The 23 Twitter Personality Disorders

(updated 25 Mar 2010) Over the past two years, with the aid of a small group of sociologists, psychologists and curious onlookers, I have been capturing, tagging, and documenting the various types of personalities who use social media through the Twitter platform. Originally, I was going to post these results in two installments, the first featuring normal personalities, and the second focusing on the dysfunctional. However, all data collected to-date indicates, thankfully, that there are are not any non-dysfunctional personalities to contend with on Twitter. So I have only had to do half the work I anticipated.

1. The Zombie - Also known as the “Bot“, these are twitter accounts that are not really alive, but have the appearance of being alive through the use of software automation. At first glance, their markings are quite similar to the Guru, the Marketer, or the Bartlett. Prolonged exposure to too many Zombies will inevitably suck the life out of your social media experience. Twitter does occasionally thin large herds, such as the Vancouver Zombie Massacre in August 2009. However, there is a strong tribe of approximately 20,000 who have evaded capture. They follow only each other, and tweet only amongst themselves. Under no circumstances should you post phrases like “how do I make money”, or keywords such as “MLM”, “trump” or “niche marketing”. You will be mobbed by these creatures within the hour.

Identifying traits: inability to dialogue; inability to ReTweet; nearly identical following and follower numbers; posts are branded with the initials “API” to identify their tribe

2. The SexBot – Nearly identical to it’s cousin, the Bot, the SexBot is designed with the aim of luring traffic to pornographic websites, or “dating” websites geared towards the sex industry. It is advisable not to try engaging with Sexbots, nor to click on their links, due to the high potential of encountering credit card scams or malware, or discovering, after one has given their credit card information that the majority of the “hot horny women” in these dating websites are not real but will only try to lure unwitting visitors to yet another “pay for use” website and again ask for more money from my credit card.

Identifying traits: short lifespan; strange avatars

3. The PoorBot - This grouping deserves its own category. These accounts are created by network marketers and MLM advertisers who lack the financial means to pay the $9.99/monthly fee to have their account automated.

Identifying traits: high number of tweets until exhaustion causes them to abandon their account; large following rate; few followers

4. The Celebrity - These personalities are immensely popular, have millions of fans, are usually in the music, television or film industry, and have discovered that twitter is a good way to counter their loneliness during long limo rides to and from the recording studio.

Identifying traits: verified account; gargantuan follower count; generally tweet about what they saw on tv, or who they had lunch with

5. The Humanist – These personalities believe in democracy and fairness and, therefore have made a public stand that they will follow back everyone who chooses to follow them. They often have little to say, except how they found a way to find more followers, or to ask others how they might get more followers.

Identifying traits: few followers

6. The Guru (Beginner) – These are generally entreprenuers and marketers who have discovered a niche they are interested in, and have proclaimed themselves an expert in that new field.

Identifying traits: short life span; low follower count; tweets links to their new website

7. The Guru (Lightweight) – Once a beginning Guru has been around a few months, they will begin to learn the ins and outs of their new field, as well as how to interact with others on twitter.

Identifying traits: enormous post rate; 2000 to 5000 followers

8. The Guru (Advanced) – These are gurus who will actually be able to have others substantiate their leadership in their chosen field. They are sometimes referred to as “whales”, but few know why.

Identifying traits: follower and following count above 10,000; high ReTweeting Ratio; interactive; usually post “Good to see you!” to various followers six to eight times a day.

9. The Guru (Extreme) – These are leaders in their field who have reached such a high state of recognition, they simply cannot keep up with their followers, and unfollow everyone except a few within their inner circle, and no longer interact with anyone else. They have now reached a state comparable to the Celebrity.

Identifying traits: astronomical follower count, low following count; low interaction; ReTweet only @mashable and @problogger articles; have “Social Media Expert” or “Web 2.0 Expert” on their profile.

10. The Bartlett – Those who know they need to post something, but cannot think of anything to say, will often mutate into a Bartlett. Their posts are usually written by Oprah, Emerson, Zig Ziglar, and Robert Frost.

