Twitter Hypocrisy

UPDATE: Trixie has blocked me on twitter. And really done nothing more than prove my point even further. Supposed community leaders that block their followers when they disagree with them one time and makes it personal by making fun that I don't have a huge twitter following. Pathetic.

Twitter. Many people spend their whole day tweeting away every mundane thing they do. If you've seen the right nav bar on my site, you'll quickly realize I'm one of them. Recently if you're a member of the twitterverse, you can't help but have heard about Ashton Kutcher's (@aplusk on twitter) race to 1,000,000 followers against CNN.

Normally I wouldn't care, but when I stumbled across it, I found out that bragging rights weren't the only thing at stake, but that if Ashton won, he would donate 10,000 mosquito nets to aid in the fight against Malaria in Africa. This is a cause I know he's been an advocate of for some time.

I am no fan of Ashton Kutcher. I don't dislike him, its just that he's never done anything that I was a fan of per se. When I saw this though, I added him on my twitter, because what the heck? It doesn't cost me anything and if it helps to get needy people so help, why not? In case you didn't catch the end results, he did beat out CNN and managed to get CNN and others to donate a total of 50,000 mosquito nets. If you ask me thats great. Stupid means to make such a donation maybe? Sure, but the cause still stands, and I was happy to be a part of it.

So where is the hypocrisy I mentioned? I follow a lot of the xbox.com staff. They are an awesome group, that are super tied to their community. Something not a lot of big companies are. Makes you see that there are real faces just like yours on the other end of the ether. One member in particular, Trixie 360 (@trixie360 on twitter) always posts a lot of great and funny stuff. And all of the staff go out of their way to run free contests and giveaways to their followers. A selling point I'd be lying to say isn't a reason I continue to follow them, or followed them in the first place. Its an incentive to listen to other news and random tidbits of thoughts they want to talk about. Kindof the whole point of twitter.

But today, instead of the normal code giveaways which take place with trivia or fun contests, Trixie opted to start giving away the largest amount of codes I have ever seen given away, just for people to UN-follow Ashton. Why? I guess cause since he's a celebrity and used that to gain followers he sucks... or something.

I can't speak to intentions. But honestly this to me at least feels wrong. Even if he was just on some asinine quest to gain followers so he can twit to them about whatever dumb stuff he thinks up, it's still his prerogative. And incidentally, pretty much the point of twitter. Gain followers, yak about pointless shit. But here he was offering his "incentive" that he would give 10,000 mosquito nets that will potentially save people's lives.

So anyway a flood of "free-t-shirters" jump on the bandwagon saying they've removed him. I'm sure some did, some didn't. Whatever. But it feels wrong. I would unfollow him right now just out of lack of interest, but to do so because someone is telling me I should and paying me to do so with game giveaways feels even more dead wrong.

I once chugged a full can of Pepsi through a complete strangers 3 day dirty sock at a paintball tournament to win a prize. So I am a complete whore for free things. But this was just a childish act and I am saddened so many people jumped on it. I could start offering to send a dollar to everyone who unfollows Trixie, and tons of people would. But two things would come from that. I'd be in the poor house, and I would have gained nothing by taking away from someone else.

Of course it doesn't matter cause hes a major celeb and it is retarded. Any any amount of people she got to unfollow him wouldn't hurt him or his cause at all. But it's still wrong. So the end result after I finally got through to Trixie and she talked back and forth with me a few times, is she shut down the code give away. I'd like to say I was proud, but I'm not that egotistical, and I also have a ton of people calling me a douchebag now. Which is fine, I've got thick skin. But here is what really gets me...

Trixie says to me:
@plabrozzi if he wants to give to charity he should just do it and shut up. Followerwhoring is LAME.

To which I respond:
@trixie360 lol what are all you xbox.com people doing? same thing, getting ppl like me and all those you just gave codes to to follow you?

To which she responds:
@plabrozzi i have NEVER asked people to follow me. Not once. And never will.

To which I respond:
@trixie360 No, but you are asking people to unfollow someone else, and giving them prizes to do so. Thats worse if you ask me.

Am I wrong? Maybe. But It seems to me to be the same thing. And of course the next thing is :
"Okay the inevitable bitching and whining have now killed the code giveaway. We had a good run for a while!"

So now I'm bitching and whining? Because I have some moral standards and expressed an opinion? Trixie neither had to listen to me nor stop giving away codes based on what said. Her response could have easily have been:
"Members of the community aren't happy with the idea of this contest, so I'm switching gears and giving away the rest of the codes just because you are my fans."

I don't have anything personal against Trixie. Not even after this. Not even after all the replies from people pissed at me. I'm bigger than that. But it just frustrates me this course of events. It's hypocritical to give prizes to people to stop following someone who was trying to gain followers by giving something away as well.

The difference was Ashton's followers were helping people in Africa, Trixie's will be sitting playing free copies of Peggle over the weekend. And somehow I'm the bad guy.

Anyway, I'll pay to play Peggle if it means not having to sell out. And Trixie, honestly, I mean you no bad feelings. I just disagree with how you ran that code giveaway. It doesn't support the good or betterment of the xbox community in any way. Its an abuse of power.