Bonus: Talking Twitter with Matt Swanson

February 11, 2022

In a long bonus episode, Matt Swanson (https://twitter.com/_swanson) joins Aaron to talk about Twitter.

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Transcript

Aaron
00:00:00 – 00:00:09
Okay. Here we go. So this week, actually, not this week. This is gonna be a bonus episode midweek. So this is Aaron, and Sean and Colleen aren't here.
Aaron
00:00:09 – 00:00:29
But instead, I have my friend, Matt Swanson here. And Matt and I have never spoken before. We've been Twitter friends for a long time, maybe a year or so, but this is literally the first time we've ever spoken, and then that happened like 30 seconds ago. So, Matt, do you wanna introduce yourself?
Matt
00:00:29 – 00:00:49
Yeah. I'm Matt. I'm a product engineer at Arrow's and, yeah, I like Twitter. And, yeah, that's how we kinda met, and I thought it was interesting. I know you had a podcast recently where you talked about some Twitter stuff, on another podcast and just wanted to jump in and talk more because I think we could both probably talk about this for, like, 6 hours.
Aaron
00:00:49 – 00:01:06
Yeah. I think we probably could. So on the last one, so I tweeted about that I was gonna go on and talk about Twitter on this show, and you were like, great. Now we don't have to talk. And then after the show, you came back and were, like, actually, there's still a lot to talk about.
Aaron
00:01:06 – 00:01:30
So on that podcast, which is the start up to something show, On that podcast, I talked a lot about, like, my getting over the fear of being on Twitter. And then I think we have a shared doc here. I think we're gonna talk a lot about, like, more tactical strategic stuff around, you know, sharing developer content on Twitter. Does that seem right?
Matt
00:01:30 – 00:02:00
Yeah. I think so. I thought that was really interesting talking about some of the, like, the hurdles of just getting getting started, that really resonated with me because I had the same kind of, stance. And it it was, like, years ago, I just realized that it's like networking for developers is not like networking for business people. Like, programmers are not on LinkedIn or, like, going to trade shows or, like, happy hour, mixers.
Matt
00:02:00 – 00:02:06
And that that was, like, always stuff that I was, like, allergic to, and I'm sure you probably were too.
Aaron
00:02:06 – 00:02:07
Yep.
Matt
00:02:07 – 00:02:24
So it was just really cool once I kind of, like, got over that mental hurdle that was like, all you have to do, to quote, you know, Patrick McKenzie is, like, be helpful on the Internet, and you'll start, like, making, friends and connections, that way. So and that that's really
Aaron
00:02:24 – 00:02:24
all, like,
Matt
00:02:24 – 00:02:34
networking is. Right? It's like, I know these people now, and so I can, like, talk to them, and they know who I am, and I know who they are. And that's all that, like, you know, the fancy business school networking
Aaron
00:02:35 – 00:02:35
Yes.
Matt
00:02:35 – 00:02:35
Really is.
Aaron
00:02:35 – 00:02:56
A 100%. And when did you, like because I think when I came across you, you already had a ton of followers. So when did you have that breakthrough for yourself? Because I think we've been around the same, like, micro conf, bootstrappy. I think we've been around the same circles, but I only came across you, like, a year ago, and we've been buds since then.
Aaron
00:02:56 – 00:02:57
So what was your turn?
Matt
00:02:57 – 00:03:17
We were we were DM ing, and it's like we both listened to this one really weird obscure podcast that has been on the air for, like, 10 years, which is the the texting podcast. Mhmm. I don't know. Like, I've I've I got my little Twitter anniversary thing yesterday, and it was, like, 12 years on Twitter. Wow.
Matt
00:03:17 – 00:03:35
So so it's definitely been a while. But it's kind of funny. The the first time I actually when I made my first, when I made this Twitter account at first, I was I would think I was in college, and I just I wanted this, like, actual, like, microblogging, which is what Twitter sort of claimed to be. Problem call me.
Aaron
00:03:35 – 00:03:35
I'm just gonna,
Matt
00:03:35 – 00:04:06
like, I'm just gonna post these little snippets and, you know, hey. I'm working on this project, or, like, my code won't compile, or, like, I just had a burrito. And I wanted to put that on my personal website, and it was like, oh, well, I can just, like, post them on Twitter, and then it'll, like, embed into, into my feed. That's kind of like the there's a there's a very nerdy, reason that my Twitter username is is _, because that's like a convention for naming, like, private variables. I was like Oh my gosh.
Matt
00:04:06 – 00:04:10
I was like, oh, yeah. This is just gonna be, like, my little private account. Like, I'm not gonna I
Aaron
00:04:10 – 00:04:12
did not Twitter website in this spot.
Matt
00:04:12 – 00:04:18
Yeah. Back in Oh, man. And back in 2010, like, you could you could text to Twitter. That was, like, a big Yeah.
Aaron
00:04:18 – 00:04:19
I remember that.
Matt
00:04:19 – 00:04:29
Text to post. So that was, like, oh, I can I can, like, text when I'm out getting a burrito, and then it'll, like, show up on my website instead of, you know, me having to, like, go in and edit some HTML?
Aaron
00:04:29 – 00:04:39
That used to be what people did. And for some reason, we thought that that was interesting. And maybe it was because you only had, like, 6 followers, and they were your actual friends. Yeah. That's how it was for me.
Aaron
00:04:39 – 00:04:43
It was like my roommates in college. We all followed each other, and that was kind of it.
Matt
00:04:43 – 00:05:03
Yeah. So, yeah, I've I've been around for I don't know. Like, 12 years is a pretty long time on Twitter, so I've kinda seen, like, all the different waves of, you know, what is this thing? And then, like, it's interesting to see, like, the different, like, generations of, like, Twitter celebrity people and and kind of the trends and stuff.
Aaron
00:05:03 – 00:05:13
So the trend we're in now, if we just wanna go ahead and get to it, the trend we're in now is is the grift trend. So it's the it's the
Matt
00:05:14 – 00:05:15
Chill your course.
Aaron
00:05:16 – 00:05:41
It's the, like, post the hot post the hot take that just as engagement bait. It's the threads from Wikipedia. It's so it's a lot of, it's a lot of this like growing followers at all costs stuff, which I am super against And having followed you, it seems like you are too. So what's your what's your hot take on the current trend on Twitter of growing your followers?
Matt
00:05:42 – 00:06:14
Yeah. I mean and I don't think it's necessarily even just on on Twitter. Like, I was I was, talking to, Sam Selakoff yesterday or the day before, and it's, like, it's it's the same thing on YouTube. It's, like, all these very big channels are very, like, either beginner focused or it's just, like, extreme clickbait to get you to click. And then when you have these winner take all dynamics where popular accounts get more subscribers, and then more people watch their videos, and then that shows up, in San Bernardino and Twitter.
Matt
00:06:14 – 00:06:31
Right? Like, a a viral, like, the the 10 best tricks for learning JavaScript is, like, gonna get 5,000 retweets and, you know, all all this stuff. And I don't know. Like, I I on one hand, like, I think there's probably not too much harm in that stuff, but
Aaron
00:06:31 – 00:06:32
I agree. It's not
Matt
00:06:32 – 00:06:53
like it's not the circles that I follow, and I think you and I both kind of realize that, like, you can just kind of ignore that. It's like there's not nothing for folks like you and me who are, like, working programmers who are, you know, not at the beginning of our career, it's like, that's not our space. Like, that's a space for other people.
Aaron
00:06:53 – 00:07:19
And it is it is pretty easily ignored once you mute or unfollow or whatever the, you know, the main offenders. It's pretty easily ignored. And I will say before we dive in too far to all of our heart hot takes, y'all can do whatever you want. Like, that that's one thing that I told these other guys on this other podcast was I'm not trying to make everyone else tweet like me. I don't really care.
Aaron
00:07:19 – 00:07:38
Like, I follow people that I find interesting. And if I don't if I don't follow, somebody, it's not because I don't like them. It's just because they tweet about things that I don't necessarily wanna see, and that doesn't make them bad or worse or anything. It's just I I just so it's like to put that out there, do whatever y'all want.
Matt
00:07:38 – 00:08:09
Yeah. Some somewhere along the line, it became like, this thing where it's like, oh, Twitter's so bad or Twitter is terrible or, like, all this stuff is garbage. And it's like, it it reminds me of that I think I forget who it was, like, Tyler the Creator that's like, for being cyberbullied, it's like, just close your eyes. Like, it's a computer. And and, you know, obviously, there is there is harassment and there's bad stuff happening on Twitter, but for the most part, it's like you can block, you can mute, you can unfollow, you don't have to be on Twitter at all.
Matt
00:08:10 – 00:08:22
So that's kind of my attitude. It's like, if you're not getting what you want out of it, like, you can opt out or, like, you can try to change it. But there's I mean, the worst thing is, like, the people that just post on Twitter about how terrible, their Twitter
Aaron
00:08:22 – 00:08:22
Yeah.
Matt
00:08:22 – 00:08:23
Experience is.
Aaron
00:08:24 – 00:08:58
Yeah. Like, publicly not publicly complaining is one of my things. So I do come across a lot of stuff that I see that I maybe don't like, but I just don't like, I don't complain about it publicly because, I feel like that nobody wants to follow that, and that's really, it's kind of a downer to be the guy that's always complaining about stuff. And much, like, including an external projection internally, I don't want for my own sake to be the guy that always goes straight to complaining. You know?
Aaron
00:08:58 – 00:09:08
So if I can get in the habit of seeing something I don't like and scrolling by it, like, that's better for me. Yeah. That's that's a good mental health practice to just let it go.
Matt
00:09:09 – 00:09:41
Yeah. The the interesting thing too is, like, as you start becoming, like, more connected to your particular, you know, niche on Twitter, I think you start realizing that, like, all the people that you think are these, you know, celebrities or these, like, abstract concepts of people are actually just regular people on the app. So Mhmm. It's like, you know, if I see somebody talking shit about Tailwind, it's like, oh, like, well, I like Adam, and I think Tailwind's pretty good. And it's like, what are you doing?
Matt
00:09:41 – 00:09:56
Like, you know, you're just you're just kind of, like, I I'd really rather people, like you said, kind of, like, take the positive. And, like, if you have something that is instead of saying something negative about something else, like, just worry about, like, what do you like about your stuff?
Aaron
00:09:56 – 00:10:14
Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I I totally agree, and I've heard Adam on other podcasts talk about what a downer Twitter is for him. And after I tweeted something about how much I loved it, he's like, man, he publicly said, you've got Stockholm syndrome, which is where you fall in love with your captor.
Aaron
00:10:14 – 00:10:27
And I it's different. It's different. He's got a 100,000 followers, and For sure. He's the head of the biggest CSS framework that there is. And so it's just I can't even comprehend.
Aaron
00:10:28 – 00:10:34
And that's why, you know, a lot of what we're talking about obviously doesn't apply to everyone, much less to Adam Wathan.
Matt
00:10:34 – 00:10:44
Yeah. I mean, you and I were the, like I I I tweeted to you the other day. Like, if you combine our accounts, we're one of those, like, cool 10 k Uh-huh. Accounts. Right?
Matt
00:10:44 – 00:10:49
So, yeah, there's definitely different different tiers. Do you watch, Succession?
Aaron
00:10:50 – 00:10:51
No. I haven't seen any of it.
Matt
00:10:51 – 00:11:04
There's there's a there's a good, like, throwaway line about, like, the corporate hierarchy and how you wanna be at, like, the bottom of the top. Right? Mhmm. Like, you wanna be you don't wanna be at the top of the top. Like, that's the most stress.
Matt
00:11:04 – 00:11:20
That's, like, everybody's gunning for you. It's like, but you don't wanna be at the bottom. Like, you wanna be at the bottom of the top. And I think that's, like, the exact sweet spot of Twitter, which is, like, you know, the 1 k to 10 k range of followers where it's not crazy, but you're not, like, posting into the void.
Aaron
00:11:20 – 00:11:43
Right. And there are, like, you have you have friends on there. And so you're talking back and forth with people, and people, like, know that you're a good faith actor. And so when you tweet something at someone, they respond back with good faith. And once you hit, like, once you hit that range, it starts to be a lot of fun because you have some genuine connections there.
Aaron
00:11:43 – 00:12:06
Mhmm. And that that has been the best part for me is now people like, I can talk to people and they understand who I am and know that I'm, like, a real person. Real thoughts to give or, like, real things to say, and it's not just brushed off as, you know, some anon account who's gonna be ignored. So Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron
00:12:06 – 00:12:10
That's been that's been super fun for me. It's, like, the actual personal connections.
Matt
00:12:12 – 00:12:40
Yeah. One thing one thing that I think maybe when you first start at Twitter or if you, like, have never really, I'll say, taken Twitter seriously, it's like there's a certain threshold, and I'm not exactly sure what the number, would be anymore. But, like, at some point, basically, you'll get, like, 5 to 10 interactions on anything you post. So, whether that's a comment or somebody liking it or whatever. And, like, that's when you really see, like, how the, like, weird dopamine machine of Twitter Yes.
Matt
00:12:40 – 00:12:57
Works. Because before that, you're just like, oh, I just posted it, and, like, there's nothing. Right? But then you're like, oh, now I can post something, and I can I can reliably know that, like, this is gonna, you know, this is gonna drip out ever for, you know, the next half an hour? Like, somebody's gonna be doing something on here, and I can come back.
Matt
00:12:57 – 00:13:12
And that's how I mean, for me, the it's a little it's a little bit scary when you first start because you're like, oh, I can see how people get, like, addicted to this and Yes. You know, have, there's definitely accounts on Twitter that have a 100,000 tweets that have been, like, around for 3 months or something.
Aaron
00:13:12 – 00:13:19
What's your strategy for dealing with that? So how do you not get addicted to the hits? Or do you have a strategy?
