Well, blogging’s dead. Didn’t you know? The real action is taking place on Twitter. So you’ve signed up to Twitter and you want to make the biggest impression possible. What do you do?
That’s right, it’s time for another slightly evil guide to Tweeting.
#10: Get involved with every trending topic.
Some subjects ‘trend’ – that means lots of people are talking about one particular subject. It’s important that you get involved with them all as enthusiastically as possible, because there’s nothing people love more than seeing 100 tweets about something they don’t understand. It makes their day interesting!
“Fingle fingle whopper is AWESOME TREND! loloolol #finglewhopper”
#9: Tweet Everything
We’ve all heard the joke that people join Twitter so that they’ve got an audience for when they fit a ceramic bus with some new brown cables. It’s not a joke. This is what people want. Every single thought that passes through your head must be tweeted, and every single thing you do must go on the record.
Your admiring followers will worship you for it.
“I really should get round to counting the number of paces between my desk and the coffee machine.”
#8: Tweet Constantly
Don’t be fooled – blogging is for the lazy. You can write a blog post like this and set the timer to publish it at a specific time, say, 3pm, and then forget about it. Twitter, on the other hand, requires constant nurturing and feeding. If you’re already ‘tweeting everything’ then this shouldn’t be a problem, but sometimes there’s gaps – so tweet about tweeting if you have to.
“RT: Damn! Forgot to indicate on that bend! lollololl!!”
#7: Reply and Retweet everything.
Another strategy for generating sufficient content for your Twitter feed is to reply to absolutely everyone who tweets at you – but be sure to add a full stop before the ‘@sucker’ bit so that everyone who follows you can see what you’re saying. Be sure to retweet everything anyone says to you, too. Wouldn’t want anyone to miss out a single moment of your life, would you? It sometimes helps if you have a Bot to do this for you. I’m happy to program one for you, for a measly £10k, but think – what’s money compared with being the most awesome Twitterer in the world?
“RT @angry_man: OH FFS YOU MORON STFU!!! <— LULZZZ!!
DDD”
#6: Always get the last word
If you’re replying to everything you’ve already got this covered, but it’s an important enough principle that it needs restating – whatever happens, make sure you get the last word. Superficially easy, simply reply to everything, including the replies. This makes you The Boss Of Twitter if you do it consistently.
“. @angelboobs14532 Really? Britney Spears porn? Yay! Thank you!”
#5: Change your Avatar and Name every few hours
Keep things fresh and funky! By changing your Avatar and name every few hours, your followers (you do still have some followers, right?) will think, Hey! Who’s that interesting person? And they’ll be forced to check it out and realise it’s their old friend, YOU! Their hearts will be filled with a warm glow, because, for a minute there, they thought they’d lost you.
“I have a new name ROFL! I am now @MAXIMOR_INDESTRUCTABLE lololol!!”
#4: Tweet the results of Quizzes religiously
The Twitterverse offers lots of quizzes that you can take so long as you give them permission to send Tweets from your account. This gives you an invaluable opportunity to give your followers this crucial and informative knowledge – how Gay are you? How clever are you? What Scooby Doo character are you? People need to know this information, and they need to know where they can find out these important facts about themselves.
This is your public service. Your duty. Your destiny.
“lol I am 34% Furry! (Take the How Furry are you test at http://los.er/101)”
#3: Be Clear: You’re Awesome.
Your followers aren’t interested in the adventures of a normal person. You must become a God, walking amongst their people – benign and magnificent. You are the perfect weight, height, tremendously good looking, people fall at your feet to admire you. When you’re telling your followers you’re doing a number two, this is what you should write:
“lol! Another gold plated poo! And HUGE too! Biggest ever!”
#2: Rick-roll your followers several times a day.
Nothing your followers love more than finding themselves redirected to a Youtube video of Rick Astley singing “Never Gonna Give you Up”.
“Research shows that you can drink yourself sober after all: http://bit.ly/rickr (NOT Rick-roll this time!)”
“Sorry, here’s the real link. http://bit.ly/rickr. Real thing this time, definitely not Rick-roll.”
“Ha ha! Got you again! Okay, well, here’s the real link, fo real: http://bit.ly/rickr.”
#1: Follow Everyone who Follows Iain Dale.
So you now have all the knowledge you need to create a truly winning and successful Twitter feed. But where do you get your audience from? Where do you get your followers? It’s simple! Follow everyone who follows Iain Dale. Most will automatically follow you back, and these are all profoundly important and influential people who’ll spread the word about this hottest new talent! Don’t forget to Retweet what they say about you!
“Anyone else been added by @MAXIMOR_INDESTRUCTABLE? Stupid Spammer alert! <– LOLOLOL!!!!”
