social media | RAFrenzy

Richard, You Can Win This Way

Richard,

I really do think you are nice and hope you keep being your sweet self. I don’t say that because you happen to have beautiful blue eyes. I say that because I’ve observed your public demeanor for over eight years, and you are always a gentleman, a gentle man. That is a great part of your appeal, but it’s got to be hell for you on social media.

Frankly, you must have the gift of mercy which makes you so sensitive to people being at odds with each other. I’ll bet you despise confrontation but have had to learn to deal in it considering the business you’re in. And all of that is exacerbated on social media. Phew.

And then there’s Twitter. It’s a rough and tumble place, but if I’m being candid, and hell man, I’m nothing if not candid on this blog, I think it’s a great place — profane and absurd people and all. That’s just part and parcel of free speech. But I don’t envy you. You’re more of a target than most, but I do believe there’s a way to weather it, and it’s not by being frustrated at being miunderstood. You cannot win trying to appease everyone’s perception. I believe if you will not take all of us so seriously, you will enjoy it more. That’s a definite win. Will you get some heat for being less prone to react to the crap that goes on in cyber world? Oh hell yes you will get some heat. And that’s the point of this “letter.” You’re going to get heat no matter what you do (surely you know that by now), so be yourself, be the sweet man you are and let all the rest fall where it may. Definite win. (Don’t you love it when a fan gives you advice. :D)

I said I wasn’t going to give you advice, but I’ve been doing it for five years and can’t seem to stop. Plus, I’m a little bit infected with Armitage Protection Mode today ’cause I hate to see you stressing, or your version of stressing. None of this is to say that I think you shouldn’t have spoken about cyber bullying. It should be spoken about by many. And I hope someone scolds me if I ever do a cyber tackle on someone who says something mean about you. On second thought, I don’t think that’s going to happen. My general stance on people who are mean is either ignore them or tease the hell out of them. Depends on my mood.

Here’s hoping you’re having a wonderful day and not thinking so much about who is offended or who may offend.

Signed,
~~Big Sister~~ A Crazy Fan

P.S. Whatever you do, do not join tumblr. Repeat, do not join tumblr!

P.P.S. It won’t surprsie me if discussion pops up about the trope of your being a sweet, gentle man and how many of us may be deceived ’cause you’re such a good actor. But please keep on deceiving us with that consistently good behavior, if in fact that’s what you’re doing. :D

Obviously my two cents. Take it or leave it. Wait. I’ve got one more thing to say. When I think of fandom, it’s my dearest hope that some of you can just enjoy the experience and not let others ruin it for you. That would be a shame since so many of you are a pleasure.

Graphic courtesy of Armitage Besotted

June 5, 2015
Categories: Fandom . Tags: APM, Armitage Protection Mode, fake fan letters, Richard Armitage, social media, social media can be a bitch, social media pitfalls, Twitter . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 12 Comments

Them’s the Rules, Baby Cakes

Reblogged from graffiti living.

You may remember James from when he gave us advice about how to view our blogs. I did take that advice and have never regretted it.

Now he’s back with some rules for Twitter:

My Rules On Twitter (in the order that I just made them up):

1. Don’t be a dick (Try to play nice with the other children)

2. Be yourself (I’m a part-time sarcastic git and full-time grumpy arse, but I mean well)

3. Don’t feed the trolls (and resist the urge to set an angry mob onto them)

4. Follow / Unfollow who you want (I prefer friendly creative types; sarcasm is an added bonus)

5. Don’t act butt-hurt if someone Follows / Unfollows you (all we are is words on a screen)

6. Talk with people, rather than market at them (take part in the conversation)

7. Be funny (and if you can’t be funny, be careful)

More here

Wonder what Richard Armitage is doing today?

Have you seen Dawn French and Sting together in the Red Nose Special 2007?

Are you sick of waiting on me to post my dwarf pieces? And a few other things?

Is baby cakes one word or two?

Got plenty more questions where those came from.

February 24, 2015
Categories: Tangents . Tags: crazy pople, creativity, fun, James Garside, not being an ass, or being an ass -- you decide, Richard Armitage, social media, Twitter . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 3 Comments

The Adventures of Twitter Listing

Don’t say that title several times quickly. Phew!

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a public service post about the art of Richard Armitage watching and in particular navigating RA Universe on Twitter. This one is because some of you have been wondering how you can follow a Twitter account and your follow is invisible. Oh, you’re not wondering that? I guess this post is for those who are. :D And, I also realize there are many of you who already know how to do this. Obviously, this post is not for you either, but if you have something to add, please do.

