Twitter is one of those things that millions of us use, and we all use it differently.That’s the beauty of it and so many other forms of social media, we find our own place within it, and we make it home. Like any home, however, it isn’t always exactly what we want it to be, but all we can do is put in the work and effort to make it so.

See, that right there is where I could have grabbed a Captain Jean Luc Picard meme to visually show you that I was saying make it so, and that’s something easily done on a platform such as Twitter. In this hypothetical situation one of my followers might have thought that was a stupid thing to do, and was a waste of their time to read it, and that’s fair, but you know what? I don’t care.The beauty of Twitter being mine, is that I get to do whatever I want with it, and you get to follow me or not. It is really that simple. Like my voice and my random links, follow me. If you don’t, then don’t. At the same time though, don’t chastise me for feeling that I want to vent here and there, not everything is a winning idea.

Let me give you an example from a month or so ago. I was a little bored and a DMX song popped in my head, so I put the following in a string of six tweets.

Stop!

Drop!

Shut em down, open up shop!

Ohhhhh.

Nooooo.

That’s how Ruff Ryders roll!

And then I was back to business as usual. I had one follower favorite all six tweets, and then I had another ask if that was necessary. I scoffed and then I responded “It’s Twitter, nothing is necessary”. I was then unfollowed by that person, and I laughed about that. I wanted to tweet those lines, because I had memories from long ago about that song, and I wanted to see if anyone else would have some kind of reaction to them as well. Well apparently they did, and that is awesome, even the bad reactions.

Now that doesn’t exactly seem like it would be a good thing, the bad reactions, but to me they are, because it shows that my words, even the most mundane quotes, touched a nerve, and as a writer I really like that. Reaction is what it is all about, because reaction is what keeps the conversation going, keeps things in the conversation, or begins new reactions.

The times that I have to shake my head at Twitter are when people are quick to shut down other people’s desire to share with the world at times when there are big things going on in the world. Right now there are protests all over my country about the various police shooting or otherwise caused deaths that have occurred, and this is a big topic on Twitter now, and should be. At the same time, not all of us know how to talk about it and we have other things popping up in our own lives that we decide to blurt out on platforms like Twitter and dammit we should!

I think that Twitter initially set out to just be this little thing that we could use to reach out to one another across the globe, and then as time progressed people realized the power it held. This little app can bring people together in support of various topics. This little app can help charities find the people that will love to help them out. This little app really does help there be a global community. This little app isn’t little at all.

It isn’t little, but not everything on it need be big.

Right now my timeline consists of current events in politics and protests, the castings of the various movies I look forward to seeing, what is going on with TV shows I like, comic book writers and artists sharing with their audience, and people I actually know talking about current events or whatever is going on in their life right now.

None of those things need to be stifled, and none of them need to be deemed less worthy of being heard. I tend not to complain about what crosses my timeline, because I know I don’t always have winning tweets to share, but yet I always see someone out there, trying to stop someone from sharing what they are saying, and that bugs me.

The beauty of Twitter is that if you don’t like something, you don’t follow it. If you don’t like what someone has to say, quit following them. If a public figure turns out to be a little crazier than you thought, or is from the opposite political affiliation than you, stop following them. If you think someone is whining about things that pale in comparison to everything else going on in the world…STOP FOLLOWING THEM!

It’s that easy.

Don’t like it, don’t read it. You might even feel better in the long run, having that off your timeline.

Don’t be passive aggressive with a side of snark, calling out people that are airing something you deem unworthy of discussion. Just scroll past it, or click on that little button, it’s that easy.

Just because there are many big things going on in the world, doesn’t mean that the little things disappear, and people have the right to put that out there in the universe for all to see.

If I decide to try a new restaurant or type of food, and my experience is a bad one, do I not have the right to share that if I so please? Yes it is what we like to call a “First World Problem”, things like the internet going out etc., but a lot of us feel better if we just throw it out there and then walk away from it.

Our little problems do not take away from the bigger problems of the day, nor do they say that we think those other problems pale in comparison to our own. Those of us that use Twitter know that we can care about a subject that is pertinent to the world, and also can complain about our latte being too watery.

“It’s Twitter, nothing is necessary”