Verity's Book

Concerning the Little Blue Button

This is a brief rant that has to do with the FOLLOW button.

No, I'm not complaining because I've been getting unfollowed.

In fact, I'm complaining about people complaining because they're getting unfollowed.

I literally do not care if anyone unfollows me. "But, Autumn, easy for you to say. You already have a bunch of followers and friends." That's right. I have a lot of friends, and I know that if they are my friends, they've got no reason to unfollow me. If someone unfollows me, it's probably someone whom I never interact with, who doesn't interact with me, and is tired of getting notifications from someone they don't interact with. So why would I care if they disappear out of my life?

Here's the thing. Followers are nice, but followers are only as big as the number of them that get involved with you. The rest are like white space. They're nothing. The number of your followers is not half so significant as, say, the number of votes on your book. That actually means something. That means someone cared about your book, was interested enough to read it and click that little star. The follow can mean any number of things.

1.) It can mean someone followed you because they were required to do so for a contest/book club/other.

2.) They want a follow for a follow

3.) They're the kind of person who follows everyone in sight for unknown reasons(probably number 2.)

4.) They found something you have in common with them on your bio.

5.) They found you vaguely interesting.

I could go on and on. The point is, probably 25% of your followers or more are "white space", and that 25% definitely does not regard their relationship with you as something eternal.

And why should they?

Think about this for a minute.

You followed somebody awhile back, as a requirement for a contest. The contest is over, and this person has made no attempt to interact with you, read your stories, respond to your occasional message board post -- zero, zilch, nada, nicht. That's fine with you, since you didn't even want to have anything to do with said person in the first place. BUT... this person is also constantly posting messages to your feed, which with Wattpad's new system go straight to your notifications, and a whole lot of them are whining about getting unfollowed.

You really don't want to go on this person's hate list. But, all those whiny messages are getting annoying. And you have no ties to this person and no logical reason why you should be forced to stay in a nonexistent relationship.

So, after giving this person many days of grace, you hit the unfollow button.

Out of curiosity, you look back later in the day... and voila, Person101 has posted a message complaining about unfollowers. Not only that, there are a lot of sympathetic, wrathful replies, including some less-than-sterile language directed at the "guilty party"... which would be you.

"But, Autumn, that's a hypothetical situation."

No. It's not. I am not mentioning names, but this is not a hypothetical situation.

Words can hurt, people. An unfollow does not have to hurt, but words do hurt, and even if the involved party was not hurt, I was hurt on their account by the unfeeling foul language directed at someone I care about.

If you are in this for the numbers, it's going to hurt when you go from 106 to 105, but please, think about it rationally. And if you want to lessen the sting of getting unfollowed, don't follow everyone who follows you. I'm honestly very picky in who I follow, and I have been since I joined. I don't want my notifications/newsfeed crammed by people I do nothing with. As for my own followers, I'd be entirely happy if all my white space vanished and I was only left with people who cared about me.

Please, get your perspective straight. Realize that the people who matter are not going to vanish from your life; and if they vanished, they didn't matter.

And STOP the blame messages.

Sincerely,

a Genuinely Irritated, Slightly Upset, and Ranted-Out Verity Buchanan

S'long, folks, see you next time.