Why I Unfollowed Everyone On Twitter And Started Over

Exactly 365 days ago I wrote the post ”Why I am Not Unfollowing Everyone On Twitter. My Twitter Strategy Explained.”
It was everything that was true to me at the moment.
It was filled with truth points about communication, lists, and such.
These were true to me at the time.
1 year ago.

Social Media years are similar to dog years.
I won’t google this but I think it’s like 1 human year is 7 dog years. Or something like that.
That sucks for the dog.
Well in Social Media I liken 1 human year to like 20 social media years.
It’s true.
This stuff moves like lightening.

Here are the 5 reasons why the number of people I follow went from 14k a week ago to 282 today.
1. I want to simplify my life.
2. I want to simplify my life.
3. I want to simplify my life.
4. I want to simplify my life.
5. I want to simplify my life.

That’s it.
No huge social media revelations.
Nothing to do with all the spam you guys send me when you get “hacked” (AHEM give your password out to a fake twitter site)
Nothing to do with being elite.
Nothing to do with fake accounts or twitter porn.

I’m going to, in this season, use twitter to follow people I know.
Imagine that.
And a few people I don’t know but wish I did

Also. I used to follow people so that they would follow me back.
Living in the spirit of Authenticity that I try my best to…That’s about as inauthentic as one could be on social media.
I didn’t really follow you.
I had a list that I actually followed.
One of the accounts that “follows me” is @freelegalhelp
NewsFlash
They aren’t really following me.

I want the people who are following me to actually care what I have to say.
The second you don’t want to hear from me anymore it’s easy…
Unfollow.

I’ve got friends of mine who have 50k and 150k people following them on twitter. And for a while I was trying to chase that goal.
Until I looked at who was following them.

I’m in a time in my life where simplicity is key.
I’ve got so much crap going on that one more list to follow is simply too much.

Instagram has taught me this.
I follow people on instagram that I know and do life with.
What A Concept. I Know.
And I LOVE that.
So I thought I’d apply my Instagram technique to twitter.

If you’re bummed I’m not following you anymore on twitter, I apologize.
I got bummed when I found out my dad stopped following me on twitter.
His response…

“I love you son. You just tweet too much”

Who knows? In a year… I may just decide to follow nothing but Lady Gaga fans.
What are your thoughts on the ever shifting role of social media in your life?
Los

http://www.thejrowe.com Jason

Thumbs up!

http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com loswhit

Gracias

http://www.thisisreylo.com Rey

Methinks you’ve inspired me to do the same. Awesome!
http://www.shiftdigitalmedia.com/justin-brackett/ Justin Brackett

Way to do what you got to do bro! But if you start only following Lady Gaga fans I will stop following you! #Justsaying
LeAnn

You should be able to follow or unfollow in whatever way you choose. Nice of you to explain, though, for those who may have gotten irked.
And I’ve always loved how your Dad is such a straight shooter.
Daniel Windsor

Why not start fresh with a new account and see how many of the ones that you followed to follow you come back? It is simple for some to base their self-worth and influence by the number of twitter followers they have(not saying you do this at all).

I hope that my friends and the people I do life with never feel they are just a number, because at the end of the day those are the people I want to be in the “know” with what is happening in my life.

God will build my platform and God will grant me influence as He sees I need it for HIS glory. I always want my Character to line up with that. Twitter can easily give someone a false sense of it for sure..That is the pitfall with social media. I bet P. Brian Houston doesn’t think twice about how many followers he has, He just leads where God has graced him! I enjoy your blog and twitter is the best way to read it without checking the page everyday, that is why I follow you..Although I have met you I don’t feel like we are friends or know you (another problem with social media it creates fans not followers.)
annie

bummer. didn’t make the cut. too bad … I really enjoyed “arguing” with you. totally understand though … gotta keep it real!

http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com loswhit

You can still argue. I’m not blind to replies! lol.

thebrianvan

I’ve been thinking about doing the very same thing for a while. Now it’s time to take it beyond thinking about it and doing it. Thanks for the inspiration, and the validation to do it!
http://csaproductions.com/blog/ Brendt Wayne Waters

I’m relieved that I don’t have to be as cool on Twitter now that Los isn’t following me anymore.
http://www.apologeticalliance.com/blog/author/cmiller/ Chad

*lightning
Mary

I had to do the opposite thing– I follow close to 1,000 people, and I actually read everything they post, because I’m required to sift through it all and pick out highlights for my job. But for a while, twitter became the source of endless social drama in my life– so I ended up unfollowing everyone who I actually knew personally. Twitter became work-related alone for a long time. I’ve slowly started edging back into following people I know, but cautiously.

