The More You Scroll
The More You Scroll
Unfollow Your Heart
Social media is a hot mess of risk and reward. In this episode, we tackle a core element of our social media lives: following and unfollowing. We talk about who we follow, who we don’t, and how you can reconnect with people (and sometimes marry them). Colin shares how he pulled off a mass follower culling, and Anna tells us how dramatic run-ins with basset hounds and a vengeful hairdresser made her think hard before ever hitting ‘follow’ again. In our Troubleshooting segment, we give tips on how to unfollow friends gracefully, plus alternatives to unfollowing or unfriending people. Then as always we end with some 🌐🥇
Connect with us at @themoreuscroll on Instagram & Twitter, and check out our webpage. Have any internet sanity tips? Any topics you want us to cover? Email us at whatsup@themoreyouscroll.com. Access the transcript for this episode here.
Tips & hacks from our Troubleshooting segment:
Want to purge your Twitter followers? Try the TokiMeki app!
Internet Gold of the week:
Anna: @SUBPARparks on Instagram
Colin: Future Fonts, get in on the ground floor with new fonts.
INTRO MUSIC
COLIN [00:19]
Welcome to THE MORE YOU SCROLL, a podcast about trying to stay sane on the internet. I’m your host, Colin Foy.
ANNA [00:26]
And I’m your other host, Anna Van Valin.
COLIN [00:28]
In today’s episode we’re going to talk about...following and unfollowing on social media.
ANNA [00:34]
Deciding who we allow into our social media feeds is a crucial part of shaping our online lives. It’s time to take control of our friends list.
COLIN [00:43]
We’re going to cover the ins and outs of following friends, family and coworkers - and letting them follow you. We try to answer questions like, do I have to follow everyone I know? When is it ok to unfriend somebody? Do I really want to know what my coworkers do on the weekends?
ANNA [00:59]
We’ll also talk about where Unfriending Guilt comes from and how we can move past it. Then in our Troublshooting segment, we’ll give you some alternatives to unfriending and unfollowing, and strategies for unfollowing gracefully.
COLIN [01:13]
Finally, we’ll leave you with some Internet Gold, a couple of things Anna and I think represent the best of the internet.
ANNA [01:20]
For even more content you can connect with us on Instagram and Twitter @themoreuscroll (that’s the letter U). Visit themoreuscroll.com for more info on the resources we talk about today. And we want to hear from you! Let us know what you think of the show and any questions or topics you want us to cover via email at whatsup@themoreuscroll.com. And you don’t have to remember all that, it’s in the show notes.
COLIN [01:42]
Don’t forget to subscribe so you can get all our new episodes right in your feed, and check out our previous episodes. Hey Anna, how ya feelin?
ANNA [01:50]
I’m feeling...ready to scroll.
MUSIC STING
COLIN [02:11]
I'm so excited to talk about this.
ANNA [02:15]
I know /you have opinions.
COLIN [02:17]
/this is the first thing I have. I have so many opinions about everything. I'm just an opinionated person. But/
ANNA [02:22]
/same,
COLIN [02:23]
Yeah. Which is, I think, is why we get along. You know this show is about us trying to figure out how to stay sane on the Internet and this is the one area where I have put in a lot of work and I think I actually like. Figured it out, at least for myself. I don't think that this would work for everybody, but I've got my whole.
ANNA [02:51]
And we want to be clear we're not coming at this from a point of view of, like all social media is bad. We also want to bring in how to harness the positive things about social media, because if it was all negative, people just wouldn't do it.
COLIN [03:06]
Yeah, we wouldn't be on there if it was all negative. It's clearly we like it. We get something out of it.