Matt
00:13:20 – 00:13:31
No. I mean, I I don't think I've really had a problem, with it. Like, well, one thing that I do is, like, I have a very small, like, like, follow list.
Aaron
00:13:32 – 00:13:36
Yeah. We gotta talk about that. Yeah. You follow 30 people.
Matt
00:13:36 – 00:13:55
Yeah. Yeah. I I switch it up sometimes and, but what that does is it's like the main feed of Twitter is, like, very low volume for me. So I can, like, I can scroll through and, like, read all the tweets. And then, I can come back, like, an hour later, and there's maybe been, like, 5 or 10, you know, posts or whatever.
Matt
00:13:55 – 00:14:01
So that I that I think helps with it not being like a fire hose that you have to constantly be be looking at.
Aaron
00:14:01 – 00:14:09
Do you feel like you miss what's going on at all? Because 30 people is not that many.
Matt
00:14:10 – 00:14:16
Yeah. So the answer is no, and, like, the reason why is because I use, lists for everything else.
Aaron
00:14:16 – 00:14:27
Okay. So tell me I don't use lists at all. So what's the story here and why? Yeah. So it says it says on this doc why Twitter lists are so good and Aaron should use them.
Aaron
00:14:27 – 00:14:29
So Yeah. Give me your best shot.
Matt
00:14:29 – 00:14:48
Like, they're so great. Right? Because, like, one, the thing about lists, the posts in a list are always chronological. They always have all the posts from all the people, and they don't have any of the suggested, you know, so and so liked this that you follow. No, no sponsored stuff.
Matt
00:14:48 – 00:15:08
And the the real killer feature is you can do this thing in Twitter called pinning the list, and, it doesn't really seem that important. But if you use the the official, like, Twitter mobile app, basically, what that does is, like, you have your feed, and then it just makes tabs for each of your lists, and you can just swipe. So you can swipe between. So I have, like
Aaron
00:15:08 – 00:15:11
like, basically alternate home feeds?
Matt
00:15:12 – 00:15:14
Exactly. And then Okay.
Aaron
00:15:14 – 00:15:15
So what do you have? Group
Matt
00:15:15 – 00:15:26
them up. Lists. Yeah. So, like, I have, like so the main thing I tweet about on Twitter is, like, Ruby and Rails stuff in the same way that you're, you know, doing your Laravel and, PHP stuff. Right?
Matt
00:15:26 – 00:15:37
So I just, like, dump all the people from the Rails community. There's, like, 500 accounts or whatever. Put that in the list. I give it a little Rails, you know, Ruby emoticon is the the name. Uh-huh.
Matt
00:15:37 – 00:16:04
And then when I wanna see what's going on in Rails world and find conversations I can jump into, I just, like, swipe off my main feed, which is, like, my curated, you know, aesthetic list of ex exactly what I want. And then, like, I'm in the Rails the rails space. And so I'm way more liberal too about who I put on those lists. Yeah. If it's like, yeah, this person tweets, you know, you know, junk most of the time, but, like, one out of every 10 tweets is, like, good.
Matt
00:16:04 – 00:16:18
Right? So that's more of, like, the fire hose thing, and I can just, like, scroll through. I don't try to, you know, read every message, in there. And then I have another list that's, like, people that I know in real life are, like, non tech friends. Right?
Matt
00:16:18 – 00:16:46
Mhmm. Where it's like, I still wanna see what they do, but it's gonna get lost in the, you know, the other the other feeds. And then, I have another list that's like, I I give it the, like, the spicy pepper emoji that's like these are people that I don't even necessarily want to, like, show that I'm following sometimes because it's, like, you know, hot takes and shitposts everywhere. And, like, I think some of that is, like I don't know. I like it, but, it's nice that it's, like, in a tab.
Matt
00:16:46 – 00:16:51
I have to, like, kind of go over and, like, choose to, choose to engage with it.
Aaron
00:16:51 – 00:17:12
Okay. So that makes way more sense to me why because from my perspective, it seems like you're real active on Twitter. Like, I'm always seeing you show up in people's replies and stuff. But I I will look at your feed and notice you're only following 30 people, and I'm like, how is he like, how does he see all of this stuff if he's only following 30 people? Yeah.
Aaron
00:17:12 – 00:17:14
So that is how you do it.
Matt
00:17:15 – 00:17:34
Yeah. I mean, the other the other thing that people sometimes recommend is, like, using TweetDeck, which Twitter bought some years ago, which, like, makes all these different columns. Right. I think that's fine. And I was doing that for a while when I was, when I was running a a different account, which is different story that's, related to, like, fantasy football.
Matt
00:17:35 – 00:17:43
But I like the list because it works on the mobile app too. And I'll be honest, like, I probably spend more time on my phone on Twitter than than I
Aaron
00:17:43 – 00:17:48
should. Yeah. So are you, are you pretty basic? Do you use the web app and Twitter for iPhone?
Matt
00:17:49 – 00:17:55
Yes. Except I have Twitter for Android. But Oh, okay. Yeah. That's exact green bubbler.
Aaron
00:17:55 – 00:18:04
Yeah. That's exactly how I do it. I use the web app, and I use Twitter for iPhone. I've tried TweetDeck, but I just didn't I don't know. I didn't get into it.
Aaron
00:18:04 – 00:18:13
I didn't love it that much. I don't and I think part of it is I'm not very strategic. Right? So I'm not, like, a social media manager, and I need to watch all of these
Matt
00:18:13 – 00:18:17
hashtags or anything. Monitor mentions of your brand. That's definitely more for
Aaron
00:18:18 – 00:18:25
Yeah. I'm kinda just out there hanging out, and so I really like the web app for that instead.
Matt
00:18:26 – 00:18:37
The other, like, secret, you know, spicy reason that lists are good is, it gives you, like, a really safe way of, like, politely not following someone.
Aaron
00:18:37 – 00:18:38
So tell me more.
Matt
00:18:39 – 00:18:52
Because, like, someone might see me, and they're like, oh, I thought we were friendly, but you don't follow me. And it's like, oh, I I just use lists, and you're on a list. And, don't worry, you know, don't worry about it. Because you can have you all all my lists are private too. Like, you know, you can have public or private
Aaron
00:18:52 – 00:18:54
lists. Oh, okay.
Matt
00:18:54 – 00:19:00
So it's really like you you have, like, this great, like, out for, you know, like, if you ever have a social faux pas.
Aaron
00:19:00 – 00:19:01
Right.
Matt
00:19:01 – 00:19:09
How come you're not following me, and and, you know, am I not cool enough to be in your your thing? It's like, oh, no. Like, I just you know, you're on a you're on a list. Don't worry about it.
Aaron
00:19:09 – 00:19:16
Okay. So that makes a lot more sense, because I thought I'll get these notifications sometimes. It's like so and so's added you to the list PHP.
Matt
00:19:16 – 00:19:17
Yep.
Aaron
00:19:17 – 00:19:20
And so I guess I assumed that all lists were public.
Matt
00:19:20 – 00:19:32
Yeah. They can be. And, like, for you know, in some for some, like, it doesn't particularly make sense for it to be private, but Right. I don't know. I just I just mark them private, less to less to deal with.
Aaron
00:19:32 – 00:19:50
Yeah. Okay. So tell me what, before we talk about, like, strategies and stuff, what is your, I guess, what's your goal, or why are you on Twitter, or why do you like it? Like, what are you working towards, if anything?
Matt
00:19:51 – 00:20:10
Yeah. And I think it's kind of interesting because I'd say, like, you and I are very similar, except, like, there's kind of one, thing that I think is sort of a key difference in that, like, you're kind of building and running your own thing, and, I'm not at the moment. Like, I'm Mhmm. I'm working, at a company, and I like working there. But, I don't know.
Matt
00:20:10 – 00:20:22
Like, I think it was our good friend who, we've mentioned before here, Adam Wathan. He talked about, like, how his Twitter account was, like, a a spring that he just kept Compressing. Pushing and pushing, pushing. Yep. Compressing.
Matt
00:20:23 – 00:20:35
And I like that. I like thinking about it as, like, an asset. Like, this is an asset that I have. There's, like, some kind of distribution thing. And even if I don't have anything in particular, it's, like, it never hurts to have, to have that.
Matt
00:20:35 – 00:20:52
So that's like the, I don't know, like, the more ruthless thing. The other reason is just, like, making connections like like this. I mean, one of my one of my best friends in real life, like, I've met basically doing the same thing on Twitter. Like, I tweeted something about, like, hey. I'm working on this side project.
Matt
00:20:53 – 00:21:07
You know? And he was like, oh, cool. Like, do you wanna, like, get coffee and talk about that? And I was like, oh, okay. And then we happened to, you know, live in the same area, and it's like, oh, we've been friends and have worked together at, you know, different jobs and have game nights and stuff.
Matt
00:21:07 – 00:21:10
And it's like, yeah. Like, this this just works for me.
Aaron
00:21:10 – 00:21:27
I love that. I've met up with I've met up with a few, Twitter friends as they've come through Dallas, and it's always, like, it's always a blast. And Yeah. Wouldn't have ever happened, obviously, if I wasn't, you know, putting myself out there on Twitter. So I fully agree with that.
Aaron
00:21:27 – 00:21:30
It's cool that you met somebody in your area that you can actually hang out with.
Matt
00:21:30 – 00:21:44
So that's Yeah. That's great. When I first started, that was actually kind of all I was doing. I was, like, I was only following people that were developers sort of, like, in Indianapolis or, you know, doing it that way. And that was, like, my first, like, little little niche.
Matt
00:21:44 – 00:22:04
And then eventually, it switched around a little bit more. And especially now that so much stuff is, like, remote now, like, the barrier is way lower. Like Yeah. If you think about 5 years ago, like, you and I probably, at least me, I would personally, like, have more hang ups about, like, I'm gonna get on of, like, a video call with someone I've never met before. Right?
Matt
00:22:04 – 00:22:08
And now it's just like, oh, yeah. Like, I do, you know, 10 of these a week or whatever.
Aaron
00:22:08 – 00:22:19
Yeah. Big time. Yeah. And I think there's for you were talking about, like, kind of the asset side of it. I feel like it's a good, public record.
Aaron
00:22:29 – 00:22:45
For me, I found it helpful when I'm talking to other people or, like, let's say, pitching something for Laracon, like, to be able to point to stuff that I have done in the past and have it be out there and be public as like a a time stamp.
Matt
00:22:45 – 00:22:45
There are
Aaron
00:22:45 – 00:22:46
no obvious thing.
Matt
00:22:46 – 00:22:55
You've been risked. Right? It's not like, you know, you're gonna get on the screen and and and, you know, start doing something weird or abnormal for the community.
Aaron
00:22:56 – 00:22:56
Right.
Matt
00:22:56 – 00:22:58
Yeah. Know what's happening.
Aaron
00:22:58 – 00:23:13
Yeah. I feel like that's a big, and and rarely discussed aspect of Twitter is other people can look at it and get a sense of, like, the proof of work, like, who you are, what you've done, that sort thing.
Matt
00:23:13 – 00:23:36
Yeah. And it it goes back to kind of what we talked about a little earlier, just like networking too. Right? I mean, you know, as, once you once you realize that, like, networking is about making friends, and then you also realize that, like, the best way to get a job or, get help or, you know, find some early users or customers is, like, to ask your friends, and it's like Mhmm. Oh, this makes a lot of sense.
Matt
00:23:36 – 00:23:54
Right? I mean, I can I can tell, like, the brief story of, like, how I, joined Arrows, which is, like, you know, Daniel and, Benedict are the founders, and they have a podcast? And I listened to their podcast, and I sent them a tweet and was like, hey. I like your podcast. And then, like, they both followed me, and then we started DMing.
Matt
00:23:54 – 00:24:10
And they're like, oh, we're trying to hire somebody. And the timing was actually not good at the time. So we didn't do anything, but I was like, oh, maybe check back in, like, 90 days. And then they did, and it was like, oh, cool. Well, you guys know me, from Twitter.
Matt
00:24:10 – 00:24:16
And they're like, yep. We know you from Twitter. We know you from your blog. Like, do you want to come work here? And I was like, okay.
Matt
00:24:16 – 00:24:19
Sure. Like, that's so completely different than
Aaron
00:24:19 – 00:24:20
Completely different.
Matt
00:24:20 – 00:24:47
Experiences you see of, hey. I've gotta do these, like, algorithm quizzes, or I have so many interviews, or I have to, you know, go through a recruiter, or I submitted to 500 job boards and didn't hear back anything. It's like I I don't know. Like, there's something there's something that, like, feels really good about knowing that, like, I could get, you know, 10 job offers in a week if I wanted to just because of relationships that I built with, with people.
Aaron
00:24:47 – 00:25:12
Yeah. That that's a huge thing. And I've heard, I've heard Ben Ornstein talk about that on the art of products where he has just talked about, like, now that he's in the role of hiring people, he just kinda, you know, follows some people on Twitter and DMs them and and just, like, has all of these connections so that when somebody is ready, it's like, oh, yeah. I've talked to Ben. I know Ben.
Aaron
00:25:12 – 00:25:15
I'm gonna go talk to him about a job. Yeah. And that It was that It
Matt
00:25:15 – 00:25:32
was the same way too. Like, I my before I worked at Arrow's, I worked at a consulting agency, like, really similar to Titan for the the Laravel people. Oh, nice. And it was the same way. It was like, if I go to a couple of meetups around town, it's like a lot of the developers know me.
Matt
00:25:32 – 00:25:46
And so when their company is like, oh, yeah. We need extra help, it's like, oh, well, I know that, like, Matt works at this place, and Matt is, you know, he gets it. And it's like, oh, okay. Like, I can make an intro there, and then, like, boom. There we go.