Sometimes it’s important for me to give myself permission to *not* see something– permission to step back and not have a thousand other peoples’ lives and emotions running through my brain at once. Simplifying is healthy.
http://www.mohan37.com mo

I’m with you. My twitter feed is a disaster. I have lists for personal, priority, potsc, music … but they’re all out of date. The general timeline is totally unmanagable, and I’m barely over 1000.

Facebook is much better now that I changed a bunch of people to “Important Updates Only.” No unfollow drama, but no more stupid ecards either. Facebook is my jam right now.

I’m new to Instagram, and am flying under the radar. I post cute babies, and see cute babies… good enough for me.

And now … I’m off to see if you’re still following me on Twitter. Us browns gotta stick together.
http://Zakwhite.com Zak

Los

I went to do this same thing over a year ago but it just was taking too long. Making the list I wanted to follow was fast. Can you share any tricks or tools you used to speed up the process?

http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com loswhit

Manageflitter.com

Jan

Go for it!

I manage two Twitter accounts: one for work and a personal account. As the work account is for a private company the number of people/businesses, I strictly control who is followed and also block any followers that are just spam.

On my personal account I do the same thing. I only follow people/organizations I want to hear from, because I read all the tweets. I slowly grow the list and cull it often.

I follow you for your frankness and an insight into a younger culture. I appreciate your truth and your love for Christ and your family.

I don’t expect many of the people I follow to follow me back .. I’m not out there to teach others so much as I am to learn and encourage.
http://brendasbrainchild.blogspot.com Brenda

I periodically go through my Facebook friends and unfriend people that I don’t know personally or don’t really keep in touch with anymore. Aside from a few exceptions, I know all of my FB friends, and I like it that way. My feed is full of friends, of things I actually care about, and I feel closer to friends who live far away or I haven’t seen in a long time.
http://panasiukart.blogspot.com Danny Panasiuk

Los,
I have to admit that it would have taken me longer to find out about you if you hadn’t followed me years ago. I remember that I liked what I saw and have been a fan of your since and will still continue to look forward to your posts! You and your family are amazing. Thank you for sharing your life with us!
Tom S

You have 40,000 tweets. So, if you truly wanted to simplify your life you should just use twitter less. To unfollow everyone – that to me looks like you just want to boost your status.. Congrats on the 26K followers and the 40K tweets. You are well on the way to simplicity.

http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com loswhit

LOL. Your math sucks. How does sifting through 14k twitter followers make my life simpler?

http://www.lindseynobles.com Lindsey Nobles

That part about your dad unfollowing you…funny.

My social media theory…to each his own. Use it how it works best for you.
Natalie

My entire life worth and self esteem has been shattered now that you aren’t following me on twitter.

Oh wait… you never were – ha! Breathe sigh of relief. Reinstate self esteem. Move on with day.
http://www.thisisreylo.com Rey Lo

Done! But, you’re still in that “a few people I don’t know but wish I did” category so…
http://about.me/patrickreyes Patrick Reyes

Good for you…now, how did you do it?

http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com loswhit

ManageFlitter.com It’s amazing

Stephanie

I tried Twitter out for awhile and, honestly, found it to be a bit of a waste of time, so I totally deleted my account. I’ve kept my Facebook friend list to a minimum because, well, I just don’t care to be pseudofriends with every person I ever knew.

And I also discovered that sometimes I just don’t want to know every single detail about an acquaintance’s life. for example:

- “We’re at the XX airport ready to take off.”
- “We’ve landed at the Denver airport!”
- “Here’s a photo of the hotel we’re staying in.”
- “Here’s a photo of the breakfast/lunch/dinner we had. Yum!”
- “Monday…hello again.”
- “Friday…nice to see you again!”
- “I love the weekend.”

