certain, this is why it’s called freedom of speech! Not persuading of speech! And to the others you too respect it; it’s only respect, the simplest human behavior, RESPECT!  We are Jordanians, we are known of our respect, for our love, for our freedom of speech!

Twitter, you are my jungle!