Matt
00:25:46 – 00:25:51
Like, that that was that was, you know, like the local version of Twitter. Right?
Aaron
00:25:51 – 00:26:07
Yeah. Which has been gone for the past couple of years now. But Yeah. I think you're totally right when you like, I haven't ever done any, like, you know, networking events because, like you said, that's just not really a thing. Sounds terrible.
Aaron
00:26:07 – 00:26:34
We do, and it does sound terrible, and it's not in my wheelhouse. But it's funny because we you know, as as, as a Twitter slash developer culture, we dunk on LinkedIn all the time, and rightly so. It's terrible. But I do feel like Twitter is just a big networking party, but it's way more fun. And it's a networking party where, like, everybody seems to be doing something cool, we're all just talking about, like, oh, hey, that thing you did was cool.
Aaron
00:26:34 – 00:26:37
Look at this thing, and, oh, that guy is doing something awesome. And
Matt
00:26:37 – 00:26:47
Yeah. It's like it's it's because I think it's one level divorced from, like, your work self. And it's not, like, hard to see where people work or
Aaron
00:26:48 – 00:26:48
Mhmm.
Matt
00:26:49 – 00:27:01
Do that, but, like, I don't know. LinkedIn always is, like, very, corporate, and Twitter is always, like, that one level lower, I I feel. Yeah. It's like it's like the off topic Slack channel versus, like, the online Slack channel.
Aaron
00:27:02 – 00:27:06
Yeah. It's where all the degenerates hang out instead of over on LinkedIn. Yeah.
Matt
00:27:07 – 00:27:33
The nice thing that I will say about LinkedIn is that when you post stuff on LinkedIn I did do a little bit of, posting on LinkedIn. I would just, like, you know, syndicate stuff that I was posting on Twitter on LinkedIn sometimes. The nice part about LinkedIn is, like, I don't know if it's because there's so much junk on there, but they, like, recycle posts in the feed. Mhmm. So on Twitter, like, once it kind of, like, scrolls off, it's, like, gone forever, right, unless, like, you, you know, self retweet it or, like, somebody else posted or whatever.
Matt
00:27:33 – 00:27:54
But on LinkedIn, it's like, every couple days, it, like, cycles back, and it's like, oh, you'll see a post from, like, 3 weeks ago from from people. So it can be it can be helpful, but, yeah, I don't I I I haven't had nearly the the success or fun, to be honest. The only thing that's fun about LinkedIn is, like, intentionally, like, you know, mocking, like
Aaron
00:27:54 – 00:27:56
Playing their game.
Matt
00:27:56 – 00:28:01
Yeah. The, like, corporate, like, broetry of, like, let me tell you a story about Yeah.
Aaron
00:28:01 – 00:28:02
Turns out that was the interviewer.
Matt
00:28:03 – 00:28:07
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Surprise. And then everyone clapped.
Matt
00:28:07 – 00:28:07
That happened.
Aaron
00:28:07 – 00:28:22
Yeah. Exactly. So speaking of arrows, your your boss, Daniel, the green dot on Twitter recently was tell telling everyone that Twitter's no fun. He's like, Twitter's no fun. Where should we go to next?
Aaron
00:28:22 – 00:28:28
What is going on over there? I'd argue. Are you not are you not preaching the Twitter gospel inside the company you work at?
Matt
00:28:28 – 00:28:31
He's just he's just mad that I have more followers than him now.
Aaron
00:28:31 – 00:28:32
That is probably right.
Matt
00:28:32 – 00:28:37
That means that, you know, bigger number, better person. I get to take over the company. And
Aaron
00:28:37 – 00:28:41
Congratulations on your new role as CEO, by by the way. That's amazing for you.
Matt
00:28:42 – 00:28:50
Yeah. It was it was really it was really triumphant. I tweeted, you know, a screenshot of my follower account and said, thank you. Something that I know you love.
Aaron
00:28:50 – 00:29:01
Yeah. If you have any questions, direct them to my assistant, Daniel. Yep. Okay. Let's talk, let's talk, like, stuff we actually tweet about.
Aaron
00:29:01 – 00:29:16
So I think one thing that you wanted to talk about that I we didn't cover in that other show was the code screenshots, which I love. And it sounds like you have thoughts on. So tell me your capital t thoughts on code screenshots.
Matt
00:29:17 – 00:29:51
I think they're I think they're really useful. And even though they're kind of like, you know, flavor of the month a little bit, and Mhmm. Who knows, how long you're gonna stick around. But the the really nice part, I think, is that compared to, like, a blog post, like, you really have to drill down into, like, the meat of what you're trying to say, and you have to demonstrate it in code. And that always has, like, resonated with me as, like, the best way of, like, having an argument or, like, showing a technique anyways instead of writing paragraphs about this design architecture or whatever.
Matt
00:29:51 – 00:30:17
It's like, show me the code and, like, then you can sort of see how it works and and see what you like about it. So, yeah, I think it's it's a really interesting I don't I don't even know, like, where it came from. I mean, I don't think either. I I first saw it, you know, like, on the the refactoring UI. Adam and Steve come up with with, you know, with Steve going from, like, 0 to, like, a 100 k.
Matt
00:30:17 – 00:30:18
A million.
Aaron
00:30:18 – 00:30:19
Doing his hot tips. Yeah.
Matt
00:30:19 – 00:30:23
Hot tip stuff. So, really, I'm just, like, drafting.
Aaron
00:30:24 – 00:30:32
Oh, we all are. Yeah. Every everybody is drafting off of Adam and Steve. Okay. So I like that.
Aaron
00:30:32 – 00:30:52
It's it's a it, it's a forcing function. Right? It makes it forces you to be succinct and valuable, whereas a blog post, you can ramble, and I do ramble in blog posts. What about, like, training? Because you have to it has to come from somewhere.
Aaron
00:30:52 – 00:31:14
Right? And that's the other good part, I think, is it's a lot of what I see in code tips on Twitter clearly comes from somebody working in some app encountering some problem and tweeting, like, the solution. And so how do you like, where do yours come from? How do you think about them? And do you take any steps along the way to, like, evaluate?
Aaron
00:31:15 – 00:31:23
Is this is this good, or do you just say, like, oh, it's cool. I'm gonna tweet it. So kinda what's your process from beginning to end there?
Matt
00:31:23 – 00:31:47
Yeah. I I kinda like to think about this as, like, you have to develop, like, content brain, which means, like, you understand what makes, good content, and then, like, you start seeing it all the time. At least that's how it works for me. It's like, I don't I don't think that, even if you, I'll say I know, that even if you said, hey. Like, don't actually be a working engineer anymore.
Matt
00:31:47 – 00:32:03
Just, like, make educational content that, like, I wouldn't sort of be able to do it. Like, I don't like, that style. And I know because whenever I try to, like, stick to some kind of schedule Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't go well. Like, I'm just like, this is a chore.
Matt
00:32:03 – 00:32:29
I don't wanna do this. Yeah. But so all my stuff is, like, I'm working on some actual problem at work, and it's I don't know. Like, eventually, you just sort of develop an intuition of, like, every time I look up something in the docs or, like, use an option for a method that is not, like, the absolute bog standard, it's like, this is probably something that I could share and that somebody won't know. I mean, like, I just had one today.
Matt
00:32:29 – 00:32:45
I was, like, writing a migration, and in Rails, when you write a migration, you can set a foreign key. And sometimes you wanna set a foreign key to a table where the name of the table doesn't match the name of the model. Mhmm. Right? So, like, you have a submission, and you wanna have it, like, submitted by ID.
Matt
00:32:45 – 00:32:59
Mhmm. But that needs to, like, get foreign keyed to your user table. Right? It's like, oh, well, how do you do that? Well, you there's this option that's kind of, like, hidden 3 levels deep where you say, like, foreign key, like, 2 table users.
Matt
00:32:59 – 00:33:11
It's like, oh, okay. Like, that's a tip right there. You know, that'll do that'll do numbers on Twitter. So it's just really pulling that stuff out. I mean, my workflow is, like, I just have, like, super analog.
Matt
00:33:11 – 00:33:15
I just have a notebook, and I just start writing that stuff down. And then
Aaron
00:33:15 – 00:33:16
Oh, really?
Matt
00:33:17 – 00:33:27
Just a little placeholder. And then eventually, when I am, slacking off or, get the energy to, like, batch them up, I'll do, like, 3 or 4 at a time.
Aaron
00:33:28 – 00:33:43
Well, now that you're CEO, your job is basically just to post all the time. Yeah. So that's good. So you keep you keep an actual list going so that you can so you yeah. I guess you're not you're not ginning up content.
Aaron
00:33:43 – 00:33:56
Like, you're not creating content out of thin air, but you do have a stash, like a buffer, but you don't actually use buffer. You have a pen and paper buffer of stuff that you wanna tweet at some point.
Matt
00:33:56 – 00:34:14
Yeah. And I don't like, sometimes, like, I'll I'll collect like, right now, I just turn to my notebook here. Like, I have, like, 3 or 4 things that are just like, these are good candidates. And just depending on, like, if I get around to doing it or, like, what's going on in my life, like, I may or may not do any of them. And I don't I don't, like, you know, keep a huge running list.
Matt
00:34:14 – 00:34:40
I could flip back, like, 10 pages and there's, like, a list of 5 other ones that I never Never been around to. But there is a little bit of, like, creating from nothing where and this is just from my background, both as, like, working at a company and before that, like, working at an agency where it's, like, all client stuff. It's like, you can't just post your client's code Correct. Sometimes. So sometimes it's, like, okay.
Matt
00:34:40 – 00:34:57
Like that example I just gave with the migration, it's, like, that's one where you probably can just, like, literally copy paste what you wrote, but you probably will simplify it. But there is sometimes a little bit of, like, you need to create a minimal, reproducible sample that really highlights, like, the core of what you what you would wanna do.
Aaron
00:34:57 – 00:35:27
Yeah. So there is kind of an art to it. I mean, you if you have seen the content with your content brain, what's the next step? Because you have to you do have to translate a little bit between, like, the the thing that you found in the code that you were working on and then the nugget that is useful, helpful, and could help other people without the context of, your entire application? Because you do wanna help other people with this thing that you just discovered.
Aaron
00:35:27 – 00:35:29
So what's the step from there?
Matt
00:35:29 – 00:35:50
One thing that I like to do is sort of, show the contrast. So show like, to show why something is useful, you kinda have to know, like, what was what's the alternative. Mhmm. And that's where it gets a little bit tricky, and you have to have some, like, intuition of, like, oh, most people or a new person might solve it in this way, but, like, you should really do it this way. Right?
Matt
00:35:50 – 00:36:05
So with our if if we just point back to our, like, foreign key example, it's like, well, somebody might just say, oh, well, this is just gonna be called the user ID column, and then, like, maybe I'll, like, add an alias that says that, you know, submitted by, you know, calls user under the hood. Right?
Aaron
00:36:05 – 00:36:05
Mhmm.
Matt
00:36:05 – 00:36:23
It's like, oh, well, you know, that that will work, and that's kind of a, like, a naive way of doing it. And it's like, well, if you do it like this, like, what's the benefit? Like, you can look at them side by side and be like, oh, yeah. It is cleaner that you can call them, like, the submitter. That's a better, like, more descriptive name.
Matt
00:36:23 – 00:36:33
And so now that, like, kinda helps me, hone in on, like, what it is, like, why someone would take this tip and be like, oh, my gosh. This is great. I'm gonna go, like, go use that today in my app.
Aaron
00:36:33 – 00:37:00
So it's almost like, putting yourself in the shoes of the other person being empathetic and seeing, like, why would anyone else find this useful? And you have to I mean, that's what Steve did with the refactoring UI tips is he would do the before and after. And the before was always, like, what you and I would have designed. Right? As as non talented developers, we would have said, you know, label value, label value.
Aaron
00:37:00 – 00:37:07
And Steve's like, well, you could do it this way. And that really took us from our way to to Steve's way.
Matt
00:37:08 – 00:37:33
Yeah. You have to know with with all these things, like, you know, I think it's you have to have some foundational, like, understanding of, like, what you're trying to show and then also, like, what the what the community or, like, what the what the sort of audience like, where they're at too. Because, like, obviously, if you do a tweet that's like, hey. Did you know that if you're printing out 5 variables, you could, like, use a for loop instead? Like, look.
Matt
00:37:33 – 00:37:53
It's so much better. It's like, that's not that's not quite it, but I don't know. And if you struggle with that, like, sometimes you can even just use yourself as a, like, past reference. Like yourself from not even, you know, yourself from 6 months ago or whatever, you know, cliche thing people always say about you should always be disappointed in the coaching room. You're it's like, whatever.
Aaron
00:37:54 – 00:37:55
Seems harsh.
Matt
00:37:55 – 00:38:02
Just just, like, think about, like, oh, yeah. Like, I made this change 5 minutes ago, and, like, I like this better. It's like, oh, okay.
Aaron
00:38:02 – 00:38:10
Well, yeah. That's a good one. As you're as you're refactoring, you can Right. See the thing that you refactored from and the ring the thing that
Matt
00:38:10 – 00:38:28
you refactored to. To it, like, you won't notice these. But once you start looking for it, I think most, you know, intermediate to senior developers, like, are subconsciously doing this all the time. And Yeah. So you'll start, like, building the muscle, and then you'll just see it everywhere.
Matt
00:38:28 – 00:38:41
And you'll be like, oh, yeah. Like, I don't have to worry about, like, coming up with blog post ideas, because it's like, I can literally just write about the interesting parts of what I did, you know, this week. And there's more ideas than I'll actually have time to even, you know, create.
Aaron
00:38:41 – 00:38:49
Yeah. And then you put them into I think I saw you used to use Carbon, but you use show code now, and you drop them in there and format them all up?
