My friend and I often discuss the relationships between twitter folk – I find it an endless enthralling soap opera watching how these people will let us into every aspect of their lives, it actually feels like a real life Game of Thrones / Dynasty / Family Guy – all rolled into one. With some of the tribes and cabals I get the impression that this is purely an e-fantasy world… like Second Life, where people explore relationships that they would never or be unlikely have in the real world. However to me the much more interesting tribes (to observe) are those that actually live out their life using Twitter as a portal. This is a dangerous game because obviously we know everything about them, and they don’t know us at all, which leads to confusion when interacting because the social boundaries are blurred. However, where my friend and I differ is that there are certain groups I wont get involved with as much (having been burnt once by it all) and yet he optimistically see’s the best in everyone and therefore gets more stuck in.
In our discussions around the topic, we have agreed that much like in gay tribes you can see trawling Soho, Brighton, or wherever we tend to congregate, there is a hierarchy within the tribes, and the politics is rife. I find the Twitter Tribe will often feature:
- A Leader / Lord – Almost exclusively they will have the largest number of followers, and generally well liked by a broader group than just their “friends”. Oddly in my most fascinating group case, the leader in question doesn’t tweet very much, but when he does there is frenzy around it. And to get a tweet from them is truly a blessing from god – also he isn’t very social and rarely if ever goes out (that he tweets about anyway). I find the leaders of the tribe will generally always be very attractive, have good bodies (and oddly work in the media) in gay tribes, polite to everyone, and be fairly intelligent to get that mass appeal. The problem with Twitter is that once you become a “leader” on a social media website you fall under scrutiny unlike in the real world, where you can lead your gang of friends in any way – showing both dark and light – on Twitter that will not sit so well. So therefore to me they become a little sanitised and one dimensional, and they self-edit far too much for me to appreciate them and to fall into line.
- The Deputies or Dukes – These will have a large amount of followers, generally tweet a lot more, and interact a lot more. These characters seem to play a fairly crucial role, because they almost exclusively live their lives in twitter, even going abroad won’t stop them, being on a date, being at a funeral, these guys will tweet no matter what. End of the world… they are tweeting. To gain this appeal they are generally also attractive and fairly intelligent, but as they are not the leader they can show a bit more light and shade and be a bit more human (which has its appeals to me) but means they cant be the leader as some people wont like them, and we cant have that. In the group that interest me all of the Dukes tend to be close friends with their Leader and almost always there is some simmering sexual tension underling it – which they always strongly deny with mock outrage and clutching of pearls – but come now you are fooling no-one.
- The Deputies Consort or Ladies – These people are just the other halves of the Duke or their close friends – their main role is to look good, tweet inane rubbish, and never be controversial. These people often have a nasty whiff of being desperate to be accepted and for any scraps the leader will give them.
- The Ambassadors – Those associated to the leader but located in a different country or at least county – this makes it extremely difficult to meet the leader regularly or socially, but they often interact quite closely and likely to be extremely attractive. I tend to think in the group I observe these Ambassadors are the people the Leader fancies… they are often super fit, but not based in London, so they are no threat, but they help give kudos to the Leader.
- The Foot Soldiers – These form the mass of the hysteria around the leader… they will defend them to the death, #FF them every week without fail, probably will never meet the leader, but might get a chance to meet the Deputies (and if they are lucky talk to them) but they will tweet them extensively and likely get responses.
- And The Masses – this is everyone else that follows the gang – they wont interact but you will be expected to take note of what is said, and woe betide you if you dare to question the leader or their deputies because the full focus of the Tribe will destroy you.
However, wider than there are lots of personality types on twitter that fit into this tribe dynamic:
- the Lone wolves – independents that float in and out of the Tribe, they might be aligned to them at some point, but they generally move alone, quite independent and wont cast their allegiance, most likely to be fairly intelligent, and can offer a lot of validation to a Leader if he can snare them. (Don’t all go thinking you’re lone wolf now!)
- Mercenary – sell their love to anyone and everyone - whoever is the current flavour of the month.
- The show man - The jester – the illusionist – these are my favourite characters on twitter because they are clearly a façade for someone’s comical outlet, or extremely flirty side, but some people take them very seriously, or are outraged by their duplicitous nature. These guys are clearly there to entertain so I am not sure the issue.
- The whore – these are also surprisingly (?) my favourite individuals or members of tribes because there is a pure honesty to what they offer and why there are there, but they are likely to appear vacuous if they don’t provide something more.
- The Crazy – there is a whole lot of crazy on twitter but some of them are truly epic – they love a good long rant, they love to start random fights, but then they like to be all nice and soft – their schizophrenia is amazing to watch but tiresome if you get involved.
But more importantly to me than the roles, is the politics. The Dukes flirting, undermining each other, vying for opportunities to grow their fan base… sometimes I think it is sub-conscious, but sometimes I think their intent is clear – they want to be Leader or be in the Leader’s bed and officially be the Lady of the Tribe. The foot-soldiers fighting for acknowledgement, the Consorts parading their wears for all to approve of! It really is like Game of Thrones. I whole heartedly approve, but step foot in that arena – no thanks – I don’t want to lead, I don’t want to bow to spend my time massaging someone’s ego over twitter. I think these games, politics and the roles transmit into the real world in our social groups… I always aim to be a Duke (it’s the safest place) – but oddly on twitter we almost invite people to watch it. I can’t wait for the rise of the next generation of Twitterati and because I think a challenge to the Leadership could have me fetching the popcorn and sitting in for a couple of weeks.
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