following

Twitter user Guy Dayan (aka @guygo) created a cool little Twitter "hack" reminiscent of when people started hacking their Top 8 back in the golden days of Myspace.

By encouraging 30 people to change their Twitter profile image and then following those 30 people in a particular order, Guy was able to transform his list of who he is following into an image of a bird.  (Watch his whole process above.)

To fully comprehend the experience, I decided to try to recreate his Twitter bird design with my own account.  And, yes, I was successful.

Problem is, I then decided it's about time I started following America's Funnyman Neil Hamburger and that jerk unintentionally screwed up my awesome Twitter bird.

So basically, this Twitter hack is great, assuming two things:

1) You never want to follow anyone else again.

2) The 30 people don't conspire against you to change the image from a bird to someone's balls or something.

Oh, that reminds me: I am looking for 30 volunteers that are willing to use a harmless pic that I'll send them, as their profile pic.  And by harmless, I mean it's probably 1/30th of a pic of someone's balls.

Oh, so the moral of the story: This probably foreshadows the end of Twitter, just like it foreshadowed the end of Myspace.

Good riddance.

Has anyone else been annoyed by these "Who to follow" lists that recently popped up on Twitter?

At first, I just tried to ignore it.  No, I don't want to follow MacGruber.  I'm the only one in America who actually saw the movie!  What more do you want from me!?

Eventually, I began pounding on the "X" buttons to make them go away, but they just kept coming back like the Terminator T-1000.  They couldn't be destroyed.

And then it happened…  The same suggestion came up twice.  I had entered a "Who to follow" wormhole where suggestions are able to look back upon themselves.

"Who would you like to follow, Mike?" I could hear Twitter asking in its lifeless, monotone, robotic voice.  "How about Pee-wee Herman?"  It pauses.  "Or why not try following Pee-wee Herman?"

Now, I don't know Pee-wee Herman.  I'm not even sure if he's a real person.  (He isn't, is he?)  I don't necessarily want to be following him.  But I couldn't resist.  Twitter had bent time and space.  And so I followed him.  I followed Pee-wee Herman.

Twitter won.  I clicked on "X" after "X" after "X" and yet I could never fully terminate the "Who to follow" list.  They broke me, but they had to alter the cosmos itself to make it happen.

Anyway, ball's in your court, Herman.  Hope you have some great tweets up your sleeve.

Yesterday, Huffington Post published their list of "50 Funny People You Should Be Following On Twitter."

Just what I need… 50 comedians trying too hard in 140 characters or less.

But seriously, I'd be more concerned if you are following one of these 10 terribly unfunny Twitter accounts:

• Utah State Senate/@utahsenate/Legislative Body
  What you can expect: "Thank you for paying attention."
• Kelly Wallace/@cbskellywallace/CBS News Correspondent
  What you can expect: "I learned it is incorrect to call them rip tides. They are rip currents. If caught in one, swim parallel to shore to get out of it."
• The Ghost Bus Tours/@GhostBusTours/Tour Bus Company
  What you can expect: "will be on the Robert Elms show at 2pm today, BBC Radio London"
• Sad Bastard/@Sad_Bastard/Hot New Rockband from Amsterdam
  What you can expect: "@jeanettejoy Thanx for following us! We'll keep you updated on our projects!"
• Control Global/@ControlGlobal/God Only Knows
  What you can expect: "@UsabilityProj Seeking input: How early should operators be brought into the planning process for automation projects? http://bit.ly/2SFvgc"
• Cosmetic Surgery/@tummytucksrus/Gastric Banding Surgery
  What you can expect: "abdominoplasty Surgery for less at our Specialist Clinics in Europe check out the latest offers Now >> ."
• Green_Day Freak :D/@snowfighter244/Foreign Green Day Fan
  What you can expect: "gerade Twitterfox auf version 1.8.3 upgedated…. Jetzt funktionierts überhaupt nich' mehr :( lustig…^^ // Dienstag Klettergarten :)"
• Mormon Times/@mormantimes/Mormon Newspaper
  What you can expect: "Do you know any Mormons who were at Woodstock in 1969? Let us know: mormontimes@desnews.com"
• Stoner Cat/@stoner_cat/Stoned Cat
  What you can expect: "@p84wrd meow meow this is @stoner_cat from the original stonercat.com website for years the @stonercat here stole my name – an IMPOSTER meow"
• Austin Gun Club/@austingunclub/Gun Club
  What you can expect: "Happy Birthday to Michael….9 years old today!"

In the world of Twitter, you know you've finally made it when you cross the 1,000,000 followers mark.  According to TwitterCounter, currently 84 people have breached that elusive threshold, the latest being Michael Ian Black (star of Comedy Central's Michael & Michael Have Issues).

Next up appears to be Weird Al Yankovic.

But crossing the million follower mark is quickly becoming passe.  Like those previously impressive millionaires who are now some of the poorest people I could ever imagine, once a group gets large enough, their exclusivity becomes diminished.

Getting 1,000,000 followers is easy: Droves of people can go and follow you at any time.

But, following 1,000,000 people — that's a different story entirely.

Estimating that it takes about 3 seconds to click on a "follow" button (including some load time, assuming Twitter actually loads), even if you started following new people 24 hours a day, it would take 35 days to cross that monumental "1,000,000 following" mark.

Working at it for a respectable 8 hours a day, it would still take you about 4 months to be following a million people.  And that assumes people don't block your creepy ass!

Right now, Barack Obama is the only one even close to a million with over 750,000 following.  (Where does he find the time to read all those status updates?!)

So, wanna be the next famous tweeter?  Go for the next grand horizon: One million following!

It's selfish to have other people as your followers.  Society will appreciate the compassion you show by following other people.

Why not get started on your quest for 1,000,000 by following Daniel Tosh?!