Fed up with being called a ‘Ginger Busker,’ Ed Sheeran leaves Twitter, and it’s not a bad idea for some professional poker players to adopt the same approach.
The ritual is the same. I wake up, stumble into the toilet like a drunk ghost, sleep mask still covering my eyes, preventing me from seeing aliens, and then by the time I have finished my business, I wake up and check my mobile phone.
This morning, there was a class tweet from Donald Trump. The guy is a nightmare for office, but he does have an addictive Twitter stream. Never before in the history of our tiny blue planet have we had a filterless President, like Trump.
Here was this morning’s gem.
North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life? Hard to believe that South Korea…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2017
“Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?”
Priceless.
And then, during the same sitting, I read that Ed Sheeran confided with The Sun that he had quit Twitter because his feed consists of “nothing but people saying mean things.”
Sheeran plays a mean tune, something I know because my sister has his album on repeat in her car, each time I pinch a lift. But other than that, I know nothing about him.
But I do feel for him.
As I sit in Starbucks typing away, minus a drink, which must be annoying the baristas, I look around and see people of different gender, cultures, and worldview – and yet they all share one thing in common.
They all secretly yearn to be liked by complete strangers.
And so do I.
So do you.
A few days ago, David Beckham, an icon of mine, received criticism from some quarters of his 38.4m Instagram followers for posting a photo of him kissing his seven-year-old daughter on the lips. My 16-year-old son and I just took a snapshot of ourselves kissing on the lips and sent it to him for support.
@Davidbeckham I will be kissing my Dad on the lips till my dying day #supportparentlove
We did want to support him.
We both think Beckham is the business.
But there was also that elevated hit of adrenaline that you get, hoping that the former Manchester United Master responds.
Twitter it like a drug, and like all drugs, there are times when it seems like you’re soaring on Aladdin’s rug, and other times you feel like a small plane crash.
And it’s for this reason that I would use Twitter sparingly if I were a poker player.
Is Twitter a Benefit or Negative For a Poker Player?
Ed Sheeran isn’t the only celebrity to quit Twitter because reading the abuse leaves him in a dark room. The UK comic Stephen Fry also bailed after he received ill-treatment for calling his friend Jenny Beavan a “Bag Lady” during the 2016 BAFTAS.
“Will all you sanctimonious f***ers f*** the f*** off Jenny Beavan is a friend and joshing is legitimate. Christ, I want to leave the planet.” Fry tweeted to his 12.7m followers before taking a five-month hiatus.
26-year-old Sheeran has 19 million followers.
I recently found myself Googling how to mute and block people from my Chingster23 Twitter feed. I sometimes have people poking me for comments or views I have shared in my poker articles. I find the 140-character limitation frustrating when people come out of nowhere to start poking the bear. I must be a novice. Each time I try to reply, I find myself being ripped apart like a chicken preparing for life in a KFC bucket.
And it hurts.
I find the bothersome nature of it lingering far longer than the smell that enveloped me as I had a little chuckle at Donald Trump’s North Korean Tweet this morning.
And then I think of people like Cate Hall. Someone who likes to share her opinion on a broad range of topics with her 10.5k Twitter followers. Hall is the master of sharing an opinion on the issues that are more likely to divide opinion.
I get that.
Anything else is not worthy of an opinion.
And I think it’s healthy for people to hold debates about philanthropy, politics, and poker.
I don’t think it’s healthy when the discussion turns into a vitriolic car crash when the only purpose of everyone participating is to look more Fonz like than the other people involved in the fight.
And they come from everywhere.
I am starting to think that someone somewhere has already cracked Artificial General Intelligence and is playing around with its capabilities by creating fake Twitter accounts that purposefully track down people like Cate Hall and fling abuse at her.
Cate Hall doesn’t come out of the wash spotless in this. There must be a part of the whole murdersome experience that she likes. I don’t see her donning rubber gloves here. She wades in unafraid to get blood underneath her glittering fingernails.
But to what end?
What is the purpose?
The hyperactivity on the account is likely to scare the living crap out of any prospective whiter than white online poker room looking for a squeaky clean ambassador.
And then you have the time that it eats up.
In her fantastic book Your Money or Your Life, the author Vicki Robin talks about the importance of comparing dollars spent with life remaining on this planet, as a good measure of how to spend your time and money.
I follow 1,282 poker players on my Chingster23 account, including Cate Hall, and I check it daily looking for anything newsworthy. I’m always amazed by the same four to five people who spend more time on Twitter than Fox Mulder spends searching for little green men.
It’s a full-time job.
When do they get a chance to play poker?
And do they engage in this nonsense when they’re playing poker?
The excessive use of Twitter argument reminds me of the excessive use of weed case. Over the years, I have spoken to a lot of pot smokers who play poker professionally, to ask them if it improves their game.
I have always received varied results, but there has always been a strong contingent of weed smokers that admit, smoking when playing reduces their edge, but not enough to effect their bottom line. As a result, they keep on smoking because they enjoy it so much.
I believe, that continually engaging with idiots on Twitter, who are trying to make you look stupid in 140-characters, can put you in a bad mood, and this will take vital mental energy and focus away from your game. But I imagine there are plenty out there who know this already but are still managing to beat the games with a grumpy looking snarl on their face.
But it’s not for me.
If I weren’t a poker writer, I wouldn’t have a personal Twitter account. I honestly can’t deal with the critics. If they were sitting in front of me spouting the same nonsense, which would rarely, if ever, happen, then my experience knows how to handle that.
But Twitter?
I am a complete an utter wimp.
Ed Sheeran is fed up of being called a Ginger Busker.
When are more poker players going to realise that social media does nothing except lower their edge, and ditch it along with Phil Hellmuth’s Play Poker Like The Pros?
“The head-fuck for me has been trying to work out why people dislike me so much,” Sheeran told The Sun.
The head-fuck for me has been trying to work out why poker players love the Twitter wars so much.