Identifying traits: all tweets begin and end in quotation marks

11. The ReTweeter – Nearly identical to the Bartlett, ReTweeters will only quote others who are also using Twitter

Identifying traits: RT; LOL; RT; Good one!; RT

12. The Plagiarist – These are Bartletts and RetTweeters who have given up crediting others for their witty or profound sayings. (See the aforementioned Bots)

13. The Chatterbox – These are personalities who, for some reason, have decided to use social media to socialize. They will talk about their day, ask others about their day, ask questions and try to provoke what they call “conversation” in the twitter stream.

Identifying traits: Question marks and exclamation marks in most posts; pages and pages of #FF posts at least once a week

14. The Novelist – Those who cannot contain their musings in a mere 140 characters, but have not yet set up a blog, will often become novelists. They will send multiple posts, each continuing from the last, over a spreee of 15-60 minutes. A question and answer period usually follows, or a very long period of silence.

Identifying traits: A twitter profile page with all the posts backwards which must be read bottom-to-top; no URL in their profile

15. The Hall Monitor - These personalities use twitter as a sounding board for the way they believe twitter should and should not be used. They have usually been using twitter for more than a month. They will sometimes correct your typos and grammatical mistakes.

Identifying Traits: general disdain for @guykawasaki

16. The Guerrilla – These personalities enjoy engaging others, asking questions, or providing feedback to posts, after extended periods of inactivity. Often, you do not even know they were following you until they come out of the bushes. Catching them in the act is very difficult. They will generally post their questions while you are away and then retreat immediately. Many hours, or even days, will pass before they follow up with you again.

Identifying traits: low post count; low follower count; replies to them usually begin with “which post were you talking about?

17. The Pugilist - Similar to the Guerrilla, Pugilists are always looking for a fight. They will come out of nowhere and begin a conversation before demanding that you apologize for something you said, regardless of whether or not you actually said it. Often, they will spam your followers, urging them to block you for spamming.

Identifying traits: no followers; only a first name on their profile; sort life expectancy

18. The Navel Gazer – These personalities tend to live alone and come to twitter to discuss their thoughts and feelings about people and events they do not name. Formalized members of this group are required, by charter, to complain about the lack of interesting tweets in their stream at least once per day.

Identifying Traits: low follower count; occasional profanity; “Twitter sucks!”

19. The Agonizer – Those who have created a twitter account, but are not certain why they are there. They will change their avatar regularly, update, delete, and re-update their profile information. They will post quotes, then ReTweet others, before disappearing from the twitter stream forever.

Identifying traits: 100-500 posts; a final six-moth old posts stating “See you all tomorrow!”

20. The Mole – These personalities may appear to be an Agonizer to most, but to a select few, maintain contact solely by Direct Messages. They enjoy conversation, but are uncomfortable with both the bright light of the twitter stream and the intimacy of email. For reasons unknown, Instant Messenger does not seem to work on their computers.

Identifying traits: 100-500 posts, most saying “Check your DM!!!”

21. The Face in the Crowd – These personalities may be a form of Bot, but no one is sure. One theory is that they are future Guru‘s who have yet to choose a vocation and have created a twitter account in preparation for that celebrated day so they will have a host of followers instantly at hand.

Identifying traits: no name; no avatar; no posts, follow others for no apparent rhyme or reason.

22. The DJ Wannabe: Known to frequent the blip.fm running grounds, these people assume you do not have an i-pod of your own, and broadcast their musical whims to anyone who might listen.  Thanks to a new literacy program at the Learning Annex, many former DJ Wannabe’s now write their own tweets, and some even have blogs now! Record scratching ain’t what it used to be.

Identifying traits:  overly nostalgic, often use a confusing patois of slang when they switch  genres too quickly.

23. The Multiple Personality Tweeter – A combination of any or possibly all of the above. Also known as the LoriPop (thanks to her suggestion in the comments below!)

Please notify me immediately if I have neglected anyone. Which disorder, or group of disorders, do you suffer from? (Myself, I have only been contaminated with three of these disorders, and the therapy has been unresponsive thus far.)

Tagged as: personality disorders, Twitter