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This counted itself down at midnight on the 8th of February 2020.
Let freedom ring!
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Countdown till I am full time hippy
Tag Archives: the hippy
Politi-hippy 2 – hippy’s revenge
I’m going to tell you flat out, from the start, there is no revenge. I’ve never done a sequel to one of my pieces before, and I really wanted to nail the title. I’m not out to settle any personal scores, I just wanted to get your attention. Did it work? Are you reading? Cool.
As I mentioned in my previous piece, Politi-hippy, I have been swept up in this stupid election we’re stuck with this month. I wrote a couple of pieces about the campaign, one about Boris Johnson’s utter lack of character, and the other on the poor branding choices made by Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats.
The whole thing is really stressing me out, and I know I am not the only one. My coping mechanism is that I started making weird, funny graphics to express my quiet rage. I’ve made like 50 of them in the last week or so. I am ever so slightly obsessed. You can find half of them on the the original Politi-hippy post, including the 6 panel Baby Yoda series. No baby yoda is safe from Boris Johnson’ Tory party!
I’ve been sharing them on Twitter and at least one of them has gone viral enough that you may have actually seen it. It’s this one:
Yep, that was me. Basic joke, simple format, internet gold. Who knew? And here I’ve spent 15 years trying to come up with original material. I don’t mean to sell myself short, it’s a decent gag, but hardly my best. In my own defence, I posted it not long after the interview finished on TV, so my timing was very good. Sure, it’s uncredited, and I doubt many people will see me claim credit here, but that’s ok. I like making people laugh.
I’ve never gone viral before in any meaningful way, so this was a new one for me. I knew it had been successful when I saw other people posting it all over the place. The truth is, I suck at Twitter, but in the last week or so, I’ve learned how to suck at it less. Go me!
I went on to make a bunch of graphics around Donald Trump’s visit:
Similar format, another basic joke. Private Eye should hire me, when I am a free agent again. They won’t, I’m too expensive, and I doubt they pay in weed anyway. Will work for bud, just putting that out there.
I made a bunch for the Trump visit, but that was the best one. I did try some other jokes with the graphic, this is the only other one that seemed to land:
And I did this one, too, which seemed to do better with Americans than British people. And it’s funny, because it’s true. Allegedly.
Trump and Boris did meet, but you didn’t get to see it, until now:
Trump left early because a bunch of bad kids were gossiping about him, including his very best friend, Boris Johnson. Here’s what that looked like:
I even did an arty one, with a fancy-pants literary quote, that I had to Google because of my vague memory and piss poor American education:
Once dumb Donny ditched NATO, I shifted my attention to what I think is the key to this election, tactical voting. There’s far more of us, than there are of them, but we are fragmented. We need to be smart. Are you smart? Of course you are! Smart people vote tactically. We all might prefer different parties, but who we like is not nearly as important as who we defeat. We need to vote the Tories out! Feel free to share any graphic I’ve made, no need to credit me.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks and well done you! Since I started posting all these graphics, I have increased my visibility on Twitter exponentially. I’ve had tweets liked and RT’d by a former MP and peer, the ex-wife of one of the world’s most famous rock stars, newspaper columnists and the original bassist from the original punk rock band. That’s why I will be back to tell you all about this and more in part 3 of the Politi-hippy series, Politi-hippy-Post-mortem, coming as soon as I can, after election day. And man I can’t wait till election day is done!
As a special treat for making it all the way to the end, here are 4 bonus, extra graphics that I’ve only just started sharing on Twitter. You can share them too.
The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, cannabis evangelist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years. In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in news.
The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!
“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere.
You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy but only if you look really hard.
Why I suck at Twitter
This was originally published in August 2011. I haven’t edited it all, reposting it now, because 8 years later, I am not really that much better at Twitter. A lot of this still applies.
I love Twitter, but I fear my love for it remains unrequited.
I’ve been properly on Twitter for about two and a half years. To be more precise, as of this writing, I have been using Twitter since the 31st of January 2009, which works out to 931 days. I used howlongontwitter.com to calculate that, I didn’t count it up myself.
In that time, I’ve found Twitter to be indispensable and addictive and while I am not the most prolific tweeter you will meet, I constantly read my timeline. I must dip in and out of it a thousand times a day.
What I don’t do is tweet or interact with other people enough. That’s why I suck at Twitter.
My tweets tend towards feeble and offensive (but original) jokes that probably make people laugh uncomfortably, if at all.
I also tweet, or rather retweet stuff about legalising cannabis and other drugs, because that is my pet cause.
Occasionally I may tweet something that I feel strongly about, like the recent riots in London.
I tweet about what I’m watching on TV sometimes and the weather occasionally and even the odd food-related tweet too.
In other words, I’m not unpleasant or rude, just probably not that interesting. That’s why I suck at Twitter.
