The Ten Commandments of Twitter

And the Lord of Twitter spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God, who gave thee computers and tablets and smartphones, the Holy One of all social media who foreknew the internet before the foundation of the earth, yea even when the world of handles and hashtags was without form and void:

Thou shalt worship other gods before Twitter. Take heed lest ye waste your life 140 characters at a time. What shall it profit a man if he has 100,000 followers and forgets what it means to follow me?

Thou shalt not assume the worst about the tweets of others. Careful qualifications and robust explanations are not to be expected in two sentences. Cuttest thine enemies some slack.

Thou shalt not take the name of thine own person too seriously. If thou art prone to feeling offended at every turn and to feeling sorry for thyself publically before others, I beseech thee to gettest thou over it. To tweet like an eight-year-old is an abomination before me.

Remember thine hyperlinks, to keep them holy. Three things are a nuisance to others, four things are always to be avoided: broken links, trashy videos, rickrolling, and linking to thine own article 17 times in the same day.

Honor thy father and thy mother and all others to whom honor is due. Let thy tweets be full of encouragement and praise. Find what is commendable and commend it before others. Forgettest not that athletes and politicians are real people too. And rememberest thou that thy parents and pastors can read thy tweets.

Thou shalt not humblebrag. Better to be humble and say nothing or to brag and say everything, than to fool no one but thine own conscience.

Thou shalt not disguise self-congratulation in the form of lamentation. If thou shouldst mention before a multitude, and with conspicuous disappointment, that thou wast the only one white person who entered a float for Nelson Mandela Appreciation Day or that it breakest thine heart to think about the church’s responsibility for the Crusades, small shall be thy reward in heaven.

Thou shalt not make public demands of complete strangers. Calling upon others to respond to thy blog or denounce the evil thou refusest to put to rest is like unto social media terrorism. It is a constant dripping on a day of steady rain.

Thou shalt not retweet thine own awesomeness. The decree to “Let another praise you, and not thine own mouth” shall not be loosed all thy days. It is a perpetual statute, even unto the age of Twitter. Let it be a light unto thy path, to guard thy head from swelling and thy friends from cringing.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s klout; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s retweets, or his followers, or his hip Instagram photos, or his travel complaints, or his mentions, or anything belonging to thy neighbor.