Matt
00:38:50 – 00:39:20
Yep. So Carbon now is like the the one that you see everywhere that does the, you know, the the pretty little black rectangle with the weird, like, macOS, you know, close and minimize traffic light thing in the in the top, and then you click on the unsplash thing and search for, like, gradient and, you know, find some cool looking thing. But yeah. Yeah. I found this other app that's called ShowCode, and it has a lot nicer syntax highlighting.
Matt
00:39:20 – 00:39:32
You can do multiple files. It's, like, actually designed for making these types of, like, Twitter screenshots, which I don't I mean, maybe the carbon, one was, but, like, it just hasn't been updated in, like, 10 years.
Aaron
00:39:33 – 00:39:45
Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's show code dot app, and it's amazing. And a win for the Laravel team is created by one of the guys in the Laravel community. So, yeah.
Aaron
00:39:45 – 00:40:00
I love it. I think it's great. Syntax highlighting is great, and I think you can do with his, I think you can do multiple files in a sync in a single screenshot, which is cool. So you can put, like, your routes and your controller and kinda show make it easier to show across a couple different things.
Matt
00:40:01 – 00:40:20
Yeah. Especially for, like, Rails and and Laravel where it's like, you know, sometimes you've got, you know, your model, and then you wanna show how you use it in a in a Exactly. View or a a blade template. And, yeah, you can have you can have the separate files and then have, like, separate syntax highlighting for each of them and and all that. Yeah.
Matt
00:40:20 – 00:40:21
It's good. Good app.
Aaron
00:40:21 – 00:40:25
Very good app. Good job, Steve. Do you worry
Matt
00:40:25 – 00:40:42
That's that's like the screenshot part. Yeah. And there's actually I I see it as, like, there's kind of 3 things in my mind that, like, go into it. So there's the screenshot. There's the, like, the text of the tweet, which is needs to, I think, needs to be, like, one sentence, that sort of summarizes what the thing is.
Matt
00:40:43 – 00:40:56
So, you know, in in in the case of our hypothetical migration, you know, thing, it might be like, like, more readable references when, you know, foreign king to a different table or something.
Aaron
00:40:56 – 00:40:57
Okay.
Matt
00:40:57 – 00:41:00
You know? That that would need to be workshopped because
Aaron
00:41:00 – 00:41:02
We're live we're live on the air, so you're on
Matt
00:41:02 – 00:41:14
a lot Yeah. I always also pick an emoji, but I just like using emojis. So I'll find some emoji that either, like, ties in or, like, is just a random emoji because I think it's it's fun. So
Aaron
00:41:14 – 00:41:16
what's the deal with the ones on its only thing?
Matt
00:41:16 – 00:41:27
I think it just fits the the platform of Twitter better than, like, typing up, you know, a 100 a 180 characters and then, like, squeezing it in.
Aaron
00:41:27 – 00:41:27
Right.
Matt
00:41:28 – 00:41:49
It's it's just it's like the headline. Right? So the the other thing and maybe this contributes to that is the other thing I do the third thing is, that I've started doing somewhat recently is, I always link to my blog, which has, like, a tips page that has, like, the exact same stuff, but, like, a little bit more. So it'll have,
Aaron
00:41:49 – 00:41:50
like, code for Matt.
Matt
00:41:51 – 00:42:03
Yeah. Yeah. And and the thing is on Twitter, the nice part, I think, is, like, when you have the screenshot, it doesn't unfurl the link. Right? So the link doesn't get in the way, but it's it's there's a link, there.
Matt
00:42:03 – 00:42:36
And so that's where I put, like, the other stuff, like, the the 2 paragraphs of, like, here's the context or, like, here are the, like, the obvious you know, the answers to the first obvious, you know, annoying reply guys that are like, well, what about this case? And, you know, and you can, like, link to the actual documentation page for this. And, you know, the code is there in a more accessible way where you can, you know, highlight it and, you know, do all that stuff instead of, like, trying to, like, reverse OCR from a from an image. You know?
Aaron
00:42:36 – 00:42:54
Okay. This is I mean, you're not messing around. I'm I'm scrolling through your your feed, and this is exactly what you do. You've got I'm looking at January 19th. You have an emoji check mark, and it says backup critical rail model validations at the database level with ad check constraint.
Aaron
00:42:54 – 00:43:14
You have a link to boring rails.com, then you have a screenshot. 20 retweets, a 130 likes. Goodness. And then, the next day you've got a blue box emoji that says, need a value from your Rails app and your stimulus controller, but don't want to pass it? Try using a meta tag.
Aaron
00:43:14 – 00:43:22
Boring Rails screenshot. 10 retweets, a 100 likes. I mean, this is like you're for real. This is a Yeah. This is a formula.
Matt
00:43:22 – 00:43:29
There's a formula. And the the reason I started doing the, like, the articles to
Aaron
00:43:29 – 00:43:29
Mhmm.
Matt
00:43:29 – 00:43:48
To link to is, like, they're way more durable. So Yes. The tweet kind of, like, goes away and Time. Like so let let's say I spend, like, 30 to 45 minutes, like, thinking of and, like, crafting an example. Like, I wanna get it out on Twitter, and that's where it's gonna, like, you know, get the, like, spike.
Matt
00:43:48 – 00:44:10
But I don't wanna just throw that away, and, like, nobody is going through Twitter tips from 3 years ago. So I just, like, expand on it a little bit, turn it into, like, a mini article. And these are not these are not, like, you know, the things you write. Like, I write some of those too, like, 5,000, like, like, epic everything you need to know about, you know, background jobs in Rails or whatever. Right.
Matt
00:44:10 – 00:44:14
This is more like like a dev dot 2 post or
Aaron
00:44:14 – 00:44:17
It's not nothing. We're talking maybe 10 paragraphs here with
Matt
00:44:17 – 00:44:18
Yeah.
Aaron
00:44:18 – 00:44:20
5 5 code symbols in it.
Matt
00:44:20 – 00:44:31
It's all it it's it like, once you get into a rhythm too, it's like, okay. Like, hey. I'm gonna write, like, 2 paragraphs about, like, what what's the context? Like, how do you use this? Then I could probably write another paragraph about, like, what are the options?
Matt
00:44:31 – 00:44:36
And then, like, here's, like, references and, like, prior art to, you know, to this stuff.
Aaron
00:44:36 – 00:44:56
So you've already done so much of the I like this. I like this because you've already done so much of the mental work. Right? You've already done the, like, the hard part of thinking about how do I frame this, how can I fit this into a tweet with my code sample, that it's like, I don't know, half a step more? Yeah.
Aaron
00:44:56 – 00:45:07
It's half a step more to just flesh it out a little bit. All the stuff that you purposefully removed for the tweet, you just put back in, and now you've got yourself you've got yourself an article.
Matt
00:45:08 – 00:45:15
The other nice thing that I really like about that and was one of the items you had on there, like, I think you said, like, you proofread your code bits like, a a a ton because you want
Aaron
00:45:15 – 00:45:16
A ton.
Matt
00:45:16 – 00:45:28
To make sure that it works. Like, I'm like the opposite. Like, I don't really do that hardly at all. Like, I just don't worry about it. And some of the reason is because, like, I can edit the blog post if I, like, screw something up too bad.
Aaron
00:45:28 – 00:45:28
Oh, yeah.
Matt
00:45:29 – 00:45:41
It's like Yeah. I can't edit. I mean, you you could just, you know, delete the the tweet or whatever, and and repost. But it's like, no one is, like, actually copy pasting from your Twitter screenshot anyways. So Mhmm.
Matt
00:45:42 – 00:45:50
If you have the blog post that has the code on it, like, you can always, you know, issue a correction, later and and do it that way.
Aaron
00:45:51 – 00:46:06
Yeah. Do you ever worry? I don't know much about the algorithm. I've heard people say if you link out, Twitter will not surface your tweet as much or give it as much juice. That's not something that I worry about.
Aaron
00:46:06 – 00:46:08
Is that something you think about?
Matt
00:46:08 – 00:46:21
No. Not really. I I think even if it did, like, the benefits are, there's, like, outside benefits from having that content. Right? So I can tell you about, like, the entire, like, boring rails, you know, content machine.
Matt
00:46:21 – 00:46:26
It it's just me, but, you know, so so I do I do those I do those right?
Aaron
00:46:26 – 00:46:29
It's a great name. I love that. Thank you.
Matt
00:46:30 – 00:46:34
So I do that tip. Right? Okay. So now that's a post. It's like a small blog post on Boring Rails.
Matt
00:46:34 – 00:46:43
Right? Mhmm. But, like, now I can submit that to the Ruby and the Rails Reddits. Right? Because those places don't they don't like Twitter links.
Matt
00:46:43 – 00:46:52
Nobody Right. Nobody likes sharing Twitter links because that's, like, the most blatant self promotion of, like, look at this thing I tweeted. Like, come look at
Aaron
00:46:52 – 00:46:53
it. Everyone love me.
Matt
00:46:53 – 00:47:06
And it's the same thing. Like, I'm I'm just so lazy. It's like I've already got I already know what the title on the Reddit's gonna be because it's the same as the title on the tweet, and it's the same as the blog post title. Mhmm. It takes literally 5 minutes, to go do that.
Matt
00:47:07 – 00:47:23
You post it to there. Right? Okay. So what happens in and maybe it's similar in Laravel, but what happens in the Rails world, in the Ruby world is, there's, like, one big newsletter, and that's Ruby Weekly. And that is, like, the winner take all that has been around for 12 years, whatever, has 50,000 people.
Matt
00:47:24 – 00:47:55
And it's like, well, where does Ruby Weekly get all of its content? It's like, well, they just go to the Reddit, and they, like, sort by, you know, this week, top voted. And then there's there's another this is like a Ruby specific one. There's like another offshoot of that where you can, like, submit links. So, basically, you you get then you get your your what was a ephemeral tweet turns into, like, a small blog post that then has, like, 3 or 4 posts to the various Reddits, and then that gets into the submission queue for this newsletter.
Matt
00:47:56 – 00:48:10
And, maybe it's different in Laravel, but for a while, it was there was, like, a drought of content in Ruby. Right? So it's like it's like basically, like, everything I post, like, it's put into this newsletter. I don't have to do anything. Like, that goes out to another, 50,000 people.
Matt
00:48:10 – 00:48:32
Then then you hit the long tail of, like, Google search stuff. Yeah. Mhmm. So then Google search picking up, you know, your your blogs. Like like so I don't care too much about the, numbers, but I think it's somewhat illustrative that, like, I look at the Google search console, and I get, like, a 100000 search impressions on my tips on Google.
Aaron
00:48:32 – 00:48:33
Seriously?
Matt
00:48:33 – 00:48:45
It's like I'm the, like, the number 2 rank for, like, all these obscure rails queries. Right? It's like active record, left outer join. It's like, oh, I have, like, the number 2 spot on on Google. Right?
Matt
00:48:45 – 00:48:52
It's like from a from an article like that. Like, feature flagging rails. It's like I have, like, the number one spot for that.
Aaron
00:48:52 – 00:48:56
And are both of those tiny tips, did both of those originate from
Matt
00:48:56 – 00:48:57
Yeah.
Aaron
00:48:57 – 00:49:11
See, this is great. Okay. This is, this this is gigabrain right here because I don't like, I'll tweet something, and that's it. Like okay. So, slightly true, slightly false.
Aaron
00:49:11 – 00:49:43
When I write a giant article, like the MySQL geo searching or, deferred pagination pagination, what I'll do is I'll write the article first, but we're talking like 2, 3000 words. So who who has the time? So I'll write the article first, and then I'll come to Twitter, and, in the first tweet, I'll put, like, the headline and a link to it so that that the thread haters can just go straight to the article, because that's great. I I also don't love threads, and so I give them the link. They go to the article.
Aaron
00:49:43 – 00:49:58
Then below it, I'll put all of the following, like, I'll kinda spin out the article, as a thread. Right? But for the, for the little throwaway tips, like the, hey, this is super cool. I just discovered it. There's nothing.
Aaron
00:49:58 – 00:50:12
I don't have anything. I don't link back to anything, and it and I don't know what your tech setup is, but if it's anything like mine, I can write a markdown post and push it to GitHub and it's live in, like, 5 minutes. So Mhmm. I don't know why I'm not doing this because
Matt
00:50:12 – 00:50:14
Yeah. You're throwing away all
Aaron
00:50:14 – 00:50:15
of your I'm throwing away the all
Matt
00:50:15 – 00:50:16
the brain work.
Aaron
00:50:16 – 00:50:22
Yeah. I've already done the brain work, which is the hard part. I guess I guess it's it's helpful.
Matt
00:50:23 – 00:50:41
And so one one of the hang ups I had too was, like, I I I like writing those, like, mega articles too, and I didn't wanna have, like, boring Rails be, like, every developer's blog where, like, they, just write random posts. Like, here's a tutorial
Aaron
00:50:41 – 00:50:41
on Yeah.
Matt
00:50:41 – 00:50:50
On this thing. Right? And so all that I needed to do, like, for myself was, like, I just put the tips on, like, slash tips, and, like That's exactly what I
Aaron
00:50:50 – 00:50:50
was about to say.
Matt
00:50:50 – 00:51:12
Yeah. Slash articles. And, like so to me, an article is like, here's the definitive 5,000 word post on this topic, and the tip is, like, you know, here's a little blurb that is only slightly longer than my Twitter account in case you Right. Are coming from Google or you don't like Twitter or, you wanna link to, a blog post instead of, you know, a 6 month old tweet.
Aaron
00:51:12 – 00:51:32
Right. Yes. That is that was exactly I was first advocating for this, and then I was gonna talk against it. But now with the separate with the separate category, it's almost like you give it space. Like, you give it a name to be short, sweet, little tips, and it doesn't pollute, you know, pollute.