ANNA [03:13]
When Facebook started and we're coming at this as you know, Millennials in our 30s. So Facebook social media came into our lives when we were, you know, not children, but not fully formed adults. What I really loved about it was if, as it sort of grew, I could see all these people from all these different parts of my life in one place. You know what I mean, you, I'd see like, oh my uncle over here is on here and this person I went to high school and this person I used to work with who I liked like. And you know we, sociologists talk about sort of strong ties and weak ties. Your strong ties are like your partner, your close family, or close friends, and then your weak ties are like your third and fourth string. People like that friend you have coffee with once a year or like your cousin's cousin that you see at family events there. But those weak ties are what make us feel like we're part of a community. They're really, really important just as important as our close friendships. And that's kind of what Facebook did was like. Make this arena for all those ties in there.
COLIN [04:21]
And I like that aspect, especially for certain people. It’s helped me honestly become better friends with some people that I wouldn't have ever become better friends with just because I see their, their Facebook posts or their you know their funny tweets or whatever.
ANNA [04:39]
I like that it gives you a kind of baseline relationship with all these people, so that when you actually see them in real life or interact with them in real life, if you do, you don't have to spend all your time catching up with them 'cause you've been seeing their updates. You kind of know you've seen their kids grow up a little bit, or you saw that they switch jobs, or you know that they took up rock climbing or whatever. You kind of have this baseline relationship so that when you meet them, you don't have to spend all that time filling each other in. You can then kind of deepen the relationship.
MUSIC STING
COLIN [05:13]
In talking about this, I'm curious. Do you follow everybody you know?
ANNA [05:17]
Yeah, I used to basically friend everyone I knew and I met. Partially because I lived in New York and I was an actor, and so you, you work on a show and then all those people disperse and then you work on a film and all those people disperse. So it was a great way to keep in touch and keep those people in the mix and then also when you are trying to be a professional artist there's so much that's out of your control so it became a cool marketing tool letting people know what I was up to, inviting people to projects and things like that. I will totally admit that I probably abused that, but I feel like everyone else did too.
COLIN [06:00]
I mean, anybody who's been on social media for more than five minutes is guilty of at least three social media crimes.
ANNA [06:09]
Oh man, should all be in social media jail.
COLIN [06:12]
Yeah.
ANNA [06:13]
I stopped automatically friending or following people I met because I realized how much energy it took to be involved in so many people’s lives. Even if my online relationships are pretty passive, I’m still getting a stream of all these people’s lives fed to me. And there’s just only so many baby pictures and vacations and new jobs that I can take in. Especially if it’s someone I’ve met in real life once and am never going to see again. I just can’t keep up.
COLIN [06:47]
Yeah, totally. And it's true you can only care about so many people. I mean, you just it's you get to a limit 'cause you only have so much energy in so many hours in the day. So really like yes I could keep in touch with everybody I've ever met. But I actually can't because I'm human, I'm alive.
ANNA [07:11]
The other thing is that the, the platform doesn't actually let you stay in touch with all the people that you're you're friends with. I mean, I have like 700 friends on Facebook and I see 40 people right over and over and over again.
COLIN [07:26]
How about work people?
ANNA [07:28]
Noooooo
COLIN [07:30]
No work people?
ANNA [07:31]
I have strong opinions on this. No, I don't think that you should follow work people. Let me start over. I don't follow work people. I don't allow work people to follow Me. Yeah because. Like I don't want to know. I don't want to know about your life. I don't want to know that on weekends. You're like a Civil War reenactor or protest Planned Parenthood's. I don't want to see pictures of you on your vacation. I don't wanna know we have there. There needs to be boundaries there. There is a work person and then there's like a real person and the same way that like I don't want you to know.
COLIN [08:09]
Right, right. That is really my thing like I could. I think I could take following some work people, but I definitely wouldn't want work people to follow me.
ANNA [08:22]
You know, we have to work together. So really, it's just I don't want anything to make it weird at work. Right? You don't want to know that this person is a freak outside of work and then you have to work with them or that they have very strong views that you really disagree with or different values and then you have to work with them.
COLIN [08:44]
There's such a potential for that to get in the way of your relationship instead of adding to it that/
ANNA [08:50]
Right/
COLIN [08:50]
/ that it’s just not.
