The Bait and Switch Follower

There we were Friday afternoon around 3pm, listening to our iPhones simultaneously chime as the WordPress notification’s cheerful tone went baaddiinngg!  Scrambling to our phones, unlocking our screens, there it was. The beautiful shiny badge:

100 Followers! As we hugged each other, jumping up and down like we were at a Tiesto concert, we giddily gushed about our excitement that 100 readers subscribed to our infant blog. Pop the champagne! Order the 3-tier chocolate lava cake! Put on some Kool & The Gang. Release the streamers and balloons! It’s celebration good times, come on!

Eager to see who our 100th follower was, I looked back at our notifications. Wait a minute. Were we hallucinating?? It says we have ninety-nine! 99 followers and a bitch ain’t one. The follower bitch unfollowed us! The nerves. This bait & switch act is preposterous! It is like…

– Chasing the girl of your dreams until she finally gives into a first date and you say, “HA HA HA SIKE! YOU’RE SO EASY.”

– Clicking on a Buzzfeed article in hopes to learn something slightly intellectual based on the title, only to see it’s another post filled with cats and Justin Bieber’s hair.

Bait and switch followers. I can’t imagine what goes through that followers mind. “Hey Bruce, watch this… I will follow this person’s blog, let them feel a glimmer of excitement and pleasure, wait 10 minutes, just enough time to allow them to click on my profile and follow me back. Wait for it… wait for it.. *clicks unfollow*.” Their justification is they are higher up on the internet pyramid and therefore walk on mighty internet ground. They matter-o-factly state, “I will continue to rise with a higher follower:following ratio while they stupidly think their ratio continues to be 1:1. Bahaha. Call me the Phantom Follower.”

The real life version of following and unfollowing would be like befriending someone and letting them live the rest of their lives thinking they are a great friend who is just always busy. The call went straight to voice mail — she must be on a plane. The iMessage was read but 24 hours later still no reply back — it must be her two year old who opened it. The Instragram post shows she was tagged in a photo at the bar — it must be a #lategram. She said she couldn’t go out.

Don’t be that friend or follower!

Be the loyal follower – follow us until we compromise our blogging integrity by posting lists like 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Bieber or posts filled with quizzes like Why Don’t Your Friends Like You. If you’re on Bloglovin’ follow us if you really like what we have to write. For those that haven’t unfollowed yet — stay cool!

– Emily