NASHVILLE, Tenn. – In all the ways people can approach me, friend or foe, critic or supporter, I’ve always been pretty good about not letting things get to me outside of the moment.
But I am here to confess that trolls and idiots have begun to take their toll and I need a change. I simply spend too much time on Twitter engaged with people who are either trying to egg me on or who are truly clueless.
I know it’s dumb, but I get sucked into this hole, and while my intention is to converse with people reacting to my work or asking legitimate questions, I wind up in a defensive mode that doesn’t serve anything and simply has too much power over my mood. And the waves just don’t stop.
That’s not where I want or need to spend my time.
I want to spend it serving the membership here and producing the best radio I can with The Midday 180 and when I pick up my kid I’d like to be less grumpy (even if it’s my natural default).
Not only do I hope to read less, I want to comment less. I don’t need to offer my strong thought on the U.S. Woman’s National Soccer Team or Chernobyl to the world as often. I’ll try to save it for the radio and here.
My Twitter habit is very strong and are going to be hard to break.
But I’m going to make a serious attempt to change them in the next month. While doing so I don’t want to cut off communication with you, as you are the lifeblood of this operation.
So here is my plan.
I’m going to look at my Twitter mentions less. A lot less if I can break a habit and show the will power. If I request mail with #PKmail, I will look at replies to that tweet and at stuff with #PKmail.
I’d like to use it largely as a news feed.
I want to follow the wise advice of Will Compton and control the size of the roles I give people in my movie.
In public periscopes, we long ago said I’d jump to member questions if you used an asterisk, something I haven’t seen much in more recent broadcasts. But it was a good code. I was thinking maybe we could come up with a twitter hashtag code and I’d look only at those, but I’m not ready to put that in play yet. Maybe later.
So here is my request, as I want to keep the dialogue open as ever.
Comment on posts like this one. I will be looking at those as much or more than I ever have.
And use the private Facebook page.
If you are not a member of it and you are reading this, you should be. So send a request there including you user name to the site, I’ll add you, you’ll be part of the exclusive club over there and we’ll have an easier way to communicate.
We’ll have beefier conversations over there.
And you can always email me at pkuharsky at gmail dot com.
I appreciate your help. Wish me luck.