5 Observations from going Viral on Twitter

So, last week my part of the world got hit with an ice storm that knocked out our power. And, like anything remotely interesting that happens to me, I tweeted about it. See my tweet below…

And frankly, I felt like it was a normal tweet. Nothing too noticeable about it. I expected my normal 0-2 likes and that’s it.

But for some odd reason, it went viral! Now, looking at the numbers I know they aren’t a big deal in Twitter-world. But to me, this was a big deal. I had never gotten this much attention on Twitter before. And to be honest, it wasn’t that great.

Some observations I can make from this:

1. MOST people are kind and compassionate. And these are the folks that I want to hang with. Good vibes only and well-wishes shared. So awesome! I love these people.
2. SOME people are just plain ol’ abusive jerks, that just want to spread misery everywhere they go. I hate these people. These are the folks that wished ill on me and my family. They called me names, and called me many shades of weak for “whining” about not having power. I had one commenter abuse me for CHOOSING to live somewhere where this could happen to me. Um, sometimes where you live isn’t a choice if you have family or work obligations. AND, I really don’t live in a state where this happens often. This was an anomoly event. Weather events as well as anomoly events can happen anywhere and people don’t necessary choose that or have control over that.
3. SOME people make everything political. I had political debates regarding green energy vs non-green energy and horrible arguments unfolding because of this tweet, despite nobody knowing my specific energy situation – was I green or non-green? The folks arguing about it did not know and they did not care. Soooooo unnecessary.
4. SOME people make everything racial. Yes, I indeed had some comments about how my power outage was racist against black people. I have no further words about this.
5. SOME people are just evil stalkers. I had one commenter start STALKING my other commenters and leaving them horrible comments on my Twitter feed. For example, one commenter left a normal response like “Hope you get power back soon!” or something like that. The stalker commenter then went to his profile and saw that he had just taken his wife to the hospital to have their first baby. So the stalker commenter started abusing him ON MY TWEET that he is a terrible person for being on Twitter while his wife was having a baby. And the stalker commenter did this with quite a few other people too, bringing their own business into a tweet that had nothing to do with them. It was terrible!

And those were some of my observations about going viral on Twitter. I mean, the moral support that I received from most people was totally worth it. But there really are horrible people out there. Really.