As we begin the new year, it’s a good time to sit back, relax, and worry about all the stupid things you did on the internet in 2013. Fear not, for we have compiled our guide to sorting our your social media profiles for 2014.
Unfollow everyone
Nobody follows people anymore, it’s so 2013. With Twitter experimenting with allowing users to “Favorite” each other instead, you should make the leap now before everyone else does: Unfollow everyone and make a list of people whose tweets you want to see. With the-only-Twitter-app-that-matters Tweetbot allowing you to replace your timeline with a list instead, it means that you can follow people without actually following them. You’ll look more famous, too. It’s all about the following/followers ratio. Of course, it’s wise to keep following your significant other. It’s called “Doing a Kanye”.
Kanye knows
Delete your Path account
OK, so you drunkenly signed up as a joke that one time. That’s fine. But the honeymoon is over. Do you really want to be a part of the “one-to-one and one-to-many private messaging and sharing” app? I’ll answer for you: no. Annoyingly, the option to delete your account is hidden in the app’s About page. You will feel the benefits immediately after deleting your account.
Unfriend your haters
Facebook is busy promoting its Unfollow feature that allows you to hide posts from your friends while remaining friends with them. This is for quitters. Use the power of the new year to tell your haters what you really think before unfriending them, blocking them and then reporting them for spam.
Revoke access for every app
There’s no telling when that flashlight app you installed on your phone will turn rogue. You probably didn’t even notice it ask for permission to access your Twitter account. Well be warned, because it may suddenly use those permissions to turn your Twitter account into a spam bot, tweeting out links to dodgy weight loss products. The safest thing to do is to revoke access for everything you have ever connected to your Twitter account.
These are all spam. Revoke, revoke, revoke
Get tactical on Foursquare
Foursquare isn’t a toy, it’s not just “some app”. Foursquare is a fight to assert your dominance over the world around you. If you’re not checking in, you’re not there. Be sure to formulate a plan of attack for 2014. You can have that coffee shop round the corner from your office if you really want it. Check in there on the way to to work, check in there while on the toilet at work, check in there while buying your lunch, you can even check in there while actually there. Once you’ve become the rightful mayor and ousted “Mike M.”, be sure to change your Foursquare bio to something that subtly hints that you take this seriously.
Delete your embarrassing tweets
Perhaps you’re prone to swearing on Twitter, or maybe you tweeted a link to a publication you later grew to distrust. Thankfully, there’s a relatively easy way to make all of your regrettable Twitter missives disappear.
Fire up Snap Bird, search for the term you’d like to disappear, then click “Find It”. I searched for “fuck” and hundreds of results appeared. Click the time stamp for a tweet you’d like to banish from existence and it’ll take you straight to the tweet where you can delete it.
Snap Bird can only search through 3,194 of your most recent tweets. If you want to find a tweet from long ago, it’s a little more tricky. First off, request your Twitter archive from Twitter’s settings menu.
You’ll receive an email with a link that allows you to download all of your tweets as a HTML file. Open it in a web browser, search for whatever you want to find, and there you have a complete list of all your tweets, with a link to disappear them.
Check what your colleagues have done to your LinkedIn profile
Here’s a fun game. When was the last time that you actually read through an email from LinkedIn informing you that your connections have endorsed you for skills? I’m guessing “never”. Well, you probably should check now, because your colleagues may have vandalised your profile by sneaking in some extra skills.
My former colleagues have added “SASS” and “Sass” to my LinkedIn profile
Reserve your Vine vanity URL
Soon everyone will have a Vine profile on the desktop version of the site. Hear that? Everyone. Don’t get left behind, reserve your vanity URL here today. Because if you don’t, that guy on Facebook with the same name as you will get it.
Unhack your Pinterest account
It happens to us all: You revisit your abandoned Pinterest account after watching an unexpectedly-emotional film and discover your carefully-ordered boards with titles like “WEDDING!!” and “art i like” have been ruined by hackers. Weight loss spam and women in tiny bikinis sit where your pins used to be. Your account can be yours again after about three password reset emails. You’ll never use it, but that’s not the point.
Stalk your friends
There’s now no excuse for not noticing that your cousin has changed her display picture. Oh, the lady who worked in accounts at the place you did work experience at? She updated her bio to include an @mention of her boyfriend. If you don’t know that these things are happening, you’re missing out. Go sign up to the awkwardly-named Bio Is Changed. You can set up email alerts for when someone you follow updates their display picture or bio. Even better: stick in any Twitter’s username and chances are that the site has an archive of their previous display pictures and bios. Ha, everyone sounded like a dick in 2011.
Go pro on Instagram
If you’ve been taking photos, adding a filter, then posting them on Instagram, you’ve been missing out. It’s time to take your amateur photography to the next level. Install the Photoshop app, then install the VSCOcam app for good measure. Take a photo with the camera app, auto-enhance it, open it in mobile Photoshop, play with the contrast, open it in VSCOcam, add four cool filters, open it in Instagram, add another filter, #hashtag #everything, and then post it on Instagram. See? Much better.
This is how your Instagram photos should look