ANNA [08:51]
And once you take a work relationship outside of work, it can get weird like I had a friend at my old job, who you know she was a young woman and she just sort of let everybody friend her and follow her and then an older male married male colleague of hers did that thing where you go through someone's old posts and he liked all of her old like, Bathing suit vacation pictures and like pictures of her in cocktail dresses at clubs and things like that. It was super creepy. But that is some murky water. She should be able to post whatever she wants. He probably also shouldn't beat rolling her old bikini shots. How do you set that boundary? And now what, you take that to HR? You just live with it? You gotta sit in meetings with this guy? I don't know.
COLIN [09:44]
Yeah what? Yeah what's the solution for that? That's gross. Man people are. People are so gross.
ANNA [09:53]
Just don't be gross guys. Avoid being gross but I think I told you this story before. So one of the things I used to do 'cause I worked at this giant company where I worked alongside your wife. There are so many people I didn't always know them, so like if I was going to be in a, in a meeting with somebody or supposed to meet up with somebody at work and I didn't know who they were, I would Google them and see if I could get a picture so I can put a name with a face. And hopefully, it was like just their nice LinkedIn Headshot. And sometimes if I was going to interact with someone I'd look at their LinkedIn to like kind of get what was there background how long have they been at the company, etc. And, um, there was a woman on my floor who was like super cool, super fashionable super like icy, like think Emily Blunt in Devil Wears Prada. And so I Googled her name and what came up was an Instagram and the photo was two basset hounds and I was like oh she has dogs, dogs are cute and I made the mistake of clicking on the Instagram. All of the pictures were the two basset hounds whose names were something saccharine like Buttons and Blossom. I’m making that up.
COLIN [11:12]
Amazing, yeah.
ANNA [11:13]
And every picture was the Basset Hound like kind of dressed up and posed. And then I clicked on the individual pictures and looked at the the captions of each photo...
COLIN [11:27]
Oh fun.
ANNA [11:28]
...were like a little play. They were like dialogue between. The dogs,
COLIN [11:36]
Oh awesome yes.
ANNA [11:38]
So it would be like...
COLIN [11:39]
She’s writing scenes for her basset hounds.
ANNA [11:40]
Yeah. It was, it was like short plays by basset hounds and it would be like, Blossom: I hope Mommy comes home soon.” Buttons: “me too. I'm hungry, roof!” And I was like,
COLIN [11:54]
Oh Oh, it's like very. We're we're really basic here.
ANNA [12:02]
It was so basic it was so weird. So in contrast with her like, “I'm wearing the Chanel boots” like icy persona. And then like I had to sit in meetings with her and in my head I’m just hearing the basset hound’s voices.
COLIN [12:20]
Here you are in this board room and you're just like all you can. Yeah, all you can see is this woman dressing basset hounds and like making sure everything is on, the bows are tied perfectly.
ANNA [12:34]
Yeah, I'm just like where does she find the outfits? How did this happen?
COLIN [12:40]
And you can't. You can't just bring that up. You can't just be like, “Hey, so like I think I found your Instagram?”
ANNA [12:47]
Yeah, let's definitely talk about you know these spreadsheets. But first I have so many questions about Blossom and Buttons. No, then you just have to swallow it.
COLIN [13:00]
Man.
ANNA [13:00]
So um, that's that's why.
COLIN [13:04]
Yeah/
ANNA [13:05]
that is why/
COLIN [13:07]
/it's it's tough. I, um, somebody recently quit at my job and took a screenshot of the last zoom meeting that everybody was on. Posted it to their story and tagged everybody. But the great thing about it was. A lot of us saw it clearly. Nobody followed me. I didn't follow anybody else, it was just like, yes we were all on that zoom call were tagged in it. End of story. Which is great. Yeah, this doesn't have to turn into a years long. I see all your vacations thing.
ANNA [13:43]
Do you think that's a product of social media being older or we are older?