Aaron
00:51:32 – 00:51:34
It doesn't pollute the articles that you put
Matt
00:51:34 – 00:51:43
so much of yourself into. Yeah. And you can you can choose. Like, I have a separate RSS feed, like, for the articles and the tips and then, like, everything. It's like you can Yeah.
Matt
00:51:43 – 00:52:03
You can pick what you want. Like, I have a I have a a newsletter, but I only send the newsletter stuff for the articles. I don't send it for the the tips. Maybe I should because I haven't published an article in, like, a year, but that's a that's a choice you can make. You can decide, like, if you want if you want if you want, like, a couple times a week to be sending stuff, you could do that.
Matt
00:52:03 – 00:52:16
If you want to batch it up and say, like, once a quarter, I'm sending out this epic blog post. And in the meantime, like, follow on Twitter or, you know, look on the the Reddits or look on, this tips page for the, like, the quick hits.
Aaron
00:52:16 – 00:52:28
What what else is what's what else is going on in this content machine? Because I don't have an email list. So you've got it sounds like you have a a whole pipeline down. So what else is there that I'm not seeing?
Matt
00:52:28 – 00:52:42
I I think that that that's pretty much it. I mean, I have I have a a mailing list, collects, collects emails under the guise of, like, if you would like to be notified when I post new stuff, come in here. One thing that I've been meaning to do
Aaron
00:52:42 – 00:52:44
share how big that is?
Matt
00:52:44 – 00:52:47
There's, like, 2 or 3000 people on it.
Aaron
00:52:47 – 00:52:49
Man, that's great.
Matt
00:52:49 – 00:53:07
That was when I first started the blog, that was, like, what I use as my metric. Like, I don't I didn't put, like, Google Analytics. I was just like, I'll just use this. Like, this is the ultimate end goal for this part of the project is, like, do people care enough that they're gonna subscribe to the the email list? And and you can you can just do that.
Matt
00:53:07 – 00:53:08
One thing I
Aaron
00:53:08 – 00:53:13
Historically, have you only sent it for have you only sent emails for new articles, or have you done
Matt
00:53:13 – 00:53:28
Yeah. Okay. I've just done articles. I've thought about you're gonna you're gonna see really how truly lazy I am. I've thought about, like, maybe I should, like, once a month collect up all the tips and say, here's, you know, here's the March tips or whatever.
Matt
00:53:28 – 00:53:46
I think that would be fine. To be honest, like, I have I I got over the, like, 2,000 limit on Mailchimp for the free, the free plan, and I haven't moved it over to anything yet. And I don't wanna pay even though I'm sure I could find a way to generate $9 of, you know, value or whatever.
Aaron
00:53:46 – 00:53:49
Yeah. And if you didn't, I think you could absorb it. Yeah.
Matt
00:53:49 – 00:54:10
I think you'd be fine. I think if you if you really wanted to, like, you know, gigabrain, flywheel optimized thing Right. If you use, Revu, which is the Twitter, the newsletter app, the Twitter bot Okay. They have a because they're owned by Twitter, you can get, like, opt in form right on your Twitter profile. You might have seen that.
Aaron
00:54:10 – 00:54:11
I have seen that.
Matt
00:54:11 – 00:54:33
Yeah. So the other thing about that is I think it's free for, like, 10,000. So, like, eventually, one day, that's my plan is to, like, migrate off of Mailchimp. The other thing you can do too is if you like still having them on Mailchimp, but you want that sign in thing, there's, like, apps that will, like you you, like, basically have, like, a dummy newsletter on review. People can sign up from Twitter, and then just, like yeah.
Matt
00:54:33 – 00:54:36
Pulls them into your ConvertKit course or whatever.
Aaron
00:54:37 – 00:54:41
Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely gig gigabrain. Okay. So do
Matt
00:54:41 – 00:54:58
you think not a 100% sure on that because, like, I personally have never, like, clicked on any of those things. The nice like, it does give you another, like, number. If you think that numbers help, like, you can turn it to show how many subscribers. So it's like, oh, there's, like, 5,000 people that get this email list. Like Right.
Matt
00:54:58 – 00:55:02
That's, like, some social proof. I don't know.
Aaron
00:55:02 – 00:55:07
Yeah. You have to get you have to bootstrap your way past the part where it's embarrassing, though.
Matt
00:55:07 – 00:55:07
You can't
Aaron
00:55:07 – 00:55:09
turn it on until you've got 32 people
Matt
00:55:09 – 00:55:15
on the list. Turn it off too. You don't you don't have the show, so no one has to see that you have 12 people on your your mailing list.
Aaron
00:55:15 – 00:55:17
So, 2 things. I
Matt
00:55:17 – 00:55:40
think that's, like, everything as far as, like, all the pieces of my, you know, content machine. It's it's, yeah. There's like, Twitter is the first the first step, then that flows out into, the blog. And then those get cross posted in the the most, like, lazy but, not spammy ways to Right. To Reddit.
Matt
00:55:41 – 00:55:50
I for a while, I was also doing on dev 2. There's, like, an RSS importer. Mhmm. And they give you, like, canonical backlinks, so you can try that. I I haven't didn't have much success for that.
Matt
00:55:50 – 00:56:07
And then all, like, all that stuff tries to, like, feedback into either, like, subscribe to the newsletter or on the blog in the footer, there's links that are like, if you like this post, you'll like my Twitter account, like, the links to the Twitter account. So that's my, like, kind of closed looped, system.
Aaron
00:56:08 – 00:56:17
2 we'll do 3 questions. We'll do 2 questions. 1 first one is, do you think the mailing list has been worth it? Should I set that up?
Matt
00:56:17 – 00:56:33
It's always nice to have. Like, I don't for for the amount of effort it takes, it doesn't doesn't seem like you'd ever have, like, a negative ROI. As long as you're as long as you're on, like, you know, the free tier of something and you're not you don't end up paying $500 a month, you know, to Yeah.
Aaron
00:56:33 – 00:56:34
To never send anything.
Matt
00:56:34 – 00:56:35
To never send.
Aaron
00:56:35 – 00:56:38
Okay. I buy that. Question solved.
Matt
00:56:38 – 00:56:51
It feels it feels like if you ever wanna transition, and do, like, a more direct call to action, like, you would wanna have a mailing list. Right? Yeah. Like, in the future, when I have the, like, boring rails, you know, $49 ebook or whatever
Aaron
00:56:51 – 00:56:52
Mhmm.
Matt
00:56:52 – 00:56:56
I'll wanna do email stuff. So it's nice that I it's nice that I have it.
Aaron
00:56:56 – 00:57:00
It's nice that you've already started it. Yep. That makes perfect sense to me. I'm gonna send that up.
Matt
00:57:00 – 00:57:29
If if you wanna frame it, like, not as a, like, ruthless businessperson, like, some people just prefer getting email. Some people prefer RSS. So, like, if you just put your stuff on there, like, it gives people the freedom to actually, choose. So if someone wants to know everything I post but they hate Twitter because they think it's, you know, the toxic cesspool that we talked about earlier, like, that's fine. Like, I'll email you or you plug into your, you know, Feedly account my my thing or you look at the Reddit.
Aaron
00:57:29 – 00:57:38
Yep. I buy that. I also need to set up RSS, clearly. Next question. Where do you get these illustrations done for your blog posts?
Aaron
00:57:39 – 00:57:43
These little icons, because they all have, like, the same theme.
Matt
00:57:43 – 00:57:45
Yeah. I just make them in Figma.
Aaron
00:57:45 – 00:57:46
Oh, really?
Matt
00:57:46 – 00:57:54
They're mostly I use, like, the Twitter, emoji pack. Mhmm. And you can, like, download all the Twitter emojis as an SVG.
Aaron
00:57:54 – 00:57:55
Cool.
Matt
00:57:55 – 00:58:21
And then they're they're they're really nice. And even on some of them, like, all the different pieces of the emoji are, like, separate SVG things. So you can Cool. Like, oh, I can, like, change the color or, like, you know, take the star eyes from the, like, star eye emoji and, like, you know, rotate them around so it looks a little bit different. So I do that, and then my goal is that they this is probably terrible podcast content because no one can see them, but I wanted them to kind of look like, like stickers.
Aaron
00:58:21 – 00:58:23
Like, like, laptop. Like stickers.
Matt
00:58:23 – 00:58:36
Laptop stickers. So Yep. I just, like, pick the emoji that I wanna use and then, like, group everything and then do, like, an outer, outer border or whatever that's, like, black and one that's white, and then it, you know, looks close enough to a, laptop sticker.
Aaron
00:58:37 – 00:58:40
Okay. Yep. This looks super cool. I love it. Yeah.
Aaron
00:58:40 – 00:58:47
It has a very it has a very cohesive, like, put together feel, this whole boring rails dotcom site.
Matt
00:58:47 – 00:59:07
I do that for the articles, you know, same same as you. Like, if you're gonna spend, you know, hours writing a 5,000 word post, it's worth spending, like, an hour making a nice, like, header image and getting the social preview card thing, all all good. A lot of that stuff, you it's you said it once, and then you're good to go.
Aaron
00:59:08 – 00:59:33
Yeah. I have, recently been hand making the preview cards for my my massive blog posts. I've been hand doing them in, Photoshop, and I find I find that they're a lot catchier specifically for Twitter. So then when I put it in that first tweet of what becomes a thread, then it's got this giant card that's like inertia server side rendering on vapor, and people are
Matt
00:59:33 – 00:59:33
like,
Aaron
00:59:33 – 00:59:35
oh, yeah. I need that. I'll click on that.
Matt
00:59:36 – 00:59:45
Yeah. So I find that I find that I like the smaller ones better, actually. I like the one where it's, like, left hand side is the picture, and then there's, like, just a little card. It's like the compact.
Aaron
00:59:45 – 00:59:49
Can you choose the way that it's connected? Like, when you paste a link there?
Matt
00:59:49 – 00:59:56
Meta the meta tags for your, like, social graph thing. You can Man. You can say, like, use compact or use big one.
Aaron
00:59:56 – 01:00:10
This is funny because I'm clearly like the dimwit, and you're the topwit, and we're doing the same things. But Yeah. But you know you just know so much more than I do. Why do you like the left hand only versus the giant one that takes over buddy's feed?
Matt
01:00:10 – 01:00:14
I don't know. It's it's kinda weird to take up the whole feed. I mean.
Aaron
01:00:14 – 01:00:19
Wow. Just calling me out right there on my own show. Goodness.
Matt
01:00:19 – 01:00:43
If I'm if I'm being honest, that's how I, like, laid out the post on my site. And so I just have to make like, it it it's, you know, one of those, like, tailwind UI components of, like, a blog article. Yeah. And it's definitely easier for me to make a, like, a 100 by 100, you know, emoji that, I turned into a sticker than, like, some weird landscape type thing. I don't I don't like using, text on it.
Matt
01:00:43 – 01:00:53
I think, like, yours are fine too. Like, it it works well where you have, you know, like, the headline as as part of it. Yeah. I don't know. I just like the aesthetic of the the compact one better.
Aaron
01:00:53 – 01:01:06
I buy that. It's it is a good and the stickers the stickers fit that theme quite well, so I buy that. Okay. Let's talk about let's see. What else is on this?
Aaron
01:01:06 – 01:01:11
We talked about code bits. There are a few you still have time? I mean, it's been an hour.
Matt
01:01:11 – 01:01:15
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You and I both said, I think, like, we could talk about this for 6 months.
Matt
01:01:16 – 01:01:18
Yeah. So New world record podcast.
Aaron
01:01:18 – 01:01:29
Seriously. Let's there are some things, like, we've already talked about everybody can do whatever they want. Right? And none of this is prescriptive. This is just us talking about what we do.
Aaron
01:01:30 – 01:01:45
So with that with that in mind, there are a couple other things I think we can talk about. I think you've got on here deleting tweets. So do you do you tweet stuff and then sometimes pull it back? Or is that if you make a typo or okay. Tell me
Matt
01:01:45 – 01:01:46
about that.
Aaron
01:01:47 – 01:01:48
Tell tell me more.
Matt
01:01:48 – 01:02:08
If I make a typo and I cut like, I I make tons of typos, actually. I'm, like, a a fast typer, but not, like, an accurate typer. Or I don't know. It's like I'm one of those people that, like, reads the word in my head as I'm, like, you know, typing. And so I I I mix up words, you know, like where and when and stuff like that.
Aaron
01:02:08 – 01:02:08
Mhmm.
Matt
01:02:09 – 01:02:35
If it's too egregious, like I I usually, like, immediately see it. I'm like, damn it. And I delete it. And it's sometimes actually, annoying because if you've if you've made one of these, like, formula code screenshot tweets that we talked about, it's like, oh, you can't exactly just, like, select all and copy and paste because it's like, oh, I had an image that I pasted in, and I edited the alt text to, like, have all the code in it. And, I have an emoji, and that doesn't paste correctly.
Matt
01:02:35 – 01:02:38
And this link got shortened, so it's actually quite annoying.
Aaron
01:02:40 – 01:02:41
So typos make sense to me.
Matt
01:02:41 – 01:03:06
We we can go on a tangent on on that briefly. One thing that is very cool that maybe not everybody knows is on Twitter, you can, just in the the basic web app, you can schedule your tweets, and that's a good way of doing it. And you can even schedule it for, like, 10 minutes from now if you don't actually wanna schedule it. But you can see it, and, like, you've clicked the tweet button, but it's like it says schedule instead of tweet, and then, like, you'll immediately see your, your mistake.
Aaron
01:03:06 – 01:03:12
That's funny. So it gives you the the fear of having published without you can still actually go back and edit it.
Matt
01:03:12 – 01:03:24
Yeah. Yeah. And then, like, you'll see it you'll see it in the interface as, like, this is scheduled to post, and then it'll look more like a tweet instead of, like, the Yeah. The form or whatever. So so that's for, like, obvious mistakes.
