Thread by @AlexPetrovnia

Managing a large Twitter account is more work than you could possibly imagine if you’ve never done it.
I’m a relatively small “large” account, at around 7,000 followers. I’m going to pull back the curtain a bit on what that means, tangibly, for me, because we don’t talk about it.

Here are my twitter stats for the past 28 days. I've been mentioned, aka tagged directly in a tweet, 2,800 times. This means there has been a tweet someone asks me to directly interact with, with individual attention, 2,800 times in the last month. That's an average of 100 a DAY.

Let's keep going. I've tweeted 1,476 tweets this month. That's an average of 52 tweets or replies daily. You may notice this is down 25% this month. That is because I have very consciously made efforts to REDUCE the amount that I feel obligated to respond to tweet interactions.

Okay, let's talk about impressions. That's how many times people have seen a tweet that I made. This past month, my tweets have been seen over five and a half MILLION times.
If that sounds great, please consider the stress of 5.5 million people watching your every move.

Think about being a marginalized person, with no formal training in media relations or public speaking, with an army of people who hate you ready to launch at any point.
Even the people "on your side" are watching for your mistakes. Any misstep could be catastrophic.

On the other hand, think about what this means for me as a person. I am 24 years old, just starting my career. I have lost a position already due to this twitter account and the honesty and advocacy I do here.
5.5 million people can see any mistake I make. It matters.

This is not to mention that I am hyper aware that for many people, I am *the* trans person they know of. The advocacy I do, the words I say, and the management I do here matters.

This takes an immense amount of TIME. Writing in itself takes a huge amount of time. Proofing what I wrote takes a massive amount of time. Replying to people and clarifying what I wrote takes a huge amount of time. My partner often jokes that Twitter is a full time job for me.

I’m not writing this to complain. I choose this work. I believe in this work, and I believe that it’s important. But I want to make it clear that this *is* work, and difficult work at that.
It should be treated as such.

I can guarantee you that any other large Twitter account you follow, especially run by a marginalized person, is the same.
Now consider this: this is all volunteer work, often by marginalized people struggling to make ends meet.

If you find a Twitter account useful, informative, entertaining, or fulfilling in any way, and you are in any way able - PAY THEM FOR THEIR LABOR. Because it IS labor.

This goes DOUBLY for people who are marginalized.
I guarantee you that your Twitter favorites have avenues through which to do this, and that they at least partially depend on that revenue to survive, or at the least, to continue doing the labor on Twitter that you benefit from.

I'm going to add here my revenue streams from twitter that I depend on to survive. I encourage other twitter creators to QT this thread and add theirs as well!

Easiest for me - my venmo is @AlexPetrovnia, just like my twitter handle.
I also sell handmade masks, plants, and some vintage items on my etsy, which can be found HERE:
etsy.com/shop/MascMasks

I also have a Patreon, although currently it's not incredibly active.
Let me know what content you'd like to see there, and consider subscribing here:
patreon.com/AlexPetrovnia

If you own a business of ANY variety that is trans-inclusive, you can also go HERE to be added to a registry of trans friendly businesses (which includes access to information and training materials), which helps support my activism work here!
transfriend.ly/list-your-busi…