I’m anonymous online, by choice, mainly because I am so open about my own cannabis use and as its status is currently illegal, anonymity allows me the luxury of honesty. I like to pretend this stance furthers the cause of legalisation, but I’m not always convinced it does and that’s a subject best explored another day. This post is about Twitter.
The other reason I remain anonymous is I prefer to be unknown. I am not seeking attention for myself. If you Googled my real name, you wouldn’t find me anywhere online; I’m not on Facebook, LinkedIn, nothing. And while I have worked in the media for more than two decades, I’ve managed to avoid having a byline, screen credit, nor any mention of my real name and that has been intentional.
What it means on Twitter is I don’t use my real name or a photograph of myself as my avatar. That is why I suck at Twitter too.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I suck at Twitter for the rather silly reason that I have been sucked into thinking about follower numbers, something I have managed to avoid until now.
I’ve never really been bothered by how many people are following me, I haven’t done anything ever to intentionally gain them, never asked for them, begged for them, nothing like that. I’ve just tweeted when I felt like it, followed people (and accounts) that have interested me and that’s about it.
I’ve always found it a bit distasteful when people tweet about the number of followers they have, in whatever context.
“I need 27 more followers to reach 500, help!”
“Please RT this [insert celebrity here] I really need more followers urgently!”
“I gained 57 followers today, all because [insert celebrity here] retweeted me.”
Worse, is seeing celebrities tweeting each other and exaggerating their worth by bragging they have the most followers. I find this rather tragic.
Worrying about follower numbers is a mug’s game and sadly in the last week or so, I have become that mug. Here’s why: I’ve recently noticed a few people I know online, who started on Twitter when I did, now have double or treble the followers I have. I am a victim of comparative maths.
I know its silly, I know its meaningless, but its been on my mind recently.
This is not meant to be a moan or a complaint, everything I’m telling you is observational and self-critical, but not a whinge or backhanded plea for more people to follow me. I’m just trying to understand what I am doing wrong on Twitter.
What am I doing wrong on Twitter? Loads, it would seem.
There are quite a few people I follow on Twitter, who don’t follow me back. I don’t mean celebrities, but normal people, like you and me. Well, more like you probably as I don’t come anywhere near being normal.
The lack of follow-backs from people I like perplexes me.
Sometimes, I scroll through my own tweets and read them back, to see if there’s something in them that makes people not want to follow me. Nothing leaps out.
I think I’m fairly pleasant, thoughtful and I’m true to myself. So what could it be?
The lack of a photo and a name is off-putting, but my anonymity policy is not going to change until weed is legal. End of, as the kids today say. Its a reason, but that alone can’t be the only reason.
I don’t interact or tweet enough, but guess what? I’m probably the same in real life, being mostly a loner and misanthropic with it.
If you’re shit at life, you are going to be shit at Twitter. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to me, but it does.
How can I be more socially successful on Twitter than I am in real life? Answer: I can’t.
Quite oddly, I think I am probably more shy on Twitter than I am in real life. Often I do think about responding to other people’s tweets, then I think better of it and don’t. I don’t like tweeting negatively, if I disagree with someone, however strongly, I tend not to say anything. And if I do agree with someone, I don’t want to seem sycophantic, so I don’t tweet.
On the rare occasion when I do tweet someone and they don’t respond, even with the simplest of acknowledgement, then I am crestfallen and I think the fear of that often prevents me from interacting with people too. Maybe you know what I mean, maybe you think that’s a lame reason, but its true.
Whenever anyone tweets me and they are polite, I always make a point of responding. I always try to thank people for RTs too, as long as I’ve noticed they’ve done so. I guess I just try to treat people on Twitter as I would like to be treated.
I suck at Twitter because I suck at life. I’m starting to believe I’m not particularly good with either pursuit. That’s not a happy conclusion.
Or, I could take the tack that I’m not unpopular on Twitter, I’m just undiscovered.
The best lies I tell, are the ones I tell myself.
If you do follow me, well done you for finding Twitter’s best kept secret! You are truly a person of excellent taste! You have keen, discerning eye for the hippest and coolest, that your average nobody tends to pass on by without a second thought You’re a trend spotter and a trend setter!
Ah-hem.
I’ve pretty much accepted that I will continue to exist in Twitter obscurity, while others around me zoom ever higher. I’m ok with that.
I take a lot from Twitter, I’m quite greedy in my quest for knowledge, I just feel guilty sometimes that I don’t put enough back into it. I’d like to entertain and inform more people, but that’s not who I am, not in real life, not online. So it goes.
These truths should be self-evident, but its taken me nearly 1,300 words to get here.
So now you know why I suck at Twitter. And now I do too.
The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, cannabis evangelist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years. In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in news.
The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!
“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere.
You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy You can find out for yourself just how badly I suck at Twitter. And why I don’t work in sales.