Matt
01:03:24 – 01:03:57
The other, like, deleting thing I do is, because, like we talked about earlier, like, once the tweets, like, get off of the feed, they're kind of dead. Like, I don't feel too bad about deleting them, or if, like, some not everything I tweet too is this, like, exact formula code thing. Like, sometimes I'll just, like, actually wanna have a discussion or ask a question or something, and sometimes, like, it doesn't go anywhere, and I'll just, like, delete it and get rid of it. But the goal is, like, if someone comes to my profile and looks at my most recent tweets, like Mhmm. It's good stuff.
Matt
01:03:58 – 01:04:18
And so if there's bad stuff, like, just get rid of it. If it didn't if it didn't Interesting. If it didn't live up to your standards or you're like, I, you know, I wanted to just rant about something, you know. Like, I had a tweet the other day that actually did really well and got tons of, people also commenting. It was about, like, how this one screen is gonna ruin, Heroku.
Matt
01:04:18 – 01:04:30
Because Heroku got acquired by Salesforce, and they, like, forced that everyone had to have 2 factor authentication, which is fine. Like, you should do that. It expires after, like, 8 hours, so you have to always like, every day
Aaron
01:04:30 – 01:04:31
I saw that
Matt
01:04:31 – 01:04:40
connection, actually. My app. Yeah. I wanna open it, and I have to and I, like, have to pull out my phone and, like, open my, like, Google Authenticator app and type this in. And it's so damn annoying.
Matt
01:04:40 – 01:04:58
That's just, like, irrational, but, like, that's gonna be a reason why people are like, I don't wanna use this. I'm gonna go to, like, render or, like, Fly. Io or something. Right. It's like, is that the is that living up to my, like, ideal values of, like, tweeting good stuff and, you know, is that a Rails stimulus hotwire?
Matt
01:04:58 – 01:05:05
So it's no. It's not. But it's like, okay. Like, I I got the point across. Like, I could delete that, and I'd be fine.
Matt
01:05:05 – 01:05:07
And, you know, someone would be
Aaron
01:05:07 – 01:05:08
interesting to me.
Matt
01:05:09 – 01:05:23
Someone would come to my, like someone that comes to my account next week and, like, clicks my my thing, clicks on my picture or whatever and scrolls down is like, oh, like, this is, like, the real stuff that I am expecting and know and I like. Like, that's good. I will follow.
Aaron
01:05:23 – 01:05:42
Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna play devil's advocate here. Because you deleted it, you are like, I don't know. You're you're sending this you're sending the sign that you're the rails only guy, but sometimes you sometimes you tweet stuff that you then delete because it's off brand. So what's the story there?
Aaron
01:05:42 – 01:05:44
Like, what's the calculus there?
Matt
01:05:44 – 01:05:47
Oh, I don't know. There's not really. Not really, like
Aaron
01:05:48 – 01:05:49
frustrated by the 2 factor auth.
Matt
01:05:50 – 01:05:58
Yeah. I mean, like, sometimes I'll just scroll through my own page and be like, I don't want that on there or, like, that that's that wasn't as good as I thought it was when I
Aaron
01:05:58 – 01:05:58
Yeah.
Matt
01:05:59 – 01:06:01
Made it and just, you know, clean it up.
Aaron
01:06:01 – 01:06:03
Yeah. I buy that. That's
Matt
01:06:03 – 01:06:08
interesting. You could you could delete everything you posted that's more than, like, 2 months old, and, like, no one's even gonna No
Aaron
01:06:08 – 01:06:08
one would
Matt
01:06:08 – 01:06:17
ever care or notice. Yeah. Maybe the obsessives would be like, wow. This account has a lot of followers, and they only have 500 tweets. Like, they must be really tweeting some good stuff.
Aaron
01:06:17 – 01:06:30
Be a bot or something. Yeah. I think, actually, there's, there are several services. I remember Mark Cuban talking about 1 back in the day about it's, like, all of his tweets would self destruct after 30 days or something.
Matt
01:06:31 – 01:06:32
Who knows what I for that.
Aaron
01:06:32 – 01:06:37
He did. Cyber Dust, and it sucked. It was terrible. I tried it. It was awful.
Matt
01:06:38 – 01:06:46
Those those accounts are so interesting to me. Like, Mark Cuban. Like, Mark Cuban on Twitter. Right? Dude's got 2,000,000 followers probably or something like that.
Matt
01:06:46 – 01:07:03
It's like I don't know. If you ever if you ever wanna, like, feel good about your own, like, small Twitter, it's like, just go look at his account, and then, like, look at your account. And it's like, this guy tweets absolute garbage. It's just, like, ads for Shark Tank, which is a good show, but Great show. Who who needs to see that in their feed?
Matt
01:07:03 – 01:07:11
Like, it gets they they don't get, nobody's commenting. Nobody's, like and that's fine. Like, for them, like, Twitter has not is not a networking
Aaron
01:07:12 – 01:07:12
It's PR.
Matt
01:07:12 – 01:07:49
And making cool space. It's just a, you know, one one of the 7 social networks that all their posts get get syndicated to. Yeah. But it's just, like, it's so interesting the dynamics of that. Of, like, yeah, my Twitter account, probably gets, like, an outsized amount of, like, traffic and people engaging with it and, like, is is arguably more valuable than, like, the last generation of, like, rails people that might have 20,000 followers, but, like, now all they do is post about their you know, breakfast burrito and, you know, link out to their automated RSS thing.
Matt
01:07:49 – 01:07:50
It's like
Aaron
01:07:50 – 01:07:50
Yep.
Matt
01:07:50 – 01:08:08
They're they they have all these, like, followers that followed them 10 years ago that may or may not even be on the app anymore. They're certainly not the people like you and I that are, like, joking around and, you know, sort of engaging. Like, they're dead, basically. Like, the account is dead. Yes.
Matt
01:08:08 – 01:08:21
Like, we have the, like, live accounts, and even though we are smaller, there's, like, there's more energy, there's more excitement, there's more, like, value in, like, being that size than having the largest, audience.
Aaron
01:08:21 – 01:08:44
It does feel like there's a, like, a generation or, like, a, you know, a class year. Like, they're the upper class one that have moved on and where the, you know, the undergrads that are up and coming. And it does feel 100% feels that way. Even in the Laravel community, you can see some of that. Like, the 2012 to 2016 class has kinda moved on.
Aaron
01:08:44 – 01:08:45
Yep. It's the same
Matt
01:08:45 – 01:09:14
it's the same in rails. And, like, a lot of those people, are great, and, like, I loved their stuff when I was, like, on the come up, but, they're either not doing it, they've moved into engineering management, they work in Rust now, they, like, became extremely, political or, you know, did that stuff. It's like, yeah. Like, I think, you know, not to blow smoke up my ass, but, like, I think I have, like, one of the more valuable, like, rails Twitter accounts, and I
Aaron
01:09:14 – 01:09:14
don't
Matt
01:09:14 – 01:09:22
have 5,000 followers. I don't have, the size of following as these people, but, you can you can do more with less.
Aaron
01:09:23 – 01:09:34
Yeah. Yeah. I totally I totally buy that. And I have seen some of these people, grow these huge accounts and then move on from the thing that I originally followed them for. Yeah.
Aaron
01:09:34 – 01:09:47
And it's like, that's, you know, that's that's great for them. I don't want I don't wanna trap people into doing rails for the rest of their lives. But, and then it it does feel kinda weird
Matt
01:09:49 – 01:09:49
because I do unfollow
Aaron
01:09:49 – 01:09:59
some of them sometimes because they're no longer tweeting about the things that I want I want to see anymore. And so that does feel that does feel a little bit strange, but I'll I will go back and, like, check on
Matt
01:09:59 – 01:09:59
them sometimes
Aaron
01:09:59 – 01:10:00
to see what's
Matt
01:10:01 – 01:10:21
It's very like, the rails and the Laravel, like, Twitter communities are are very, they're very similar in a lot of ways. But it's just it's kinda funny, like, to look at, like, Taylor on Twitter versus DHH on Twitter. I'll Yeah. I'll just leave it at that, and, you can explore for for yourself and see, like, which one looks like, is having more fun.
Aaron
01:10:21 – 01:10:38
Yeah. Taylor Taylor on Twitter is great. Taylor's whole deal is he just he just wants to vibe and make everybody's life super great, and that's, like, my favorite thing in the world. It's just like, hey. I know that PHP kinda sucks, and I'm gonna make it awesome, and I know that deploying apps kinda sucks.
Aaron
01:10:38 – 01:10:45
I'm gonna make it awesome, and he's he's just like, alright. Surf and vibes. Let's have some fun. Laravel rules. I'm like, hell yeah.
Aaron
01:10:45 – 01:10:46
This is great.
Matt
01:10:46 – 01:10:47
Yep. Yep.
Aaron
01:10:48 – 01:11:05
Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting about the, the ghost, the ghost accounts. Do you, do you do any of the, I don't know, like, the do you buy into all of this whole building in public thing? Like, I noticed let's see what your bio says.
Aaron
01:11:05 – 01:11:23
I don't think it actually says. So your bio says Ruby on Rails, stimulus, tailwind, hot wire, building arrows dot 2, all killer, no filler, Carl Pinkington, never heard of that person, is my spirit animal. So know you know. Yeah. Well, I'll have to look that one up later.
Aaron
01:11:23 – 01:11:36
So you don't have any, like you don't have the ring around your emoji that says or around your profile picture that says, like, 37%. You don't have, like, hashtag indie hacker, hashtag building
Matt
01:11:36 – 01:11:39
My MRR is, right. You don't have that location.
Aaron
01:11:39 – 01:11:43
Yeah. A chart up to, you know, 5 k MRR or whatever. So
Matt
01:11:44 – 01:11:44
Yeah.
Aaron
01:11:44 – 01:11:45
Tell me.
Matt
01:11:45 – 01:12:06
Some of that, like, just kind of, like, doesn't apply. I mean, like, I don't have my own, you know, app that I'm building in public that I'm trying to grow that I you know, I think that could be, useful. I mean, I tweeted to, to Colleen the other the other day. I said, like, the easiest way to get 10 k MRR is to, like, take one of these, like, comfy, like, 120 k for most jobs.
Aaron
01:12:06 – 01:12:07
Yeah. Right? Seriously.
Matt
01:12:07 – 01:12:41
Like, so, like, that's where I'm at at the moment. So, yeah, like, I don't have, like, MRR things to share. I I do like sharing, like, stuff I'm working on. There's a little bit of time at Arrows where, I was working on a big feature that I kinda wanted to share a lot of, and it was just, like, not not prudent to, just because, like, we were doing this big thing and, you know, there's, there's competitors and there's, like, if customers are seeing stuff that doesn't end up getting, you know, missed or whatever. There's some of that.
Matt
01:12:41 – 01:13:02
But for the most part, like, I can, you know, share what I'm and all that. I I think some of that's cool. I think, like, actually generalizing it is probably more useful when you're generalizing generalizing, like, something that I built, right, into a a a tip or a article or Gotcha. Yeah. Than, like, strictly showing screenshots of my, my app.
Matt
01:13:02 – 01:13:28
I try I try to think about it as, like, are you, are you actually, giving away, like, some knowledge? Are you, like, secretly, like, asking for something? And so some of the, like, building public stuff is, like it's framed as, like, I'm giving you things, but, like, really, you're you're just, like, stealthily asking people to, like, buy your product or, like, join your wait list or whatever. Mhmm. So it it's like a really hard line to balance, I think.
Matt
01:13:28 – 01:13:44
And, like, hey. Here's this cool feature that I'm building. Like, is that like, are you giving, like, you know, giving someone the idea of how to do it or, like, showing you how to do it, or are you really just, like, advertising? And at the end of the day, it's the same thing with, like, the code tips. Right?
Matt
01:13:44 – 01:14:03
Like, at the end of the day, I want you to, like, follow me so that I have more social influence and, can eventually, like, do my own grift and, sell you a course or something. But I don't know. Some of you know, the most the most clearly that I've ever seen this, was I think it was the in Daniel, Visayo's Twitter course. It was like
Aaron
01:14:03 – 01:14:03
Yep.
Matt
01:14:04 – 01:14:13
If you post a link to, like, your blog, like, you're not giving. You're asking people to, like, retweet it or, like, go read your blog. Like, that's an ask. That's not a give. K.
Matt
01:14:13 – 01:14:22
So but if you if you pull out, like, here's the highlight. Here's, like, the core piece of information. Like, that's closer to giving. Right? And you post it on Twitter, you're not saying like, hey.
Matt
01:14:22 – 01:14:44
I'm asking you to go off of Twitter to go to my blog to read it. And that's that's why I think, like, some of the code screenshot stuff, like, works so well because it's closer to to that, of, like, here is the The value is right there. It's right here. Here's the before and after. Like, you don't like, I'm not trying to take you out of what you were doing to, like, go to my site or upvote me on product hunt or, you know, do any of that stuff.
Aaron
01:14:45 – 01:14:47
Did you find that course helpful?
Matt
01:14:48 – 01:15:03
Yeah. I think it's good. I think, like, if you listen to this podcast and, like, any other podcast about, like, content creation, I think you could probably get get similar ideas. Like, I got it when it was, like, on sale for $5 or something. I think it's, like, $100.
Matt
01:15:04 – 01:15:10
It's probably worth a $100 to me, but I'm not particularly price sensitive about that kind of stuff.
Aaron
01:15:10 – 01:15:15
Yeah. But you won't pay for the $9 Mailchimp. So email email list, you're
Matt
01:15:15 – 01:15:17
very frustrated. It's the it's the recurring stuff.
