Is #WritersLift harmful? – My Ity Opinion

I don’t think that there is a day that goes by where there isn’t some tweet with the #WritersLift hashtag. The wholesome reason behind it, how it is supposed to uplift and bring other authors and writers together, makes you think how could this be anything but positive. However, is it really helping people? Or is it just something that has being used to selfishly gain followers without any real purpose.

So I pose the question…is #WritersLift harmful?

When I first joined book twitter I would have to say that no, I saw authors posting these tweets when they reached a milestone themselves to help other authors get some recognition. How could that possibly be bad?

Well first we have to look at Twitter on a whole, there are so many variations but the idea of follow for follow is simple. Tit for tat. But what is that really doing for you in the end? The sad truth is that most people that post those tweets will unfollow you and hope that you don’t notice so that they reap the benefits of having a wide audience while you’ve gotten nothing in return.

I’ve seen so many people tweet that they’ve even muted “WritersLift” because they were tired of seeing the tweets so often. That makes the effectiveness of the hashtag already lower than before.

So why do it use it?

I think it comes down to the simple fact that followers is how people base their success. Even I’m guilty of obsessing over numbers and feeling down when I don’t have this amount or that amount. It would be okay if there wasn’t people abusing the hashtag itself. The sheer number of times I’ve seen it on my feed is enough to tell me that it’s a popular hashtag.

I get it, it gives you immediate results. We live in a day and age where getting immediate results is necessary, the attention, the likes, the comments. They all feed into our need for validation, to be liked and seen.

So does that make #WritersLift harmful? Maybe. Because it doesn’t actually give you what you need. Not in the long run. Yes there are plenty of good people that use it, or that comment in it and follow everyone without ever unfollowing. Should that mean that it not be used because some people are jerks?

Honestly I think that you can’t get around crappy people who will not respect what the hashtag is all about. Everyone should do what they want without worrying about other people. All I can say is be mindful of who is using it. Don’t support someone who’s entire Twitter is essentially begging for followers. They won’t follow you back. Maybe then we can turn it around for the better!