COLIN [13:49]
Well, both, yeah, I think I think social media's been around long enough that we know That we can go find people really easily. I think in my early days on Instagram, my mentality was like if I don't follow them, I'm gonna like lose track of this account and never be able to get it again. It was like a scarcity thing and now it's been around long enough. I just know. Oh yeah, I can look somebody up. Check in on them when I think of them and that's it. You know I don't. They don't have to be in my like in my newsfeed every time they post.
ANNA [14:26]
Yeah. What about family? Do you follow all your family?
COLIN [14:32]
I well, so here's here's my thing is: I have the same rule for all of these categories, which is do I want to see their content? And there's some family who I do, and there's some family who I don't. I will say I have two or three aunts who love me and they they send heart eyes to every Instagram story. Every post, just like the nicest DMS, it's amazing. Do I follow them? No. But I love that they follow me and that's it's really nice.
ANNA [15:21]
It's funny that you saying I think about first and foremost “Do I want to see their content?” because I don't think that that's what people think of first and foremost. I think first and foremost they think about like is, “how will this affect my relationship with this person if I do or do not friend them?”
COLIN [15:39]
Yes, That that is the big lie of social media. If I follow this person, I'm going to stay in touch with this person and you're only going to stay in touch with that person as well as that person posts about their own life, I don't post about my own life that much. If you follow me on line, you're not gonna stay in touch with me. There's no way. 'cause I'm not posting. You know what I grilled last Saturday. I just Grill it and eat it. What about you, do you follow all your family?
ANNA [16:07]
Yeah. I have a really big family, they live all over the world so I don’t get to see them in real life that often, and like we said earlier, it’s a nice way to have a baseline relationship with them. It’s nice to see their kids grow up. But I do think that if you have a real-life relationship with someone, like with family or work and you want to extend it into an online relationship, you have to set digital boundaries. So family is a place where I put into work the mute, sharing settings “friends except xyz.” I just don’t want Thanksgiving to be super awkward because of Facebook, you know?
COLIN [16:45]
Right Right
ANNA [16:46]
I've also found that people kind of want to recreate those family hierarchies online. So like, in early days I was posting and an older conservative family member (and I was obnoxious and I was swearing or whatever. It's Facebook) and she messaged me and told me that she was very disappointed in my foul language.
COLIN [17:13]
Oh, awesome.
ANNA [17:14]
In my posts.
COLIN [17:15]
That's so cool.
ANNA [17:16]
And that she would appreciate it if I refrained from using such vulgar words. And I believe I responded in a very mature way. I think I wrote back, “I don't give a s*** what you think.”
COLIN [17:32]
That is so great. My, this reminds me of my oldest brother. We both kind of went through a faith crisis and and left the church we grew up in at the same time and and like very publicly on Facebook and my brother posted something. And an old, basically kind of like a pastor of ours, commented on his post. And my brother responded, “Man, I just gotta say man, f*** you.” It was just incredible in this like going from this culture that is so buttoned up and never swears never even get. Yeah you know is like famous for saying Oh my heck. As like a cultural thing and. And here's my brother just saying like f*** you write to him and then not even write to him to him so he gets a notification but also publicly anybody on Facebook can see that he said f*** you and there's a record of it and you can still see if you scroll back far enough. To Aaron's credit, Gary wrote back and was just like dude, I see it. I totally see that. Respect. like it was... So it like it worked out well. So I think the bottom line of what we’re saying is just be mindful of who you connect with on Social Media. Instead of automatically following or friending people, really think about whether you want to see their content, and if you want them to see yours.
ANNA [19:07]
Yeah exactly, and also think about whether it’s going to be a positive extension of a real life relationship, or does it have the potential to be problematic? Are you setting yourself up for conflict or awkwardness later on? If you don’t friend someone in the first place, you won’t be in the position of having to unfriend them later…
MUSIC STING
COLIN [19:50]
So here's the thing. We've talked a lot about who we follow...
ANNA [19:56]
Yeah
COLIN [19:57]
But do you ever face like the unfollowing guilt even when you're thinking about it? Not necessarily when you're when you're actually unfollowing them. Do you experience that, yeah?