Social media is fine, but it does not replace real life…actually calling a friend on the phone (instead of texting them). Meeting up for coffee. Hanging out w/your friends & loved ones. Twitter & Facebook will never replace that.

http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com loswhit

Love this!

shawna

It’s funny you posted this because I did the exact same thing for the exact same reason on facebook last month. I was about to delete it because I wanted my life filled with those that me and vice versa, not people I passed in the hallway in Middle school lol. I did get some strange reactions eben my husband thought there was some motive , a stalker, a bully etc lol. Nope! I nicely let my close to 500 friends know if I don’t have any kind of relationship with you then why are we “friends”? Now it’s 250 actual friends and family. I am also after just turning 30 ,trying to simplify my life and pour my time and energy into Jesus and loved onesand doing whatever God had for me:)… Thanks for this post and all of them! I may just follow you on twitter lol…
Sarah Penner

Good for you. I don’t have a list nearly that big, but I’m inspired to cut back as well. Love your blogs, your thoughts. They are always thought provoking!
Sarah
Colin

Although I saw you unfollowed me about a month or so ago, I wondered what I did wrong in my twitter etiquette. I wonder no more….LOL!

Good for you, for simplifying! I have been slowly doing it myself so I don’t feel like I have to stay right on top of my twitter feed constantly.

Bummed….really bummed to be missing Catalyst this year. You did something last year that moved me to tears! Keep rockin it Los!
http://taminprogress.com tam

i don’t have a strategy. if i’m being honest…half the time i don’t even know what the heck i’m doing on social media or why.
Scott Higa

I’m happy you’re simplifying your life but something about the “I’ve gone from following thousands to only following hundreds” doesn’t sit right with me.

People will often announce on Twitter that they’re unfollowing this person or that person. I’ve always thought that if you’re going to unfollow someone then just do it without announcing it to the world. Posts and announcements like these feel like an magnified version of that.

I know it’s not an elitist thing but that’s how it feels. I might just be allowing my own elitist desires to shape and influence my feelings, completely independent of your own good, pure intentions.
http://www.meetbrentdouglas.com Brent D

I also unfollowed you like your dad did not long after I started following you. No offense. (c: But I DO check in here most days to keep up.

Social media can be a delicate balancing act, it seems. I’m a worship leader at my large-for-my-area church. So on Facebook I get friend requests constantly from people I’ve never met, but I see they are friends of friends or see that they attend my church, so I accept the request. Mostly for the sake of not offending. But not long after that I hide those people from my news feed. I do give them a ‘trial run’, at least. I accept pretty much anyone on Facebook for that reason. Also for that reason, I am very conscious that I filter what I post on there.

I save Twitter for the folks I “do life” with. My account is not private, but I do keep an eye on who follows me and block accordingly. And even in those folks I don’t receive notifications for all. Some of them just go ham with updates and I don’t have time for that, so I catch up with their updates only when I open the app. I don’t follow the senior pastor of my church. Practically every single thing he tweets gets RT’d by the church account and various staff members who I do follow, so there’s no need. I have virtually no filter on my tweets because of this limited list.
http://@arenwashere Aren

My wife saw you perform live, opening for Shane & Shane, around the time the “single ladies” video was going viral (pre-People’s Choice). When she came home she said I had to check out these two opening acts, some guy named John Mark McMillan and you, so I did. About a month or so after that you followed me on twitter, probably because I had something about God on my profile and I may have followed some of the same people as you. Anyway, I felt pretty good about myself that someone who was as outspoken about their love for the Lord and made every attempt to live that way in their daily lives would choose to follow me on twitter. It gave me a sense of accountability in a way, because I knew that whatever I put on there could be seen by you and all the other (all 30) of the people who follow me. So I want to thank you for that and for being so transparent in your walk and in your life. You have a very beautiful family Carlos, blessings to you all. By the way, whenever I am in an airport I am always on the lookout to see if I spot you so I can pray with you and hopefully encourage you on your journey. God bless!
http://www.inkandbone.com Dustin

I have tried to keep my Twitter follows down to 100. I am currently at 109 but, for the most part, they are people I actually dig hearing from.
http://www.northsidecitychurch.com/matt/blog MattiP

it’s probably a good thing you stopped following me…I talk smack on you all the time! j/k

In all honesty it doesn’t/wouldn’t bother me at all.

I think that the majority of people that have such a craving for followers are just feeding their insecurity.

I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t give me a happy feeling inside when I get a new follower (which isn’t that often), but it shouldn’t be the sustenance of my esteem.

I follow to learn and gain wisdom and I applaud you for simplifying your twitter experience.

I don’t agree with everything you say…but to paraphrase Rick Warren…

You don’t have to agree with everything a person says to learn something from them.

great post!

Bless you, Los!
Kim S.