On my RAFrenzy account I have a list called RAProjects, and on that list I have people and entities who are involved with Richard Armitage or are potentially involved with him. It’s a fascinating list but private ’cause well, I’m not sure if it’s fun to reveal or say everything you know as soon as you know it.

But enough about that.

Before I begin, please note that all screencaps can be enlarged by clicking them.

Listing someone in native Twitter on desktop (as opposed to using a Twitter client such as Hootsuite):

Click on the cog next to the follow button, and then you’ll see that drop down menu where you select ‘Add or remove from lists.’

Next you will see a screen something like this:

Next you will see a screen like this:

Be sure to click on ‘Private’ before you save it.

Here it is in the iOS app:

Once you click on ‘Add/remove from lists,’ you will see this screen where you merely click on the list you want and hit ‘Done’:

If you don’t have a list made, then you can do so this way:

When you select ‘Lists’, you will see this screen where you click on the plus to add a list:

Be sure to turn on ‘Private’ before you click ‘Save’:

For android users, it’s similar, but here are some instructions if you’re not comfortable.

FYI: my most fascinating list is one that is not even related to Richard Armitage. It’s prosaically named ‘Interesting,’ and I have had more fun and pleasure from that list than anything I’ve done on Twitter. Made some friends from it as well, and they eventually became
mutual follows. I think almost none of them knew who Richard Armitage was. But they do now. LOL!

Yes, you can bet your sweet ass that Richard Armitage has some accounts privately listed, and if he doesn’t:

Rich,

If you aren’t using private lists, you should be.

That is all.

Signed,
A crazy fan

Screencaps courtesy of my 14 year old who can wield a mean photo editor. :D

February 4, 2015
Categories: Geek . Tags: fake fan letters, public service, Richard Armitage, social media, Twitter, Twitter lists . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 10 Comments

Beware the Social Media Trap

It’s fairly obvious that we are now watching a “controversy” about some of the dwarves not attending the London premiere of the Battle of the Five Armies. As for me, I’m not sure what I think about how all of this went down. Did Warner Brothers screw up and invite the criticism they’re now receiving by not making the game plan clear to all interested parties in the cast? Did John Callen really intend to create a groundswell of support for himself and his erstwhile cast mates, or did he stick his foot in his mouth by not realizing his words are more heeded than he may have realized? Was the L.A. premiere intended for the entire cast all along? Or is Warner Brothers really good at damage control? And to all of these questions, I say a big fat: I don’t know.

What I do know is whatever the intent of these individuals and corporations, one thing is clear: the first rule of social media is at play here, and I find it fascinating to ponder that some or all may have forgotten it existed or never knew it.

And here’s a corollary to the 1st rule of social media — its global power is directly proportional to the boredom of fandoms.

November 1, 2014
Categories: Fandom, Movies . Tags: Battle of the Five Armies, BOFA, Facebook, Hobbit Premiere, London, movie premieres, Peter Jackson, Richard Armitage, social media, Warner Brothers . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 31 Comments

Poor Richard

It seems there is an epidemic which was first noticed on Facebook:

Area Facebook User Incredibly Stupid

DOYLESTOWN, PA—Describing him as frequently frustrated and overwhelmed, sources confirmed Monday that local Facebook user Michael Huffman is incredibly stupid. “I need stuff easy,” said the absolute dipshit, adding that he finds many things confusing, and that those things must be changed so that they make sense to him.

read the rest here

This article was the Onion’s response to Facebook’s plan to put the hashtags #satire and possibly #comedy on the Onion’s FB posts. It’s all because of the condition known as Drawing Unwarranted Misinterpretations from Bullshit, and this propensity now seems to be on Twitter and infecting Richard Armitage and some of those around him.

Oh shit!

Dear Richard,

I want to apologize for the fake fan letter to Elliott Lester and how it may have negatively affected him and you! I’ve had my tongue in my cheek so long I didn’t realize you and some others would actually take me seriously. This fear of being taken seriously is one reason I started using so damn many emoticons a few years ago. Before I did that, oh man, it was hell. I’m not a great writer you see, so I had to do something to make it clear I was teasing. But I guess the emoticons weren’t enough huh? Yes, I KNOW you read my fake fan letter to Elliott or somehow got wind of it and felt so put upon you had to actually provide a photo. No, don’t bother denying. I KNOW you did.

I just wish I had known you are both stupid. If I had, I would have put the ‘bullshit’ tag on that post, so you would not have suffered any mental anguish. And I NEVER would have said this when you were so kind to provide a beautiful photo:

Oh man, I am so sorry. It was a sacrilege. I know that now, and please, no worries about acquiring glasses. I’ll just take the photo as it is, and every time I look at it, I will feel duly ashamed of myself for being so bold.

