Being a moderate means you find a broader spectrum of people annoying.

I am bothered by: 

a) Curmudgeonly critiques: you crazy kids stop telling total strangers what you had for breakfast! 

This is a critique of twitter as parodied rather than twitter as practiced. 

Anyone can sit out trends and claim prescience, because most trends fizzle or evolve. But you also miss opportunities.  Cynicism is not due diligence.  

b) Paradigm police:  Relentless insistence on “joining the conversation.” This goes beyond respecting the conventions of social media; it seems to involve surrendering to the essence of social media and repenting of your old media ways.

When, like imperfectly reformed Trotskyites, brands or their lackeys slip up and admit they want to control messages, watch out: you don’t really want to join the conversation at all! You just want to sell your product! 

Of course, the people who work for brands want to sell stuff. In fact, I’d suggest they have an ethical obligation to do so.   

And do we all crave this much “”conversation?” 

 I’m yearning to have a chat with my tub and tile cleaner?  I’ll be a complete person once the company that makes my umbrella engages me in Socratic dialog? 

I love certain brands: Apple, Brooks Brothers, Subaru. I have zero interest in chatting any of them up.

I want some conversation, with some brands—Harvest, Behance. I have an interest in talking with the people who can help me research, measure, strategize, optimize, publicize, program, and visualize my ideas. 

But if my preferred brand of toothbrush calls up and says, “Hey how’s it going? Wanna hangout?” I will politely decline.  

Thanks to @livepath for pointing me to this example of curmudgeonlyness. The paradigm police remarks were prompted by a sneer at the notion of “earned media” as evidence of old media cluelessness.