ANNA [20:07]
Unfollowing is gnarly, I have felt Unfollower Guilt, I feel it less and less I do this thing where if I see someone's name I count to 5 and if I cannot remember specifically how I know that person by the time I get to 5, they're out.
COLIN [20:29]
Wow, cool.
ANNA [20:32]
Yeah, and this is how ruthless I am: Part of how I do this is Facebook tells you whose birthday it is every day. So I would click on the birthdays and I'll take those like, whatever 3 to 7 people, and I'll do my count to 5. So yes, I'm a cold, I'm a cold-hearted person and I will unfriend you on your birthday.
COLIN [20:54]
Man, that's awesome, though that's a great way to call through all of your friends. 'cause by the year's end you'll have seen 'em All, you know?
ANNA [21:03]
Oh yeah, yeah, all of them have put their birthday on there.
COLIN [21:05]
True.
ANNA [21:06]
But I think that unfollowing guilt is a real thing. And the times that I have worried about it or felt bad about doing it were when I had some kind of real life relationship with them that I was worried would be affected.
COLIN [21:22]
Yeah.
ANNA [21:23]
I was doing a little bit of research about this and one thing I saw a psychologists talk about is that, like we said, is our online lives are an extension of our real lives, and so what people have trouble with in their real lives they're probably gonna have trouble with online. And a lot of people have trouble with boundaries. We have trouble with boundaries. We really care about how we're perceived. And so setting those boundaries with someone is difficult, and then risking being perceived as a bad person, a selfish person, as being someone who's rejecting is a big barrier to a lot of people. And also that - let's say you have 2000 friends you want to call it down to 500. That's a lot of baggage to go through, like going through each name, remembering how you know them, remembering the part of your life that they're from, and everything like that's a lot of baggage, a lot of stuff to dredge up. And you know, we get decision fatigue. So that part of why I like the birthday thing is because it's like 5 people at a time.
COLIN [22:21]
Right, Yeah, it's not. Oh I have to make 300 decisions tonight.
ANNA [22:26]
And remember everyone I've ever met since 2006.
COLIN [22:29]
Yeah, one thing I've worried about is I I really value closeness and relationships and community. and so I worry about, Well if I unfollow them, are they gonna see that as me distancing myself from them Me, like Pushing them away or wanting them out of my life in some way are they going to see this as like some passive expression of that when the truth is, you know, maybe I don't think that maybe I'm just getting rid of a bunch of people. You know, I went through a huge unfollowing last year where I went from over 1000 people on Instagram down to 20.
ANNA [23:16]
Whoa.
COLIN [23:17]
Same on Twitter.And when I was doing that I just had one rule which was have I seen this person in the last month.
ANNA [23:26]
Oh wow.
COLIN [23:27]
That's how I got down to 20
ANNA [23:30]
If you did that now, it would be one. It would be one person.
COLIN [23:31]
I would just just be following Megan, which would be so redundant because boy are we with each other
ANNA [23:38]
She's in the kitchen.
COLIN [23:42]
Yeah, I know all of her updates these days. But yeah, I really worried about that and what got me through it was after the unfollowing, I made sure to keep up all the relationships that I could think of at least. And I made sure to reach out to people and hang out with people and still just be the same me. And I had a couple of people ask me about it. I had a couple of people bring it up.
ANNA [24:12]
That's one thing I was gonna say is part of the fear of like somebody's gonna get mad at us or feel rejected or we're going to lose their friendship in real life. Is the assumption that people are got unfriended or unfollowed.
COLIN [24:27]
And some people will. And some people will bring it up. I remember one friend bring it up to me and I just said Oh yeah, I went through huge on following I went down to 20 people. For me, like the positive way way outweighs the negative. And you know, maybe I did make some people feel rejected and that is too bad, but my life is so much better that it's just like I'd yeah
ANNA [24:54]
Yeah, I guess I have had one time where someone got really upset that I unfollowed them.I had a hairdresser in New York. she was really good. She was also like kind of wacky an I love a weirdo. I just love a good weirdo.
