Twitter Scrooges to Avoid

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Wikipedia will tell you that “Ebenezer Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight fisted, greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which engender happiness. His last name has come into the English language as a byword for miserliness and misanthropy, traits displayed by Scrooge in the exaggerated manner in a tale for which Charles Dickens is well-known.” Fast forward to present day and we present our list of Twitter Scrooges you should avoid. The list contains individuals both well-known and little known – but all have one thing in common, they either misuse or simply don’t get Twitter or their responsibility to use it wisely.

If you’ve followed TwitterFools at all, you know we have presented Twitter Idol Awards for the Top 10 Funny Tweeps and the Top 10 Renewable Energy Tweeps in an effort to help you find and follow some great tweeps.  Our Twitter Scrooge list, however, includes folks we think you should probably think twice about following.  Or simply, unfollow.  They’ve been selected for a variety of reasons which we’ll explain as we go.

We understand that by publishing this list, some might consider us Twitter Scrooges. Of course, we don’t agree we are simply sharing our opinion, but we’ll let you be the judge.

Twitter Scrooges

WHO	WHY THEY MADE THE LIST
	Gilbert Arenas, an NBA player with the Washington Wizards who calls himself Agent Zero. He’s joined Twitter but reports say he won’t post a tweet until he reaches 1 million followers. When someone pointed out to Arenas that the way people tend to accrue followers is by tweeting, he replied: “I’m trying to do the opposite.” Obviously, he just doesn’t get it. To date he’s amassed 6.8k followers.  We are on a mission to start reversing that trend. We are pretty sure we don’t want to hear from him anyway. You can unfollow him @gilbertarenas
	Earlier this year, the Silicon Valley Mom’s Group blog featured a post, “Twitter is Bad for You” with a sub-heading of “I hate Twitter.” Which is odd because they follow and are followed by 11k tweeple. Hmmm, can anyone say two-faced? You can unfollow them @svmomsgroup
	Okay, this is kind of a natural. @ebenezerscrooge has a grand total of 45 followers and 4 tweets – the most recent is over a year old.  Guess he gave up – that’s okay, his tweets, all 4 of them, were pretty mean.
	@i_hate_xmas is another downer. Though active much more recently than old Ebenezer, thankfully his or her sour grapes only reach 56 followers. Earns extra Scrooge points for being one of the 45 people who has followed @ebenezerscrooge through his almost year-long silence.
	On this one we have to agree with the folks at Telegraph.co.uk who said, “Dreadful dreadful dreadful. Largely written by her “entourage”, it’s the sort of vapid celebrity drivel that gives the internet a bad name.” Unfollow @britneyspears
	We have to thank Telegraph.co.uk for pointing out this one as well. @the_real_shaq is, by many measures, a GREAT MAN and has more than 2 million followers, some of them young and impressionable.  We wish he’d consider tweeting in proper English – let your young followers know that edumacation is important.  If you have Shaq’s ear, suggest he check out the “140 Characters: A style Guide for the Short Form”
	Some of you might recognize @RobMcDonagh from his blog Mr. Oblivious which includes many rants like this one: Why Twitter Sucks. If it’s that bad, maybe he should just stop tweeting.
	We don’t know @AlanDB92 but we know he claims he isn’t chasing Twitter followers and isn’t a Twitter Spammer, but the good folks at The Twitter Fail Blog helped us discover he really is.  A quick look at his Twitter time line shows his true colors. He may not be a bad person, but he is representative of many of the things we dislike about too many Twitter users.  On the other hand, we think you might enjoy following @tweet_fail they have a nice blog going.
	The remainder of the list is no less than 13 Twitter Marketing scams outted  on the Twittercism blog that proves, once again, that there is a sucker born every minute. Check out their list and if you have fallen for one of these cons listed – see if you can get your money back. While we encourage you to avoid the schemes, we think it is a good idea to follow @sheamus Twittercisms founder.

There you go – our Twitter Scrooges You Should Avoid.  Some who are greedy, some who we think misuse twitter, and still others who profess that Twitter – something that makes us pretty darn happy – is a waste of time.

It is, however, against our nature to be totally negative, so we mixed in some good tweeps you can follow for good measure.  And, we promise to return soon with a Twitter Idol list you can enjoy.

Now tell us, do you know any Twitter Scrooges? If so, sound off in the comments below.

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