Aaron
01:15:17 – 01:15:40
Yeah. That's true. So what about so I'll I'll do this thing sometimes where instead of, like, creating a new tweet, I'll go back to one that I tweeted earlier that this thing relates to. So it's like a follow-up, basically. And I'll do it from a few days ago and reply to my my own tweet, but a few days later.
Matt
01:15:40 – 01:15:45
Yeah. Seems good. Because then they get connected, and then people can, like, follow the chain up.
Aaron
01:15:46 – 01:15:47
Something that you do or no?
Matt
01:15:47 – 01:15:56
If I have, like, multiple things. I mean, I tweeted last week. I was like, here's an app ID I have. Like, I really wish that you could actually search through your Chrome history. Right?
Aaron
01:15:56 – 01:15:57
Oh, yeah. I saw that.
Matt
01:15:57 – 01:16:14
Like, you can't you you can go to your Chrome history, and it's like, here's all the sites. And there's a search bar, but it, like, searches the title of the page. And it's like And it also only lasts for 45 days or something, and it it's terrible. I was like, oh, like, here's I wish someone would make this thing. And then, like, a couple days later, I was still thinking, like, I wish someone would make this.
Matt
01:16:14 – 01:16:28
So I replied to that, and I was like, oh, I guess I'm gonna have to make this. And then a couple days later, I was like, oh, hey. I found out that, it's a SQLite database. Your history, yeah, in a SQLite database. And, like, here's a screenshot of the schema, and you can, like, you know, see the stuff.
Matt
01:16:28 – 01:16:58
And it's like, oh. And then a couple days later, you know, it was, like, a Sunday, and I decided to spend 2 hours, like, making a prototype of, like, can I read from this database and get the URL and then, like, pull down the URL and grab the text content and then shove it into, like, a Postgres full text search? And then, like, oh, I can actually search this. And then, you know, you can, you can see the steps to go from that, like, proof of concept to actually, you know, making an app. And I've I've I've done that part.
Matt
01:16:58 – 01:17:01
But I'm like I follow that whole thing. That stuff. Yeah.
Aaron
01:17:01 – 01:17:14
I followed that whole thing, and it's funny because I know exactly what you're talking about. I knew you were gonna say SQLite because I was following it on Twitter, and that is like, that's what I'm on Twitter for. Like, that was a prime example of
Matt
01:17:14 – 01:17:16
Just a little story.
Aaron
01:17:16 – 01:17:28
Yeah. I watched this guy have this, you know, this desire, this frustration. And then 2 days later, he's like, oh, what if I kinda did this? And then it it just keeps going. And that's the stuff that I freaking love.
Aaron
01:17:28 – 01:17:45
I just love watching people do cool stuff like that and follow kinda like follow their madness, and that's my jam. That's what I love to see on Twitter, and that's what I love to, like, put out on Twitter is wouldn't it be cool if this were possible and then, you know, see if you can figure it out?
Matt
01:17:45 – 01:17:49
Yeah. And, like, that stuff doesn't do as well if you, like, look at the numbers.
Aaron
01:17:49 – 01:17:49
Mhmm.
Matt
01:17:50 – 01:18:12
But I think that's fine. It's like that's, like, more personal stuff. That's more, like, you're getting to know me and, like, stuff that I think is cool and, like, how I approach stuff, and it's less of the, like because I think if you if you only publish the most polished, you know, formula code snippet tweets, like, it starts to become like this is like a publishing brand account or whatever.
Aaron
01:18:12 – 01:18:12
This is a
Matt
01:18:12 – 01:18:13
person anymore.
Aaron
01:18:13 – 01:18:36
Yes. One of the highest compliments that somebody paid me the other day was they said, I like following you on Twitter because you're a real person. Yeah. Oh, thanks. Like, that legitimately means a lot to me because I like my I I want to focus on, Laravel and things that Laravel and Laravel adjacent developers would find interesting.
Aaron
01:18:37 – 01:18:59
Right? That's kind of that's kind of my shtick. But within the things Laravel developers would find interesting interesting, there's a lot of non code tips. Right? And I just want to be, like, I want to be sharing cool stuff, and I want to be excited in public and let people just, like, kinda join in.
Aaron
01:19:00 – 01:19:09
And to have this person say, like, oh, I love following you on Twitter because everyone else is a robot, and you're like an actual human. It's like, yes. That's exactly what I'm going for.
Matt
01:19:09 – 01:19:25
It's like if you had, like, a group chat or, like, like, you know, the off topic channel in Slack or whatever. It's like, oh, people are always posting, like, cool stuff in here that is, like, related to what I want or, like, tangentially related, except it's, like, anyone can kinda follow along.
Aaron
01:19:25 – 01:19:38
Yep. Okay. What else? There was one thing I heard the other day when, I don't know if you listened to, Adam Lavin and Ben Orenstein's Twitter space the other day. Did you hear that one?
Matt
01:19:39 – 01:19:40
I heard some of it.
Aaron
01:19:40 – 01:19:53
There was one thing, Adam said in there when he was talking about, I think, how he doesn't like Twitter anymore. And he said that whenever he posts something, he gets the same freaking reply,
Matt
01:19:54 – 01:19:54
like Yes.
Aaron
01:19:55 – 01:20:07
30, 40, 50 times. And he said it Yeah. It's the same joke. Like, everyone comes up with the same joke and replies at the exact same time, and it just is so freaking annoying. And I thought, oh, man.
Aaron
01:20:07 – 01:20:31
That is not like, that's not something I no. Not a problem I have, and not something I would have thought to be on guard for. Like, if you're replying to somebody who you are friendly with and they're a much bigger account, like, oh, they probably all of the first ten replies that you could think of, somebody has probably already replied to them, and they're annoyed by it at that point.
Matt
01:20:31 – 01:20:31
Yeah.
Aaron
01:20:31 – 01:20:32
That was kinda
Matt
01:20:32 – 01:20:41
eye opening to me. It gets probably further exacerbated by, like, the kind of strategy for Twitter of, like, being a reply guy and just, like, latching on to these people. Right?
Aaron
01:20:42 – 01:20:44
And Yeah. Tell me more about that.
Matt
01:20:44 – 01:20:52
Well, I mean, that's a way to do it, and, like, that's certainly a way to, like, get into a community is, like and I don't know. Do you follow, Nassim Talaab on Twitter?
Aaron
01:20:53 – 01:20:55
I think I actually do. Yeah.
Matt
01:20:55 – 01:21:01
Yeah. So, like, there's an entire, like, sub niche of Twitter that is just, like, Nassim Taleb, like, reply guys that are, like,
Aaron
01:21:01 – 01:21:03
always Elon Musk has them. I mean Yeah. Yeah.
Matt
01:21:03 – 01:21:18
Yeah. They're always in every thread, and, you know, they're not, like, spamming or, like, doing low quality stuff. But, like Yeah. That's a legitimate thing is, like, you know, find a larger person and then, like, be the, like, community around them. Right.
Matt
01:21:18 – 01:21:26
If, like, if you think about back in the day, it was probably, like, you had, like, the Daring Fireball blog, and there's probably, like, commenters on that blog with that or, like, regular commenters and, like,
Aaron
01:21:26 – 01:21:40
I think this this week in startups, they have they Jason Calacanis' show, they have people like that currently. Like, they'll hear you'll hear them say, like, so and so in the chat who's, like, our number one fan. So that that still is very much a thing for them as well.
Matt
01:21:40 – 01:22:06
It's, like, it's very legitimate, but, like, you can also do it very poorly. Right? So, like, you know, it almost has the opposite effect of, like, instead of becoming friendly with a person that you're, like, trying to have, like, a symbiotic, like, you know, a whale and, you know, what's the little thing that, like, that latches onto a whale, like the barnacles or whatever? Yeah. It's like instead of that, you're like a parasite or something, and you're just, like, dragging you're dragging the whole the whole thing down.
Aaron
01:22:06 – 01:22:07
Yeah.
Matt
01:22:07 – 01:22:29
I don't know. Like, my my, like, unsolicited advice to Adam is, like, he's probably big enough that he should just turn the settings on so that, like, only people he follows or whatever can reply. Yeah. And then, like, do his do his, like, business y stuff from the tailwind account and, like, turn off notifications, and then, I don't know. I would, like, aggressively, block people.
Matt
01:22:29 – 01:22:48
But maybe Yeah. Maybe he feels like, he sort of can't do that because, he's, like, the public face of a company that wants to provide, you know, support or whatever. But it's something that, like, anything other than, like, mega Twitter, personality size, you can definitely, get away with.
Aaron
01:22:48 – 01:23:09
Yeah. You can definitely control. But what was informative for me was don't like, even if you're friendly with the person and they've got, you know, 50,000 followers or whatever, and they say something, don't make the same joke that 40 other people are gonna make because that's really annoying. Like, I could do that to you and nobody else would make the joke, and you would think I'm hysterical. But to Adam Latham, I make the joke.
Aaron
01:23:09 – 01:23:12
He's like, god dang it. This freaking guy.
Matt
01:23:12 – 01:23:27
I mean, some of it too is just like reading sort of social cues on the Internet. Right? Like Yeah. If you if you if you reply to Adam a couple times and, like, he never answers you, it's like, maybe, like, stop and realize, like, oh, maybe like, it could just be that he, you know, didn't see it or whatever or
Aaron
01:23:27 – 01:23:28
Yeah.
Matt
01:23:28 – 01:23:40
He's getting flooded, but it's like like, you and I didn't just start, like, posting, you know, little jokes to each other, but, like, eventually, we did and, like, you would reply or you would, like, like the tweet. It's like, oh, okay. Like
Aaron
01:23:40 – 01:23:41
We're both.
Matt
01:23:41 – 01:23:48
This is, like, assigned to proceed. Like, keep keep doing what you're doing. Yeah. So I don't know. I think people are just like, oh, yeah.
Matt
01:23:48 – 01:23:52
Like, I'll just post on this, and eventually, like, you know, we'll be we'll be friendly or whatever.
Aaron
01:23:52 – 01:23:54
Eventually, he'll notice me. Yeah.
Matt
01:23:54 – 01:24:00
Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I I I try to be, like, fairly careful about that too. Just I don't know.
Matt
01:24:00 – 01:24:23
It's, like, irrational too, but it's like, oh, like, it was it meant a lot to me, like, that Adam followed me because I really, sort of respect what he does. So it's like, oh, I don't wanna I don't wanna, like, blow it. So I wanna make sure that I'm, like if I'm gonna contribute to a thread that he's on, it's like, I wanna make sure it's actually a contribution and not just like a, you know, a little like a me too of, like, hey. Like, look at me too. I'm in the group.
Aaron
01:24:23 – 01:24:32
Yeah. Yeah. You do have to be, and you have to be socially aware, and that it can be more difficult online. Right? Because it's all For sure.
Aaron
01:24:33 – 01:24:40
It's all threads are all over the place, and it's all text and everything. Yeah. That does make it a lot harder, so you do kinda have to be careful
Matt
01:24:41 – 01:24:47
The weird part is, like, this whole kind of, like, newish phenomenon of, like, parasocial relationships. Are you familiar with this?
Aaron
01:24:47 – 01:24:48
No. Tell me.
Matt
01:24:48 – 01:25:11
Just like, it's a lot bigger, I think, in, like, the YouTube and, like, the live streaming side of thing, but it's like, it it applies to Twitter. But, like, imagine that you are just a random developer. Right? And you you really like, you know let's not use Adam because he'll get annoyed, that we're using him for every example. Like, you know, you really like you really like Ben Orenstein.
Matt
01:25:11 – 01:25:25
Right? You're like, you listen to his podcast. You listen to, like, every podcast that he's a guest on because, like, you wanna know more. And, there's, like, this weird imbalance where you know so much about them and, like, what they're doing, and they have no idea who Mhmm. You are.
Matt
01:25:25 – 01:25:47
But you it's like so you start to, like, build this thing of, like, oh, like, this is a this is, like, a really good, friend of mine, and then, you know, like, they it it can't work the other way. Like, you know, you can't be friends with all 10,000 of your your followers. And Right. That that's where it, like, gets to be, that's where I think some of this behavior comes from of, like, people are like, oh, yeah. Like, Ben and I are are friends.
Matt
01:25:47 – 01:25:59
It's Interesting. You're not actually, you know, you're not actually, friends. And there's like a switch when someone becomes like a fan versus a a friend or like Uh-huh. These are these are friends. Like, this is my audience.
Matt
01:25:59 – 01:26:11
And it definitely happens a lot more in, like, the, YouTube and and, like, Twitch side of things just because of the duration. It's like people are like, you were seeing me live for, like, 8 hours a day every day
Aaron
01:26:11 – 01:26:12
Right.
Matt
01:26:12 – 01:26:18
To 100000 people, but I don't I don't know I don't know. If you're the broadcaster. Like, you don't know any of them.
Aaron
01:26:18 – 01:26:22
Right. What does that mean? That's Parasocial. What is
Matt
01:26:23 – 01:26:27
I don't know. I'm not sure what, like, what the entomology of the term is, but
Aaron
01:26:27 – 01:26:28
That's yeah. I've never heard that, but that
Matt
01:26:28 – 01:26:36
It's not a social relationship. It's, like, parasocial maybe like a like a para parasitic, like, one one way a one way relationship. I don't
Aaron
01:26:36 – 01:26:53
know if you made that up, but that was great. That makes perfect sense to me. Yeah. That that explains a lot of, I guess, perceived or observed behavior because it's never usually, usually not like malicious or anything. It's just kind of Yeah.
Aaron
01:26:53 – 01:27:02
Like, oh, you think y'all are super close buds, but you have been following that person. They haven't been following you. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron
01:27:02 – 01:27:04
That's super interesting. And,
Matt
01:27:05 – 01:27:08
it just gets it gets exacerbated exacerbated
Aaron
01:27:10 – 01:27:10
There you go.