COLIN [25:11]
Can I just say the fact that this story starts with a hairdresser? I am just so tickled.
ANNA [25:22] But like I said, it's sort of those weak ties of somebody that you like, have a little relationship with, but you're never going to like you never gonna like put a ton of effort into. But yeah, Facebook gives you an opportunity to kind of keep up with them, right, yeah?
COLIN [25:36]
They're never going. They're not getting invited to a birthday party.
ANNA [25:38]
No no, no no. Oh, and she also fancied herself a life coach. So she like asked me once to and took me out for drinks and did a whole like you know what three adjectives do you want people to think of when they hear your name? Like that whole thing? And then I kept seeing her. And I realized that maybe she wasn't just wacky, she was a little unstable.
COLIN [26:02]
Oh no.
ANNA [26:03]
The last time I went to her I showed up and I was accidentally late because I had written down the wrong time, like 15 minutes late and um. I came in and she was livid and I said, “I'm really sorry I made this mistake” and she was like, “it's OK my whole day is ruined.” And then we started the process and she's like jamming chairs around and getting angrier and Angrier and I'm like sitting there with a highlighter in my hair. With the foils like I can't run away. I am trapped. And then she's like Rage cutting my hair and is saying things like “I'm going to have to like send you to work with someone who is a lower rank than me because I do not have time to spend my entire day on your hair.”
COLIN [26:49]
Whoa...
ANNA [26:50]
I'm I'm so uncomfortable.
COLIN [26:52]
Yeah.
ANNA [26:53]
And then as I was leaving I was like “I'm really sorry that this was such an issue for you that I was 15 minutes Late, I really apologize. It was my mistake” and she was like, “It's just such a clusterf*** whenever you come here.”
COLIN [26:58]
Whoa.
ANNA [27:00]
Right? So none of that experience made me think that this person ever wanted to interact with me again, ever. So I switched to a different salon and then I moved to Los Angeles. When I moved to Los Angeles I did a big culling, and she was one of the people. And like a week later I got this long message, that was like “I realized that you unfriended me and I am so hurt because I thought that we, our relationship went deeper than the client-stylist relationship. I thought we had a deep bond. I already figured out you went to a different stylist, but this is a whole different thing.” And, “I know I had to speak to you about your client behavior. But that was just professional, not personal.” And I remember being, like, flabbergasted. Just, what kind of different reality am I living in?
COLIN [27:57]
Yeah, so so different from your perception of a hair stylist you worked with for a while.
ANNA [28:06]
And so I just wrote back, “You know I moved to a different salon because it was closer to me, which was true, and I unfollowed a lot of people when I moved to LA.” Uh, I didn't feel like I could have been like, but you told me that, um, my presence in your life caused a clusterf***!
COLIN [28:20]
Yeah.
ANNA [28:22]
But that's probably the most extreme and ridiculous story I have of someone taking it personally. Getting angry at me for unfollowing them.
COLIN [28:32]
I can't imagine writing that message to get in the headspace of like this is what I must do. Also man, how do you notice when somebody unfriends you
ANNA [28:41]
Right? How do you notice?
COLIN [28:43]
You have to be like, you have to be pretty vigilant.
ANNA [28:46]
If someone sees that their friend count went down by two people, do they then investigate?
COLIN [28:51]
Man, I haven't looked at my numbers in so long,
ANNA [28:55]
Yeah, so basically what we're saying is unfollowing guilt is a real thing. That fear is a real thing, but you can get over it and you do have to sort of put your mental health and the vision that you have for your online life first, right? If someone is posting the same content across platforms. If somebody is just being toxic. If they're just sort of no longer in your life, Those are all real reasons and legitimate reasons to unfollow someone and also, if if other people's opinions are going to sort of tarnish your your experience and your enjoyment of something you know, you can set a boundary around that too.
