Nearly all my experiences on social media have been good. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram might make me lazier, bitchier and less productive, but they also helped me become a freelance writer, find flatmates, meet my boyfriend, send mix tapes to mates who moved to Australia, perfect my chicken pie recipe and discover Jonathan Adler scented candles. And social media also helped me fall out completely with my best friend.
You’d think that if you know and like someone in real life, it would be impossible to truly hate them on Twitter and Facebook. Because if someone did go overboard on the ‘RUOK hun’ posts or puppy pics, you’d understand that they weren't really like that IRL and brush it off. However, my friend Beth’s* social media persona became so brash that it started to overshadow her actual character, and her descent to the dark side was so sudden that it drove me completely crazy.
She posted a steady stream of selfies where she’d be wearing a low cut top, and once wrote ‘SO HORNY! Does anyone want to come over...?’ Basically, she became THAT girl
I met Beth at a few work events when she was working in music PR, and I was a staff writer on a magazine. She had a mind-blowing amount of energy - even when she was horribly hungover, she’d be plotting a night of fun - there was just something really inspiring about her. Everything made me anxious, but she wouldn’t let anything hold her back, and she gave me the courage to be more confident. Until she discovered Twitter.
I knew instantly she’d be really good at it - she was quick, funny, and great at spotting really interesting things. She started racking up followes and re-tweets and at first I was really happy to see her in her element. But then the nature of her tweets started to change. Everything she wrote, and the way she wrote it, was hypersexual. She’d make a joke about the number of guys who were hitting on her at the gym, or ask her followers whether she should sleep with the person she was going on a date with that night. She posted a steady stream of selfies where she’d be wearing a low cut top, and once wrote ‘SO HORNY! Does anyone want to come over...?’ Basically, she became THAT girl.
Beth is stunning, and as far as I know she’s never had any trouble attracting men. But I was totally thrown by the way she seemed to be begging for attention. It didn’t fit with the person I thought she was, and it wasn’t cool.
A couple of times I tried to gently broach the subject and find out why she was doing it, but she shut me down straight away, and accused me of being jealous. It was pretty hard to get my head around, but I tried to ignore it. Maybe I was jealous? I loved a good Twitter flirt, but I certainly didn’t have the confidence to issue an open invitation for sex on my feed. I tried to talk to mutual friends about it, but they weren’t worried - so I told myself to stop being such a judgmental prude.
At the time, we were both single, and she’d always been open and upfront about her sexual exploits. But she stopped being matter of fact about it, and started to really brag. When we were out together, she was either chatting up boys, or telling me the number of boys she’d slept with that week. I remember being embarrassed when we went out for noodles in a really quiet restaurant, and she loudly listed all the STIs she’d just been tested for. I didn’t think any conversation would ever phase me, but now I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to climb out of the window in the ladies’ or bribe the waitress to turn the music up to drown out the chlamydia chat.
Then Beth became very interested in amplification. If she tweeted something she felt was especially funny, I’d receive a slew of DMs asking me to quote or retweet it. I tried not to mind - after all, if I wrote a feature I really appreciated it when friends shared it, so it seemed mean not to want to return the favour. But I felt weird about retweeting pictures of Beth’s tits, funnily enough. And because she never asked how I was doing, or what was going on in my life, it started to feel like I only existed to promote her.
Looking back, I think she’d become addicted to the attention she was getting, and all she could focus on was where the next retweet was coming from. In real life, all she talked about was Twitter - and if you asked her to put her phone down and concentrate on what you were saying, she’d act like you’d just farted in front of her Gran. Everyone agreed it was a bit irritating, but they thought it would pass. Beth’s obsessions would usually end after a couple of months - surely she’d get bored of Twitter like she got bored of Harry Styles and Itsu teryaki?
I think Twitter brought out the worst in Beth. Looking back she must have been painfully insecure, but it took an audience of thousands of strangers to reveal it.
She more successful she was, the more aggressive she seemed and the more angry she made me. If I was talking to a boy on Twitter, she’d butt in. If anyone famous retweeted her, it was all she could talk about. Whenever I saw her offline, all her conversation would be about how well she was doing online. It came to a head when I was supposed to see her at a party, and the very thought of it made me burst into tears of rage. I went home, composed myself, and a couple of days later, attempted to talk the situation over with Beth over emails, because I was too much of a wuss to do it in person. It went badly, and I ended up deleting her last message without reading it. So that was the end of that.
I think Twitter brought out the worst in Beth. Looking back she must have been painfully insecure, but it took an audience of thousands of strangers to reveal it. A few mates have mentioned in private that they have been avoiding her, because they find her behavior so hard to deal with. I feel guilty about it but equally, it’s nice to know that it’s not just me - it’s clear that Beth has a genuine problem, and I’m not just being a bitch.
Beth is now blocked. I’m still angry with myself for not handling the situation better, but I feel a lot more peaceful now her sex requests are out of my timeline and I’m not inundated with demands to broadcast them. I honestly never thought I’d lose a friend over anything so silly as Twitter, but it turns out we’re not always our best selves on social media.
Still it’s probably done all my Twitter followers a massive favour – if I’m ever tempted to something weird online to get attention, I’ve learnt (the hard way) to step away from the Internet.
Follow Daisy on Twitter @notrollergirl
*Name has been changed
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.