Matt
01:27:11 – 01:27:22
When the like, there's a big difference. If it's like, oh, yeah. You're, like, a new account, and this person has a 100,000. Like Right. It it's easier for that to happen versus, like, if you have, like, 2 people that have a 100 followers each, like, it's just not They're just gonna be friends.
Matt
01:27:22 – 01:27:30
But the dynamics are different. Right? Like Yeah. If you reply, they're gonna be like, oh, I see your reply. It's not lost in the sea of 5,000, you know, replies.
Aaron
01:27:31 – 01:27:42
Yeah. So what do you think about, well, what do you think about I changed my mind. What do you think about profile pictures? Do you have strong opinions on those?
Matt
01:27:43 – 01:27:47
Not really. Like, pick probably, like, pick 1 and just keep it, I think, for for a
Aaron
01:27:47 – 01:27:49
long time. My only strong opinion. Yeah.
Matt
01:27:49 – 01:27:52
But you just changed yours because you I know. Lara but LaraCon one. I
Aaron
01:27:52 – 01:28:12
know. That was that was, so that was a struggle for me because I want, like when I tweet, I want people to know that it's me, but I also wanted to be a joiner. Like, I wanted to I was excited to be a part of Laracon. I wanted to be a team player, and the profile they made for me was insanely cool. Yeah.
Aaron
01:28:12 – 01:28:14
So, yeah, that was that was pretty good.
Matt
01:28:15 – 01:28:34
It it definitely was like, it it helped show even to me, like, I'm only on the outside looking in of, like, the Laravel space, but it was like, oh, like, everyone's got similar, you know, avatar things. Like, oh, it's a Laracon, you know, thing. I you can Yeah. You can see other people and be like, oh, who's that person? I didn't know that they were, you know, a speaker or whatever.
Matt
01:28:34 – 01:28:35
I think it's fine.
Aaron
01:28:35 – 01:28:40
Yeah. I switched it back today. But the the yeah.
Matt
01:28:40 – 01:28:54
See, if I if I were you, I probably would have just left it. Like, if you're gonna change it, like, then just leave it until, you know, you're ready to change it, again. But may maybe it'll maybe it'll be tacky to have last year's Slarecon thing for Right.
Aaron
01:28:54 – 01:28:56
You don't that's just that's just outright embarrassing.
Matt
01:28:57 – 01:28:57
Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron
01:28:57 – 01:29:13
Yeah. I only changed mine, like, I had one from, like, 2010 to maybe 2018 or 2019, and I realized I don't look that young anymore, so I need to change my picture. And that's where I have the one that I have now, and I look a little bit more realistic.
Matt
01:29:14 – 01:29:17
Yeah. I really wanted one of those, like, hexagon profile pictures.
Aaron
01:29:18 – 01:29:21
Like, to do an actual NFT or to pretend you've done an NFT?
Matt
01:29:22 – 01:29:38
I don't know. Like, I I like when I I like on Twitter, like, all the stupid features that, like, my rational brain should be like, yeah, who cares? Like, do you have the check mark? Or, like, do you have, you know, did you get, this special, you know, extra badge or whatever? And it's like, I don't know.
Matt
01:29:38 – 01:29:54
My monkey brain still, like, wants those things. So I was like, oh, this is cool. My profile will stand out if I if I have it. And then I didn't, I didn't do it. And I think someone someone told me actually that there was, like, automation tools that would, scan and, like, block anybody.
Matt
01:29:54 – 01:30:01
Like, you could do, like, a block list of, like, anybody that has an NFT profile picture, like, you know, because it's, like, in the API or something to
Aaron
01:30:01 – 01:30:02
Kind of genius.
Matt
01:30:02 – 01:30:06
Block them all or something. And it was gonna be, like, $500 for,
Aaron
01:30:06 – 01:30:10
To mint your own picture. Yeah. I mean,
Matt
01:30:10 – 01:30:21
honestly, Like, I I don't I don't I don't get, all the crypto stuff. Like, I get it, but, like, does nobody, like, know about taxes? You should know. Like, you're a tax guy. Right?
Aaron
01:30:21 – 01:30:27
Yeah. It they're about to find out. I mean yeah. It's wet February. They're gonna find out soon.
Matt
01:30:28 – 01:30:44
To play around, and it's like, you guys realize, like, every transaction you're making is a, like, taxable, thing that you were supposed to pay taxes on. And, like, no, man. Like, if it's not US dollars, like, it ain't you know, it's not real. It's like, that's not actually, how it works, but, I don't know.
Aaron
01:30:44 – 01:30:50
Right. The FBI just arrested those people for trying to launder Bitcoin, and you're telling me that Bitcoin is not
Matt
01:30:50 – 01:31:11
with I don't think they're gonna come after, you know, Joe Schmo who was, you know, trading $500 of of coins or whatever, but I don't know. Like, it it's kind of, you know, we mentioned Nassim Taleb earlier, and it's like, that's one of those like, it's a very high risk thing for very low reward if you're, in my opinion, if you're, like, a working software developer. Right?
Aaron
01:31:11 – 01:31:12
Yes. I agree.
Matt
01:31:12 – 01:31:31
Like, is it really worth it for you to, like, you know, scrimp up, like, 15 k of, like, weird cryptocurrency, money on the chance that, like, you don't do the taxes right and, like or it all goes down and suddenly you have, like, a $50,000 tax bill and you get audited. It's like, was that worth it? Like
Aaron
01:31:31 – 01:31:32
No. I
Matt
01:31:32 – 01:31:41
don't know. It's you know? It's Take take risks smartly, but, like, you don't want it to, like, take a risk that, like, could end you like, could make you, like, financially destitute or in jail. Right? Like, that's that's a bad habit.
Aaron
01:31:42 – 01:31:44
Blowing up. Right? Isn't that what he says? Yeah.
Matt
01:31:44 – 01:32:06
Yeah. You don't wanna blow up. And, I don't know. Like, when you're a gainfully employed, you know, programmer making, good money, it seems like like, you know, you don't have occupational risk. Like, you're not gonna, like, you know, have a jackhammer, like, smash your foot and, you know, you're not gonna fall off a building because you, like, work in a construction job or something.
Matt
01:32:06 – 01:32:15
It's like, just like, don't do anything too dumb. And, it's very easy, I think, to accidentally do stuff that's, really dumb.
Aaron
01:32:15 – 01:32:32
Yep. I saw on Reddit recently, somebody got a I forget what the name of the document is. It's a 10 something document from Coinbase that listed all their taxable events, and they were like, wait a second. Why do I have to pay taxes? I didn't make any money on crypto this year.
Aaron
01:32:32 – 01:32:36
It's like, well, you had all these taxable events. Yeah. And,
Matt
01:32:36 – 01:32:50
now the asset that was like, oh, it's fine. Like, it you know, even if you had to pay the taxes, it's like you've got, you know, this big asset. It's like, oh, well, that actually crashed. So now, like, you have less cash in the bank to cover the tax burden that you had. Exactly.
Matt
01:32:50 – 01:32:57
I don't know. Like, maybe it's, neat in the future or whatever, but it doesn't doesn't seem worth it.
Aaron
01:32:57 – 01:32:59
No. Doesn't seem worth it.
Matt
01:32:59 – 01:33:14
If I was better friends if I was better friends with some of the people online, I'd be like, what are you doing? You know, you're you're playing, like, Russian roulette. It's like, yeah. You probably will be fine, but, like, why are you risking, you know, bad things?
Aaron
01:33:14 – 01:33:15
Very bad things.
Matt
01:33:15 – 01:33:16
Yeah.
Aaron
01:33:16 – 01:33:28
Alright. Last Twitter thing that I so that's on this this shared doc that we have, and I think it's the best way to describe it possible. It says business on the timeline, party in the replies.
Matt
01:33:29 – 01:33:32
Yeah. It's like the mullet the mullet theory
Aaron
01:33:32 – 01:33:33
of Twitter.
Matt
01:33:33 – 01:33:45
Like, this is at least how I kinda post. It's like, if I post stuff on my main timeline, like, I want it to be useful and, like, good. Right? That's, like, in my bio. It's like all killer, no filler.
Matt
01:33:45 – 01:33:53
Right? Like, everything I post should be good. Like, you know, bangers only. Right? But then, like, in the replies, like, nobody list.
Matt
01:33:53 – 01:34:10
Like, your whole audience isn't seeing the replies, so it's like that's more like the fun, you know, shitposting or, like, little inside jokes with people. You know, that's where that's where you can, like, let off your steam in a way that doesn't, end up making your account, like, unfollowable.
Aaron
01:34:11 – 01:34:17
Yeah. Yeah. No. I totally subscribe to the exact same philosophy, but the phrasing was amazing to me. But, yeah, I do the same thing.
Aaron
01:34:17 – 01:34:27
Like, I want to be tweeting. Like, I want to be, you know, positive. I wanna be people's hype person. Like, I wanna Yeah. Like, instead of a reply guy, I want to be the hype guy.
Aaron
01:34:27 – 01:34:40
Like, I want to be building other people up and showing, like, other cool stuff that people are working on on on main. And then in the replies, I kinda wanna be dorking around and and having some some fun with the friends. So Yeah.
Matt
01:34:40 – 01:34:54
I mean, the other thing that, you can do is just, like, if you really still want that, like, blowing off steam thing, it's just, like, make another, like, anonymous alt account and just, roll around in the filth over.
Aaron
01:34:54 – 01:35:13
Yeah. I've actually thought about making another account that is, basically just personal. Because I have I probably have maybe 20 real life friends who follow me on Twitter. And I remember a while back, one of them came up to me, and they were like, okay. What is Laravel?
Aaron
01:35:14 – 01:35:20
Like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that you follow me still. So I've thought about
Matt
01:35:20 – 01:35:37
doing it. Do you like is Twitter the way that, like, they want to be, like, communicating with you, or did this happen I mean, like, for me, I think that would be, like, oh, like, Twitter is where I, like, post about real stuff, and, like, Facebook is where I post about, like, you know, life stuff or whatever, and, like, they don't mix necessarily.
Aaron
01:35:38 – 01:35:58
Yeah. See, I'm not on Facebook anymore, so I haven't posted it on Facebook in 5 years or more, and neither are these people. So I still, I'm not, I don't post on Instagram. I do still, Snapchat with these people. So there's like 10 people that I'll Snapchat with.
Aaron
01:35:59 – 01:36:16
And it's, like, friends who have moved away and some that are still local. But, yeah, I think there are a few people on, like, IRL friends of mine who are just on Twitter all the time like I am, but they're not Laravel people. And so they suffer through my content.
Matt
01:36:16 – 01:36:21
A list a list for that is really good for you seeing their stuff, but it doesn't kind of work the other way.
Aaron
01:36:22 – 01:36:22
Yeah. For sure.
Matt
01:36:22 – 01:36:24
Or you could tell them to mute Laravel.
Aaron
01:36:24 – 01:36:30
Yeah. Yeah. That would probably eliminate most of the problem for them. Yeah. Okay.
Aaron
01:36:30 – 01:36:31
Well, anything else?
Matt
01:36:31 – 01:36:42
No. I think that's it. If this was at all interesting to you, it means you're probably very like Aaron and I, so you should come follow us on Twitter and join the party.
Aaron
01:36:42 – 01:36:48
And again, you are underscore Swanson on Twitter and boring rails.com.
Matt
01:36:50 – 01:37:15
Yeah. I have a sad story about I I tried to get the actual Swanson Twitter handle, and some random guy had it. And, I sort of was like, oh, hey. Like, I really wanted this name, and, like, I kinda have you guys sort of have to, like, cheekily kind of say like, hey. Like, maybe, if you would give if you're not using it and wanna give me that account, then maybe I would be happy to send you some money for your troubles.
Matt
01:37:16 – 01:37:34
And, like, I actually, you know, talked to this guy, and he was like, oh, yeah. Like, I don't use this anymore. Like, you can have it and, like, set this whole thing up. And then I don't know what happened, but I my only hypothesis is that there was, like, some bot that was, like, watching for, like, account changes because, literally, I you know, we were, like, in DMs. Like, alright.
Matt
01:37:34 – 01:37:44
Like, switch your account name, and I'm gonna switch my account name. And then, like, the millisecond that it happened, like, some, like, 0 follower accounts with, you know, an egg profile, like
Aaron
01:37:44 – 01:37:45
Snatched it?
Matt
01:37:45 – 01:37:54
Got the name. Yeah. And then eventually eventually, now there's someone that has it, and I was and I, like, messaged them. I'm like, hey. Like, how did you how did you get this account?
Matt
01:37:54 – 01:38:10
They're like, oh, I was on some, like, Discord, and someone had this account available. And so I I'm guessing there's just, like, bots that sit on all, like, the, you know, 6 letter, you know, usernames or something and do it like that. But that was a sad a sad, sad day.
Aaron
01:38:10 – 01:38:16
Looks like Evan Swanson owns it now, and he's streaming live on YouTube right now. What a pity.
Matt
01:38:16 – 01:38:22
Yeah. So I I missed my chance to unify my, my GitHub and my Twitter, you know, account handles.
Aaron
01:38:22 – 01:38:35
Yep. Bummer. Alright. Well, for having never, talked in person and then just dorking around for an hour and 45 minutes about Twitter, I would say this went pretty well and was a blast. So thanks for coming
Matt
01:38:35 – 01:38:37
on. Yeah, no problem.
Aaron
01:38:37 – 01:38:38
All right. Talk to you later.
Matt
01:38:38 – 01:38:39
All right. Bye.
Me

Thanks for reading! My name is Aaron and I write, make videos , and generally try really hard .

If you ever have any questions or want to chat, I'm always on Twitter.

You can find me on YouTube on my personal channel or the Try Hard Studios channel.

If you love podcasts, I got you covered. You can listen to me on Mostly Technical .