I do that on Facebook. There are VERY VERY few people that I don’t know from sometime in my life that I have added as friends on FB. Every once in a while I will clean out my friends list.
Same for my email. I also try my best to monitor who is following me. It may sound parental but I prefer not to have freeporn or freelegaladvice or whatever it may be following me. Whether or not it may mean their relationship in Christ. I make the personal choice to not have that on my followers list.
http://adamhann.com Adam Hann

Props to you! Love the intensity and intentionality in which you approach life. Keep it up.
Jeanine

Thank you dorrie the inspiration to do the same. I’ve felt really overwhelmed lately trying to keep up with both social media and frankly real life. Time to Keep it simple!
Kristen

Searching for tweets you actually care about among zillions of those that you don’t is even less enjoyable than searching for fonts you like among all the zillions of crappy ones…at least those are alphabetized….
Phronsie

I really don’t get Twitter. I have an account because one of the publishers I review for uses Klout and for some reason I had to have twitter to get an accurate read. I don’t know. I Have it set up to post when I post a blog or I’ll use it to raise awareness for orphans on Reece’s Rainbow. Other than that I use FB to keep up with people I know. I live in a different state than most of my friends so it helps us keep in touch.
Pingback: How twitter should work…..maybe… | supersimbo
terrence Gooden

I appreciate these words and i need to do something like what you have done! The funny thing is you actually followed me briefly on Instagram but,according to your “Instagram policy” ,it looks lke you probably unfollowed me because you don’t really know me! I wasn’t mad at that at all because I realize that I do the same thing! Instagram is something I’ve tried to keep more personal and easier to deal with . I do follow a lot of people I would love to actually know(like you!) and do life with. But I also follow some people who I’ve have become friends with through Instagram and those relationships have enriched me greatly. Social media is going to be something we continually have to try to balance and keep in check. Thanks for the reminder!
https://twitter.com/thelacussolis Tomos

I think it’s a real shame how social media can saturate ideas like Twitter and Instagram. I’ve noticed that the majority of people who “like” my photo’s on Instagram also “like” at least one more so to have their name stand out more with the hope you will follow them.

I follow 375 accounts on twitter. Only three of them I actually “Follow” My mate Kieran, NY band Gasoline Heart and you. It’s not the religion thing, it’s not the fact that every time I check my Twitter there’s a Tweet from you staring at me, it’s the positive output and sheer joy you bring to my feed. I really don’t know you but I kinda got a little worried when you didn’t tweet for a week, I love the pictures of your family, the “Your day in 90 seconds” and the fact that I hear more about Cafe Crema than my local pub.

Keep it all coming Carlos. You are much appreciated!

P.S. I stuck in my Twitter address, just in case…
http://whatthisgirllearns.blogspot.com/ WhatThisGirlLearns

Simplicity is a good thing! Your dad’s comment is even better.
http://Wwww.thusfarwithgod.blogspot.com Michelle

I think it’s great! Good for you, I came to the same conclusion about 3 weeks ago and began to cut people I don’t know and I also began to post less- simplify. Life is much more enjoyable, less anxiety when I weed out and simplify. It’s been 3 weeks for me and I love it! Good for you!
shellie (baylormum)

I remember how excited I was when you followed me back. You know way back in 2008 or 2009-whenever you took the SM sabbatical! It makes me a little sad, but I totally get it! I don’t check fb or twitter daily anymore.You still rock with tweets & blog posts that are everyone’s struggles. I have never felt preached at, but I have felt compelled to get up & do something! You are an amazing man and I’m glad we met, however brief, one cold & rainy Sunday in May 2011, I think!! Anxious to hear the new tunes.
http://www.churchrochester.ny.org John

Social media can be a great place to reach out to others–as long as you don’t end up getting side tracked too often or even addicted.
http://claireshegoes.com Claire

This post made me think. A while ago I realized that the list of people I follow was greater than the list of people who follow me.

And filled with people who may never, ever hear of me.

So I decided to unfollow people. But then I got caught up in the idea of following people just because they follow me.

It’s a ridiculous cycle, and it’s got to end.

Thanks for the reminder. ‘Tis all madness.
http://www.leanonus.co Sonya

Love this post… I would love to do what you are doing but I basically follow tweeps as a thank you for following me. Support for support. I realise it’s not the smartest way to go but it fits with the aims of what LOU is about. Would love to simplify though!

Carlos Whittaker

Why I Unfollowed Everyone On Twitter And Started Over

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