COLIN [29:33]
I had this with the last Star Wars movie. I was just like yeah, so many people posting about this and that and opinions and blah blah blah and I have spent enough time with Star Wars that I am very settled in in my views in your opinion and opinions. So I I just straight up muted the words Star Wars so that I wouldn't have to read anybody else’s opinions about it. But yeah, I. If it's going to ruin your experience of something, unfollow also. Just unfollow if you want to. That's a great reason to unfollow, right? Which leads to troubleshooting.
ANNA [30:15]
<sings> Troubleshooting. Troubleshooting.
MUSIC STING
COLIN [30:36]
So on today's troubleshooting we want to talk about how to unfollow people tactfully.
ANNA [30:44]
How to unfollow people in a kind, respectful way, and also Alternatives to Unfollowing or Unfriending people like muting, taking a break, things like that.
COLIN [30:56]
So let's start with that. Because Unfriending is or unfollowing on, you know on Instagram and Twitter, that is like a pretty drastic thing. And what you can do/
ANNA [31:09]
/it’s very final.
COLIN [31:10]
What you can do to ease into that or to avoid it is on Twitter and Instagram you can mute them. On Facebook you can unfollow them in your newsfeed. That's a great way to stay friends, not involve them, they won't know. And you don't have to see their posts anymore.
ANNA [31:29]
On Facebook you can also do “take a break.” Which means they're just not going to put them in your feed for a certain amount of time, and then they'll sort of start bringing them back. And I don't think that other accounts can see whether you've muted them, so that can alleviate the whole pressure of they're going to find out they're going to get mad at me. The whole Anna’s hairdresser situation.
COLIN [31:52]
So good.
ANNA [31:55]
And another thing that I like is, At least on Facebook, you can change your sharing settings to exclude some people, so you can customize your sharing settings. So if there's like 5 people who you want to keep in the mix but you know anything they post, they're going to come at you or you want to be able to swear freely and you know they're going to be offended by it or whatever. You can customize your sharing settings so that it's “friends except blah” or “just close friends” or things like that in the same way that you can make something global public or private.
COLIN [32:30]
If you want to do that on Twitter and Instagram, it's not quite the same, but you can set your account to private and then you have full control over who follows you and who can see your stuff.
ANNA [32:42]
Save yourself the unfollowing guilt by being mindful of who you connect with in the first place. Before hitting the Follow button, pause and think about whether a social media relationship with this person could complicate a real life relationship, or if they’re going to post content that you’re not going to want to see. If you do want to do a big purge, or clean up your followers list, but could use a little help, try an unfollow app like Tokimeki for Twitter.
COLIN [33:04]
If anyone asked you about why you unfriended or unfollowed them, you can just blame it on the purge. You can just say Oh yeah, I cut way down on my numbers. I went to like. Just people on my block or you know, whatever you want to say. And then you can also just be straight up with these people if you care about the relationship, just tell them. Just talk to them. “I still want to keep in touch with you. I just don't want to keep in touch with you via Twitter, I'd rather keep in touch with you via text or hanging out in person.”
ANNA [33:41]
Yeah, and I've even seen people do that as sort of like a blanket statement. I've seen people post on Twitter or Facebook “Hey everyone, I need to scale back my social media and so I am limiting my social media down to, you know, just close friends or family or whatever. If I unfriend you, it's not 'cause I don't love you and want to keep in touch. You know, DM me for my phone number.” Or something like that. And I and I that feels respectful and I haven't seen anybody comment like “you're a d***.” I think everybody like kind of. Kind of gets that.
COLIN [34:18]
You are such an a** for wanting a healthy life online. Also, if they respond like that, that's a great cue to exit that relationship.
