Look to the right of the above picture. Notice something missing? My follower count. Well, it’s really not missing. I just changed the font and background to the same color last night and *poof* it now looks hidden. Why didn’t I think of that before huh?

Or maybe the question is, why am I doing it to begin with?

Even before the @aplusk vs @cnnbrk thing and TechCrunch’s subsequent article bringing it up, I was thinking it’d be a good idea to start giving users the option to hide their follower count. Why? Because this lame obsession with how many followers one has is feeding the spammers who have flooded streams with stupid sites and scam services that claim to increase the number of followers exponentially. It’s prompting celebrities and wannabe celebrities to game Twitter for self promotion. In some cases, it’s misleading others into thinking people — who I know are total scammers — are kind of a big deal in Social Media Land all because they figured out how to shoot up to over 20K+ followers in a few months time.

Am I obsessed with my follower count? Um, no. I will admit it used to be a fun thing to track. I too have entered my Twitter name on occasion into Twitter Grader and Twitter Counter. Oh and hi, my name is Christine Lu and I’m a recovering automated follow backer. Used to do that too. I was new to Twitter. I wanted to “join the conversation” and I assumed the proper etiquette for doing so was to follow back everyone that was following you.

…and then the spammers started following.

…and then the auto-DMs begain flooding my inbox.

…and then my Tweetdeck started crashing and getting bloated.

…and then Twitter search improved.

…and then #FollowFriday picked up.

…and then @loic became a verb.

Yup, Loic Le Meur, Founder of Seesmic and Le Web became a Twitter verb. How so? He decided to run a script that unfollowed everyone so he could start over. Otherwise known as “loic-ing” your followers. I remember I was about to take off for a 14 hour flight to China when I caught his post that started it all as well as the subsequent debate with Scoble that’s summed up here.

So there I was, 14 hours on a long flight to China and had some time to think about it. My initial reaction sensed a usual round of highly visible debates between Scoble and everyone else. But I do admit, as a result of following all 9K+ people at that time who were following me back, it was impossible to read my main Tweet stream. Tweetdeck was crashing from the updates. Auto-DMs were flooding my inbox and it became annoying to read DMs from friends in between ones that said “Hi! Thanks for following. Do you want to make 6 figures in your pajamas. I can show you how here!”

I was beginning to think Loic was making a good point. Especially since Twitter search and Follow Friday recommendations from my friends on Twitter helped point me to interesting new folks to follow.

And then it happened. At the SXSW Shanghai Cocktail at M1NT a really nice and well meaning girl came up to me and introduced herself. Thinking she was complimenting me, she said “You are the most famous China person on Twitter” — Wow. That really made me gag inside. It’s really not what I’m all about guys. It really isn’t. Those that know me get that. I use Twitter. It’s a tool. It’s not how I want to be defined. It’s not what I want to be known for.  I emailed Loic the next day and asked for his help in running the unfollow all script so I could start over.

I know what some of you are thinking. Whatever Christine. You’re full of shit. You have 9K followers on Twitter and counting. You’re a smore aka social media whore. You are an elitist who doesn’t share your Twitter currency.  Actually no. You just don’t know me and you are drinking the social media kool-aid. And you need to let go of the rhetoric and just do whatever makes you happy.  And I digress.

The very next day after “loic-ing” my followers, I dropped over a thousand followers. Likely from the auto-unfollow function some of these 3rd party apps have. Didn’t bother me. From there it started a steady decline until it leveled off and has started gradually slowly going up again with quality people who aren’t cruising around trying to follow people for the only intention of jacking up their own numbers with a guaranteed follow back. Simply stated. I don’t care.

Really, those of you who care about your follower count or hurl doo doo at people for not automatically following you back really need to get over it. I did. Try it. Losing a few thousand people who don’t really care who you are aside from how you can contribute to their upward follower count trend isn’t something to feel bummed out about.

So anyways, at the same time, I started gradually adding people back. Mostly friends in real life and those on Twitter I’ve had good convo with over the past year since I started tweeting. Guess what?

…my stream became easier to read.

…I was able to go back to Twhirl without having it crash. (now using Seesmic Desktop)

…my DM box is completely spam free. I find this alone so worth it.

…I continue to follow new people based on new convos I’m having.

…I find new people via Follow Friday recommendations of PEOPLE I KNOW AND TRUST

…If I want to find new followers, I can always do a Twitter search.

I know what some people are thinking. What a freakin’ snob. If she doesn’t follow people back why should I follow her. Obviously she doesn’t care about what I have to say so why should I bother.

To that I say. You’re right. You don’t have to bother. And neither should I if there’s no common ground between us other than the fact that we are both on a social media platform called Twitter. It’s like real life. I don’t expect to be included in the conversations or social networks of people I don’t know and have no close connection to. Here’s an interesting post related to that from @jdrive that resonated with me last month called “Social Norms In Forever Networks”.

As to why people follow me, I’d like to think it’s because I might have some interesting info to share and things to say that they don’t mind having my tweets in their stream. Follow me for a short period of time and you’ll see that:

…I like to connect people. I like to talk about good people I know and point them out. A lot of great connections between folks have been made this way. I’m happy to have a hand in that.

…I share perspectives and articles on China that you won’t easily find in your day to day news stream. I’m working on a lot of initiatives that will help bridge the gap of understanding between east and west.

…I’m involved in cool projects that you may be interested in being part of, learning more or helping out with.

…I’m a nice person. I’m not trying to sell you anything. I’m not trying to pitch you. I appreciate it if you follow me. I don’t take it personally if you don’t.

Anyways, I digress. So what does all this have to do with wanting to hide my follower count? Well, imagine if Twitter tried that for a week. Imagine if everyone’s follower count was hidden. I think it’d throw off the spammers. I think the self promoters would feel naked without inflated follower numbers to pump up their egos and justify their consulting services. I think for real people who have real things to say and real things to share, it’d make for a much better user experience.

So until that function actually becomes available, I’m going to stick to my Scotch tape job of hiding my follower numbers. I figure those who like what I have to say will hit the follow button and get to know me. Those who look for that count as a basis for judging me will just move on since it’s obvious from my follower to following ratio that I’m perfectly fine just tweeting as usual at home in my pajamas figuring out a way to make 6 figures …without their help. Heh.