The Crazy World Of A Teen Fan Girl On Twitter

Of course you bring cake to a tweet up!

We all know the basic rules for Twitter. Even if you are new to the social media site, there is still a basic etiquette. Don't post 100 times a day, post meaningful content, engage and interact with other users. Don't spam, don't beg for follows, etc. etc. 

Unless you are a teen girl obsessed with her favorite band on Twitter. Then all of the "normal" rules go right out the window. 

My daughter is your typical teen girl, and obsessed with the band you see in the photo, 5 Seconds of Summer. I mean, obsessed. Magazines, posters on her wall, videos on You Tube. Reads almost every bit of fan fiction written. Photos on her phone are nothing but screen shots of them. Then there is Twitter, and that's a popular place for bands. It is also where all the fans go to connect with this band, its members and other fans. I was looking at my daughter's Twitter account, which is just a fan account. She connects with other fans, tweets at the band members, and yes, begs for follows. By beg I mean, spams this account over and over.

At first this freaked me out. Why is my daughter being such a spazz online? Doesn't she know this is going to follow her around forever?? Then I started clicking on the accounts of those she follows and re-tweets. They are all exactly the same, and do the exact same things. No one uses their own names (including my daughter), accounts are just some morphed band name or band member name. Profile photos are pictures of their favorite band members. My rule is no last name, address or phone numbers. No personal identifying information. I also check to make sure location tagging is off. It's such a cesspool of crazy teen hormones, as I read through tweets I can hear squealing in my head. I don't know how the band can stand it. It makes my head hurt describing it to you.

The crazy part is, the band members encourage it. They will tweet teasers letting everyone know they are going to start adding followers. Then this part of the Twitter universe explodes with the clicky sounds of millions of teens spamming the band account asking them to follow. Then when someone gets a follow by a band member, they tweet about it and that takes on a new surge of tweets begging for a follow. It's brilliant if you think about it. I imagine they have lists set up (or probably pay someone else to manage it) so who cares if they follow thousands of fans? It drums up excitement and gets everyone talking about the band. 

The most interesting part of this for me is the way engagement works. My daughter has 8,000 followers, including one of her favorite band members and the official band account. Her Klout score? 59. That's higher than mine, and I have a pretty respectable score. It is one big group chat about the bands, music, which one is the hottest, why don't the other members follow, and on and on. They interact. Continuously. ALL THE TIME.

When she told me there was a tweet up (I'm not supposed to call it that, that's the 'old people' term) for fans of 5sos at a local mall I raised an eyebrow. I mean, I don't know who any of these people are! Visions of middle-aged sex offenders stalking girls online flew into my head. I asked my daughter to show me who the organizer is. I received a photo with a girl my daughter's age holding a sign saying "I'm not a serial killer." 

So I took her. Of course I stayed at the mall, but my other daughter and I went shopping and avoided the group. It was quite a group too! About 20-25 girls gathered, and someone even brought a cake (the photo above). My daughter made new friends and met some of her online friends in person. They took a big group photo and tweeted it to the band. They ate cake. It was a good afternoon. 

I don't interact with my daughter online, but I watch. I will talk to her offline about things she posts (mostly good, there have been a couple of tweets I told her were a bit over the top). I stay indirectly involved in her online activity, because not only can I step in if something is amiss, but hopefully when the fan girl stage ends and she wants a more permanent Twitter account she will have learned one or two things about how to use it.

It is such a different world now from when I was my daughter's age. Some would argue it is more dangerous. I look at it as not so much more dangerous but simply... different. The online world is here to stay, social media is here to stay, and it's up to us to be aware of the younger generation and what they are doing with it. Embrace it, learn it, and always pay attention to what your kids are doing online. 

Thanks for reading! If you feel so inclined, you can follow my daily ramblings on Twitter, and get all sorts of information from my Facebook Page! See you around the interwebs!

Your Online Profile Matters

Daughter only likes to take advantage of Mom's
open Instagram account.

Being accused of something you didn't do is never a good feeling. It happened to me this week, and I wanted to share my experience.

Earlier in the week I was browsing around, and an email receipt popped up from PayPal letting me know about my recent transaction. This was curious because I didn't make any transactions recently. Turns out there were about 6 different transactions made within 20 minutes, all for bit coin. I had been hacked. 

You could say an advantage of being online constantly is that I caught it immediately. The next thing I did was get on the phone with PayPal. They were very quick about stopping payment on the transactions and sending them to their Resolution center. Basically this works like a mediation, they get in touch with all the sellers, then PayPal decides whether to refund my money. They also encourage buyers and sellers to work it out on their own. After CHANGING MY PASSWORD***, I felt better. 

The next day I received an odd email, asking me why I was stealing from him. I responded politely, apologizing for the inconvenience, and briefly explaining that my PayPal account was hacked. He didn't believe me, responding that I had the transaction sitting in my Ebay account for over a week so I had to be lying. 

Ebay? I don't have an Ebay account, so now I had somewhere else I needed to check and see if someone was using my name. I responded again, once again explaining that I was hacked, and now I will have to check and see if I have an account on Ebay that I don't know about. 

I would have liked that to be the end, but he again responded in an accusatory manner, telling me the account is active and he has reported it. He ended this email snarkily, telling me to enjoy my "ill-gotten gains."

Now I was getting more frustrated. One, I have over $100 that I am trying to recover from this. Two, I have some guy I don't know at all accusing me of stealing. I know I shouldn't care about what a complete stranger thinks, but I do have a business that I run online, and I really don't need anyone spreading falsities about me. At the same time, I was finished going back and forth with someone who obviously doesn't want to listen or be reasonable. I responded one more time. I probably should have stopped responding two emails prior, but I was happy with how I left it. 

"I am sorry you don't believe me but there's not much I can do about it. I had over $100 lost over this that I'm trying to get back. I don't know you at all and I tried to explain thinking you might understand. Not much more I can say since you refuse to take my corresponding with you as a sign of good faith.
"I appreciate you reporting the account, because I couldn't log in at all. It didn't recognize any user names or email addresses I have. So I hope they shut it down.
Take care of yourself, and I hope neither of us have this happen to us and our money again. "

I sent it and went to bed. The next morning I woke up to this: 

"I have been looking into the buyers account and I noticed it is in Va. and you are in Az. Then I googled you, and I see you are dynamic and successful person. I was obviously mistaken about you and I do apologize. Ebay will put 2&2 together and get him. I hope you are able recover all of money."

This is why I wanted to write about my experience. He Googled my name to find out about me, and that is what changed his mind, along with not losing my cool and remaining calm in explaining the situation to him. I understand that he has a business too, and it sucks to have someone steal from you. I don't blame him for accusing me, and I am glad he finally did a little more research to see that I am legit. 

The bottom line is this: Keep a good online profile, especially if you are a more public person or run a business online, like me. We are in a world where someone can find out more about you in just a few clicks. What do you want someone to discover? 

***CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD!!!

Thanks for reading! If you feel so inclined, you can follow my daily ramblings on Twitter, and get all sorts of information from my Facebook Page! See you around the interwebs!