ANNA [34:30]
Yeah, if they respond like that, they're the first one to get cut. but I think that why it feels bad to be unfriended or unfollowed is this feeling of being totally rejected, or that that person doesn't care about me anymore. And so I think the part of our unfollowing fear and unfollowing guilt is that we're going to make somebody else feel that way. so if you do put in a little bit of time like this, like what you're talking about and either say publicly, this is what I'm doing or individually talking to people, giving them an alternative of how to keep in touch with you. Then you're saying to them. Basically, it's not you, it's me. I want to keep you in my life but not in this way anymore.
COLIN [35:09]
Yeah, if a friend told me that I would be 100% on their side. Next up, we’ve got some Internet Gold for you…
MUSIC STING
COLIN [35:28]
Anna, what's your Internet gold this week?
ANNA [35:30]
My Internet gold this week is an Instagram account called SubparParks. So @SUBPARparks. It's an Instagram by the artist Amber Share. And Colin, You know that I am a serious national parks nerd. I like I got the passport. I got the stamps. What she does, What Amber Share does is she makes these kind of oldtimey classic looking. You know illustrated posters for the national parks. I'm sure you all seen them and then she puts on them quotes from real negative reviews of the parks. So, for example, Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas is “Don't bother unless you're really into Hot Springs." And then my absolute favorite one, which which Colin I think you'll appreciate. For Arches National Park in Utah, it says “looks nothing like the license plate.”
COLIN [36:35]
Oh, Man. That’s so great
ANNA [36:37]
It's so creative it's so funny. I just love it. So @subparparks. Follow it. You'll get your giggles.
COLIN [36:44]
Listeners you've just got to see it too. 'cause it's beautifully done. I mean, these are wonderful posters, just with the worst trash reviews. Following./ I love that
ANNA [36:57]
Alright, Colin what's your Internet gold for this week?
COLIN [37:01]
This week I wanna talk about a website that I love. It's called Future Fonts. I found it through a graphic design buddy. Actually Kyle, who did our Graphic design/
ANNA [37:17]
/Shout out to Kyle/
COLIN [37:18]
/who has fonts on here. The whole website is basically get in on the ground floor of a new font, so so like a 0.1, zero point 2 zero point, 3 version instead of the you know the 1.0 version. And and basically you buy the font at a lower price early on and you'll you will get the fonts once it's done as well, you'll get the font in its baby stages, and as the font grows you'll get all the updates. It's like a really cool way to get into, to like soup up your font library and support graphic artists, graphic designers, font freaks. What is the name for - font designers I guess? But you also -
ANNA [38:10]
Fountainhead? Font, Font-anheads?
COLIN [38:13]
Yes, Font-anheads. But you also get these cool fonts you get to like, have really neat brand new hot off the presses font.
ANNA [38:24]
I love that. Yeah, especially if you. I mean now that we're all on the zooms doing presentations in that way. I mean, Helvetica is great, but if you want to mix it up. Get some new fonts that no one else will have. This is Super cool.
COLIN [38:38]
Yeah, some of em are $18.00. Some of em are $30, summer 50. And then once they are done, usually the price bumps up. You know it'll go up to 100 or 150, but if you get it early, you know. And if you like where a fonts going, you can get in on the ground floor. It's cool. I really like it.
ANNA [38:56]
And then you're kind of grandfathered in to the final versions the finished versions. It’s a cool idea. I love it.
COLIN [39:03]
And people are doing some like cool experimental stuff on there too, which is really fun to see. Future fonts and @subparparks look em up.
OUTRO MUSIC
COLIN [39:18]
Well, we gotta log off. Thanks for joining us for this episode of The More You Scroll. Please subscribe and stick around for the rest of the season.
ANNA [39:24]
To help other listeners find this show please leave us a 5-star rating and review on your platform of choice. Connect with us online @themoreuscroll and themoreyouscroll.com (that’s the word YOU), let us know what you thought of this episode, and tag friends you think would like it.
COLIN [39:45]
The More You Scroll is a production of Van Valin Productions and Lindenfield Studio. Our production intern is Emma Massey, our marketing intern is Elaine Oh. I’m Colin Foy.
ANNA [39:54]
I’m Anna Van Valin. Scroll you next time…
