Has the whole world gone crazy?

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE RULES ANYMORE? Sorry about the screaming, but I'm afraid the world has done it again. Not that annoying me is difficult, or even complicated, but I am on the verge of dishing out backhands faster than that guy on Kloof Street cycles down the road, backwards.

(Non Cape Town residents, apologies, let me explain. There's this guy and for kicks, he does headstands on his bicycle's seat and rides down Kloof Street. Sometimes backwards, sometimes the right way round, but always at high speed.)

Anyway, since I last blogged, Osama Bin Laden was killed, again, we've been told that Coldplay is coming to SA and I have changed my mind about seeing the Kings of Leon (because I want to support ANY album that has a song as fantastic as Pyro on it, even if it means cringing through the Only By The Night kak). However, none of these things have inspired this post, none of them can hold a candle to how much Twitter is fucking annoying me at the moment.

I love Twitter, I love the Internet and I love networking - socially or electronically. Twitter has gone from being an informative resource to just flat out face-palming in record time. I interact with a small group of people regularly, some whom I've shared beers and good times with, and some who have become e-quaintances, and who I will still share beers and real time with in the future. However, I am convinced that at least 75% of Twitter users are bona fide idiots.

I can't handle the constant brand humping to try and get something free from someone, or the constant self-love/pity parties that my timeline seems to host. I hear what you are saying "Why not just unfollow said annoyances?" and I have, many of them, however, occasionally these idiots will say something that makes me chuckle, encouraging my bad habits of following them for the sake of mocking them. Twitter really brings out my dark passenger.

Which brings me to what annoys me the most about Twitter, which I believe to be the biggest South African cultural phenomenon since Fokofpolisiekar. The guidelines say that you can follow and unfollow whomever you want, to tailor your experience, but how can I unfollow people who's survival in modern society amazes me on a daily basis? How do I look away? How can such narrow-minded, self-centred schmucks not realise how they are the complete opposite of what they claim to be? When did it all go so wrong? So here are my rules for Twitter. Feel free to add some of your own in the comments.

Here they are:

• You shall not constantly toot your own horn and claim to be humble. 
• You shall not badger your followers with you terrible taste in delicacies.
• You shall not pretend that being a Playboy Playmate is prestigious, it's still just smut.
• You shall not steal other people's tweets (or Facebook statuses) and claim them as your own. 
• You shall not add your location to your tweets and then complain about privacy.
• You shall not post to Twitter from FourSquare, Gowalla or any other location based services while I follow you.

I am no authority, but I felt like I needed a little vent.

My mom always said, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. So I wrote it down instead.

Rick.
Over.