Yes, Twitter. It’s amazing. Now, who wants to follow me?
He turns up in all these lists. Worst this. Best that. He’s a man who gets things done, and can shoot lightning from his hands. Not many MPs would be willing to backchat a man who can shoot lightning from his hands.
If you’ve not seen
One line, delivered with an unexpected ferocity that still, to this day, surprises and alarms. Known for taking a very hard line against miscreants and ne’re-do-wells, Get In The Back Of The Van guy could be a surprise contender.
I’m showing my age now, but The Freak (otherwise known as Joan Ferguson), a ruthless warden from the series Prisoner Cell Block H would make an ideal Speaker for the house. Disobey the speaker, you find yourself in solitary with your rations taken away. Fits in with ‘MPs are criminals’ meme… might actually be a bit too harsh on them. Crikey!
Brian Blessed. Of course. It’s so obvious really, isn’t it? Incredible volume, has the ability to both charm – and deafen – all comers. I support Brian as Speaker so much 
Hypnotoad features extensively in the animated TV series, Futurama. As his name suggests, Hypnotoad has the rare ability to bring everyone who views his eyes under his hypnotic thrall, and uses this power to bring everyone under his command. Just the ticket.
What better way to permanently remind MPs of their obligations to the public than placing someone guaranteed to put them in mind of their own mortality on a daily basis as Speaker. Stand up in PMQs to ask a softball question? I think not, somehow. A chilling, spine shattering ‘Order Order’ from Death would be enough to keep MPs silent and respectful even through confessions of bedwetting from the Prime Minister.
You’re probably spotting a theme by now. These choices are all about ruling MPs with the sort of tyranny and terror normally dished out by parents on their children as Christmas approaches – you’d better be good, little Timmy, or no presents for you! Which made me think: Who better to judge who’s Naughty and who’s Nice than the world’s leading authority on said subject? I mean, in all seriousness, who’s going to lie to Santa? Who’s going to try pulling a fast one? Who’d want to disappoint the great bearded one?
As an elitist middle class political type with no concept of the real world, I don’t watch Coronation Enders or whatever you commoners call it, but I’ve heard that Pat Butcher is what the Irish like to call ‘a weapon’ and may be the sort of down to earth authority that the House needs.
Go on, I’ll finish with a sensible suggestion, although I demand that if he takes the chair he pays for his own cushions. If you’re after someone with a commitment to reform, he’s the guy. ‘Nuff said.
The only person on earth surrounded by more Yes Men than Gordon Brown. Entirely oblivious to the sheer scale of humanitarian abuse his work constitutes, he makes Brown look ‘in touch’ with ‘the people’.
Seemingly Brown’s role model. Our ex-communist Prime Minister is but a pale shadow of this ex-communist President. Makes Brown look positively cuddly.
Now, Brown may well be the worst public speaker imaginable, but in terms of a contrived performance that’s desperately trying to win over the crowd, whilst actually making them prefer to scrape their nails against blackboards until their nails come off completely? You need Jar Jar Binks for a job like that.
After that outburst on Oprah, this apologist for Scientology and all-round fruit loop would, I hate to admit, be worse than Brown.
This is not to have a go at the French, specifically – I’m pointing out that you couldn’t get The French into Number 10, that Cabinet Meetings would take years, and we’d be ruled by a country that views us as the very model of how not to things. You win this time Gordon.
It’s a measure of just now much this woman’s face and voice make my toes curl that I would rather have Brown in Number 10 than Hazel Blears. I feel dirty, but I’d be smashing far too many televisions otherwise.
Having the Ebola Virus for a Prime Minister would be worse than having Gordon Brown for Prime Minister. As far as we know, Brown does not cause haemorrhagic fever. There’s also the simple fact that slightly less people would be willing to share a room with Ebola than are willing to share a room with Brown. You win again, Gordon.
We’ve already had one Prime Minister that believed he was acting out the will of God. Having someone who considers himself to be God’s emissary on earth – and therefore infallible – would be very similar to having Brown as Prime Minister, but Brown doesn’t share an army of Catholics that also believes he’s infallible. It’s only Brown that thinks Brown is infalliable.
For much the same reason as the Pope, and just so that people don’t think I’m picking on the Catholics. (Although I’m reliably informed that comparing the Pope with a mass murdering terrorist isn’t actually very pro-Catholic either. Whoops.)
See, for number one I had three choices. Hitler? Nick Griffin? Britney Spears? I mean, all of those would clearly be less-desirable Prime Ministers than Brown, so technically they should have made the list… but there’s someone worse than those three. A man so odious South Park dedicated an entire episode to calling a turd. Bono. Oh how I hate you, Bono! You just know he’d build a 200-foot statue of himself in Trafalgar Square. I just know it.