Signed,
A crazy fan who really, really, really didn’t mean to ruin your day and would love to know how I could make it up to you.

P.S. I guess I need to face the fact you’re an action fan who needs the dots connected. Yes, this is bullshit.

Watch someone think I really believe Richard Armitage is stupid. Oy.

Whatever, it seems Armitage Protection Mode is alive and well. (I wonder if it ever hits those infected that they’re trying to protect a 43 year old man LOL!)

And I have always wanted to title a post with that phrase. I’ve also been dying to use that Onion story. :D

edit: dropping the snark for a moment but just a moment. For those who are confused, just know that it seems some fans thought Richard Armitage was badgered into providing us a picture. To wit:

Ok you win! Day 9. Downtown LA. X pic.twitter.com/GefsXqdoeX

— Richard Armitage (@RCArmitage) October 16, 2014

October 17, 2014
Categories: Fandom, Movies, Sleepwalker . Tags: action fans, APM, Armitage Protection Mode, bullshit, crazy people, Elliott Lester, fake fan letters, fun, I meant no harm honest, Richard Armitage, social media, social media pitfalls . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 20 Comments

A Few Pointers on Twitter

For those who have just joined Twitter or have been on and still don’t know how to navigate it effectively, here are some basics to remember:

Tweets are what you and others post on Twitter.

Profile page (aka “Me”) is where you find your tweets and retweets. If you want to make a tweet sticky (keep it at the top of your tweets on your profile page), you can “pin” the tweet. This is under “more” on the individual tweet. This is not widely available on mobile. Bummer.

Your timeline is the tweets that scroll when you are on your Twitter home page. It’s also known as the home feed. It is populated with tweets and retweets from those you follow as well as the occasional (let’s hope it stays occasional) promoted tweet thrown in by Twitter. Conversely, people who follow you will have your tweets/retweets in their timelines.

Retweets are exactly what they seem — a do over of a tweet; however, you cannot retweet yourself (not easily anyway) although you can post the same tweet twice. It’s just technically not a retweet and frankly, many times it’s viewed as spam. The protocol is to retweet others. There are a few ways to retweet, but generally, if you use the Twitter retweet function, the person you retweeted will be notified. If you cut and paste a tweet or manually quote or alter a tweet, that’s not necessarily true. It depends on how the person being retweeted is being notified, which I’m not going to cover. Suffice to say that if you use the Twitter retweet function, they will be notified. And while I’m on the retweet function, just know that it is not the same on all devices. Play around with this, so that you know how it works for you. I would go into all of this, but we would be here all day.

140 characters is the limit for tweets and retweets, and yes, that includes your Twitter name. Sorry, but thems the rules babycakes. The only exception to the rule is any links in your tweet.

Twitter will shorten links with their url shortening service. This is done dynamically by Twitter, i.e., you don’t do it; Twitter does it as you post your tweet. You will see something that begins with t.co for your link once your tweet is posted. But before you tweet with a link, you will see all the characters displayed. This is why a good rule of thumb is to type the tweet, see how many characters it will be, and then add the link at the end.

Hashtags are characters preceded by a number sign. Looks like this —> #hashtag. Hashtags can be actual words, phrases or acronyms. Doesn’t matter. Sometimes they are agreed on by groups who are going to participate in an event. In the past, the FanstRAvaganza event has used #Fanstra and other hashtags so that people could easily find the content. And that is the point — to find things. Hashtags are primarily an indexing tool. There are also throwaway hashtags which are used to convey something additional and it’s often humorous.

NEXT: RA reveals he's a secret blogger. #clairvoyant #youreadithere

— Judiang (@judiang) August 24, 2014

Trending is when a hashtag or person or event becomes very popular on Twitter. It takes a helluva lot for something to trend, and yes, Richard Armitage has trended on Twitter.

Photos are generally displayed if you load them directly to Twitter. Photos in a link are not necessarily displayed. It depends on how the linked site feeds its information to other sites (and that’s as technical as I’m going to get on the subject). It also depends on agreements Twitter has or doesn’t have with other sites. For instance, hang posting a link to Facebook media and having it displayed on Twitter. Same thing for Facebook with Twitter media.They are competitors after all. Can all of this be gotten around? Oh sure it can and especially if you have enough time or money or technical skills to mess around with it. But remember this is a post about the basics on Twitter.

Video from YouTube and Vine will display with a link in the timeline. And I understand Vine is expanding function. Who knows they may end up like YouTube. If that happens, count on Twitter taking YouTube videos out of the timeline unless YT antes up something major. There are other ways to display video, but you have to have some bucks.

