What our Twitter viruses say about us.

"Never offend someone who has a Rottweiler in their profile photo and is in charge of the unofficial Eazy-E fan club."

That's a lesson in Twitter etiquette I learned the wrong way. I'll be teaching folks everything I know about Twitter at the Quitter Conference on February 10 & 11, but that's a free nugget of wisdom for you.

In my defense, that terrifying gentleman with the threatening vocabulary misinterpreted what I had said about Eazy-E, the 1980s rapper.

Here's what I tweeted from @jonacuff:

Every time I see Dr. Dre optimizing computers in that HP commercial, I think, "This is exactly what NWA was all about."

I wasn't making fun of Easy-E. I was making a social commentary on the unexpected career trajectory of Dr. Dre. There's not a person alive who heard Dr. Dre in the 1980s and thought, "You know what this guy will be doing in the future? Optimizing computers for Hewlett Packard."

Next thing I know, I'm involved in a tweet battle with a guy in Compton.

Lesson learned.

But in addition to picking up wisdom like that on Twitter, I discovered something else really interesting the other day. And it came to me in the form of a virus.

Here's how viruses on Twitter work.

A spammer sends you a direct message (The Twitter version of an email.) In the message is a link. When you click on the link, it takes you to a page that looks like the login page to Twitter. You login with your name and password at which point the spammer has control of your account. They then proceed to send a direct message to each of your friends as if they were you. (You can only DM people who follow you.)

The common protocol after that happens to you is to tweet, "I got hacked!" which is not exactly true. There wasn't a Mission Impossible-type Bulgarian hacker who spent many a long hour trying to crack your password. The majority of the time, if you got a Twitter virus it means you saw a link, were curious about the link, and gave somebody your info.

So, based on the Twitter viruses you get from friends, you can start to pick up on what people are really motivated by. For instance, I got 20 virus direct messages sent to me and they reveal a curious trend.

Spammers started by trying to appeal to people's desire to lose weight. They tweeted things like: "Want to lose any weight? Go here: URL best product for losing weight."

Then they tried an appeal to people's desire to be rich. Here's a spam direct message I saw yesterday: "This woman on CNBC tells a story about how shes making money online! I just started and already made 53 dollars today!!"

I love that they chose the random amount of $53. The hope is that you'll think, "If they promised me a million dollars, I'd never believe it. But $53? That feels honest. I want $53." Click.

Finally, they tried a spam that appeals to people's sense of self worth. Here's a spam I saw today: "You seen what this person is saying about you? URL terrible things."

Guess which one worked best? Guess which one more people fall for?

The one that says "You seen what this person is saying about you?"

More than 90% of the Twitter spam I get carries some form of this message. Other versions of the same idea include:

"What were you thinking in this photo?"

"There is a rumor/blog going around about you."

"This person is using their Twitter feed to say horrible things about you."

"I just found this funny photo of you online. LOL!"

The verbiage might differ, but the meaning is the same.

"You're a worthless person. Someone is saying that online. Want to see?"

And we click. We click by the tens of thousands. Even with busted grammar like "You seen" we rush to that bad blog or bad photo of us. Critic's Math is part of it, but I think the problem is even bigger. Why do we click on something that says we're horrible?

Because we're secretly afraid it might be true.

Deep down, in the wounded part of us, we're afraid they might be right. We're unlovable. We're not enough. We're a failure. We guzzle poison about our identities even while we reject compliments.

Someone tells us we did a good job on something, and we immediately respond, "Oh that, that's nothing." We can't shake the feeling of that compliment off our skin fast enough. And so the chance to see our fear validated online? To click a link that says we're horrible and see the proof? We can't resist that. Our ego takes the bait, and our fear pushes us forward.

That's part of the reason the Bible is so crazy to me. As we rush off to find anyone or anything to determine our identity, the Bible sits quietly by with page after crazy page of truth about who we are.

Ephesians 2:10 calls us God's handiwork. His work of art.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says that anyone in Christ is a new creation.

Zephaniah 3:17 says he delights in us. Not likes us. Not tolerates us. Delights.

We are the only creation on the entire planet God put his breath in. The most amazing sunset can't say that. The mountains can't proclaim that. The deepest ocean can't declare that.

Only we can.

Maybe somebody told you that you were worthless a long time ago. Maybe a parent gave you that identity or a teacher singled you out or a boss tried to make that your title. But it's not.

Stop drinking poison. Stop clicking on links that say you're horrible. Stop listening to the voice of doubt and fear. Stop believing you're anything less than the person God loved so much he sent his son to the cross for as the only means of rescue.