Who Are The People In My Twitterhood? @PixelVixen707

I've been on Twitter for about six months now, and unlike a lot of people who drop off after their first month, I have no plans to stop tweeting anytime soon. I've met a lot of interesting people on Twitter; writers, artists, podcasters, bloggers, and just everyday working stiffs like myself, and I thought “Wouldn't it be neat to try and introduce some of these people to the people who read my work?” So here you have it, the first in what may be a whole series of posts about the people I follow.

I honestly don't know if @Pixelvixen707 followed me first, or if I followed her, but I do know that I followed her because she seemed both interesting and all about games; I am a gamer, and since interesting people are what I am interested in following (@JackBox aside), I followed her.

Pixelvixen707 gives her real name as Rachael Webster (I take the idea of “real names” on the interwebs with a grain of salt), and runs her own blog which is equal parts surprisingly refreshing video game analysis and personal blog. She has also just started writing for Suicide Girls (WARNING: Suicide Girls is very much not safe for work) alongside other geeky idols of mine like Mur Lafferty and Wil Wheaton, where her first article discusses Violette Szabo, the woman who was the inspiration for the heroine of (the apparently lackluster) Velvet Assassin.

Now when I say that her views are refreshing, I am not being patronizing, nor am I saying it because she's a female (there are actually plenty of female video game bloggers out there), but because her articles are so totally different than what I see on the other sites I read, like Joystiq or Kotaku. I'm not slagging off Kotaku or Joystiq mind you, it's just that a lot of their posts seem very rushed and are often almost like reprints of press releases. It's as if they are trying to meet a quota of how many articles should be posted a day (which they very likely are). PixelVixen707's stuff never seems like that, it seems more like a normal gamer with good writing skills talking about her hobby.

Maybe it's all of the personal stuff that helps set her apart. I know more about her than I do about any of the writers at Joystiq. I know her boyfriend is named Zach, and that he is an art therapist at a psychiatric hospital. I know she works for the New York Journal-Ledger when she's not blogging and tweeting (I'm sure she never tweets at work, I certainly don't *wink wink*). I know something about the relationship with her dad. I know that to celebrate her new column at Suicide Girls, she got a cake with nipples on it.

On the other hand, I know next to nothing about the home life of, say, Justin McElroy, other than that he is infatuated with Blueberry Muffin Tops (which he has gotten me hooked on too, dammit). Maybe if you blogged about your family, I would feel more of a connection to you too, McElroy.

PixelVixen707 seems like a rising star in the Twitterati (or Geekarati, or Technorati, or whatever cheesy term you want to use), so if you are on Twitter, and you're not already following her, I suggest you check her out. I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more from her in months to come.

So there you have it, your first look at who I follow on Twitter, and why. What do you think? Should I continue this, or stick to writing movie reviews, posting stupid pictures, and writing Mallville? Let me know, and whether you liked or hated this article, check out PixelVixen707's blog, and tell her that VOID sent you (but don't make me sound all stalkery, okay?).