Protected tweets are private tweets. This means the whole world can’t see them only the people who follow that profile. This also means that protected tweets cannot be retweeted by Twitter. They can be retweeted if someone does a cut and paste, but as a courteous, it’s good to ask permission from the owner of the original tweet before doing it.

DMs or direct messages are private messages. There is a 160 character limit instead of 140. You can only DM someone if they follow you (different rules apply for Verified accounts, and since I suspect no one reading this has a verified account, I’m not going to cover that aspect). Sometimes a Twitter user sends auto responses to anyone who DMs them, but it’s mostly businesses or the famous who do this — the famous who follow a lot of people, like say Stephen Fry who follows about a half million people. No actually I think he follows 50,000 or so. Good chance he auto replies to DMs. And no, I’m not going to DM Richard Armitage. Unless he DMs me first. ;-) Also, links are tricky in DM. Some can be sent and some can’t. Twitter is constantly changing this and apologizing for it. Just know that it’s not reliable.

Lists are great. Twitter lists are one of my favorite functions, and I use them constantly. Some are public and some are private. You can add someone to a list you’ve created whether you follow them or not. However you do it, lists are good for grouping tweets so they don’t get lost in your timeline. For instance, I have a list called musicilove, so I can easily and quickly keep up with any tweeting by the performers on the list. I also have some private lists that are probably more helpful to what I do on Twitter than anything I use. No, I’m not sharing those. MUHAHAHAHAHA Interestingly, almost none of those private lists are about Richard Armitage. It’s mostly technical profiles I follow and think I would look like a doofus to do it as a fan site.

Twitter bots are accounts which are run by software and not people. They are mostly comprised of spammers and hackers and some legitimate businesses. Almost all the time they have a link in a tweet, and they will tweet to individuals in hopes the links will be clicked. So how do you tell what’s a bot and what’s not? Sometimes it’s hard, but most of the time it’s easy. If they have no conversation with anyone or they have followed a bazillion people and almost no one has followed them, they are usually a bot. I could go on and on with ways to tell, but those are two biggies. Perhaps some others will throw in with how they determine it.

Chatting on Twitter is done all the time, but I would keep it at a minimum. Your followers who are not involved in a particular chat oftentimes do not want to see them. Why? They clutter up the timeline and you run the risk of being muted (I’ll talk about this function in another post).

That’s all for now. I left out a lot because I really am trying to keep this to basic pointers, but remember all of this is subject to change at Twitter’s discretion. Just have fun but don’t go too crazy ’cause Twitter jail is real.

In the meantime, I’ll be happy to answer questions, and I’m sure there are plenty of other fans who read this blog and are also on Twitter who will do the same.

Later I’ll talk about Twitter clients which make all of this above easier to manage including scheduling tweets.

RichardArmitageUS also has some Twitter pointers here.

August 26, 2014
Categories: Tangents . Tags: fun, Richard Armitage, social media, tweets, Twitter, Twitter Jail . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 24 Comments

1st Rule of Social Media

Never forget it’s global.

It used to be said that television could eat up material, but television’s got nothing on social media. Mainly because most of us don’t have the ability to also broadcast via television. But not so with social media. We can broadcast and rebroadcast to our hearts’ content.

And if something has been posted no matter where it originated, it’s out and no longer new. But people can still take it and share it on social media thereby making it even less new. It’s like a shot that ricochets to parts unknown — until someone makes them known. Unfair as that seems, it’s true.

Case in point is my last post with Sarah Dunn’s photo of Richard Armitage. A commenter took exception to its being new. Since I haven’t been following along, I didn’t realize it wasn’t new. But a trip to tumblr and Twitter made it abundantly clear that the photo has been seen and seen and seen long before it was posted on Sarah Dunn’s Facebook page as a Christmas present to the Army. And with this bunch, there should never be underestimation on not only the items having been seen (we have reconnaissance officers that would make other military envious) but also in the ability and readiness to articulate what is found, sometimes within seconds! LOL!

So why this post? I know the global aspects of social media are ferocious. This post is big fat reminder to myself to always do homework. As for Sarah Dunn, it’s her business how she treats this global rule. For now I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt because I do believe she was giving added value by her overt willingness to let us play around with her pictures. And that is new. I also like her style, so yeah, I like her page and have no compunction about encouraging others to do so.

December 23, 2013
Categories: Fandom . Tags: Armitage Army, Richard Armitage, Sarah Dunn, social media, social media pitfalls . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 29 Comments