... or in this case, follow them on Twitter.
You may have heard the adage before - "Never meet your heroes." The reason for that is because you learn how human they are and you witness their strengths as well as foibles first hand, and sometimes that can be quite disheartening.
Such is the case with Stephen King.
I wouldn't call him my hero, but I've enjoyed his fiction since I was a teenager, and have always thought it'd be nice to meet him someday. So when I signed up for Twitter, I began following his account.
I've now decided I have to stop. I can't stand to listen to him whine anymore.
I understand that he didn't support Trump. He's even said more than a few times that because of the Watergate scandal he refuses to vote Republican ever again. Hey, I'm cool with that. The man has his personal political beliefs, and whether I agree with his beliefs or not, those beliefs don't keep me from enjoying his work.
But in the lead up to the November 2016 election and in these months following, his Twitter posts have been predominately political, wholly anti-Trump, and have lacked any sort of intelligent thought.
Don't get me wrong. I follow plenty of anti-Trump people, and probably the same number of pro-Trump people. Unlike many of my "open-minded" friends who immediately block anyone who doesn't believe exactly like they do, I read both sides of any issue/debate.
Unfortunately, though, King constantly posts whiny little quips that completely lack any sort of depth, wit, or thought. I honestly expected him to...well, be a better writer. His tweets are simplistic rehashes of items we've all seen on the news multiple times. If he only posted them once in a while, that'd be fine. But he posts multiple times per day - I sometimes wonder if he's even writing fiction any more, seems like all his time is spent on Twitter now like a teenage girl who can't stop giving updates while at the shopping mall.
My plan is simple. I'll mute his feed for a while, give him a few months to emotionally recover, and then check back in. If he's still going on and on, then I'll stop following him. I'll continue to read his fiction, and I'm sure that King being King, like in the past, he'll get in a political jab or two. But that's okay, I have faith he'll temper his comments for the sake of his fiction.
I still like the guy, just can't follow him on Twitter.
I'm just one guy among his thousands of followers and loyal re-tweeters, I doubt he'll even notice I'm gone.
Until Next Time....
Tweetly Yours,
Michael
