As a former DIY-type media host myself, as the host and producer of my own TV show on cable access TV here in Winnipeg called Hard Rock Heroes, I've always admired someone like DJ Blitz. Here's a guy who has created such a buzz for himself as a DJ through social media that he has parlayed himself into being a bonafide Winnipeg celebrity, one who attracts massive crowds whenever he does special DJ dates at Cowboys and other places he is not a DJ regular at, and one who can now even become a weekend announcer at Virgin Radio. (I wonder how Twitter and Facebook would have affected Hard Rock Heroes if the internet had been around back then. My show aired just before the dawn of the internet, from 1990 to 1993.)
So I followed him on Twitter and Facebook. It's cool that, since for various reasons I can no longer be the toast of the town with my show or any kind of replacement, I can now at least live vicariously through Blitz' media circus. He followed me back on Twitter, and liked many of my joking and/or smartass comments, and replies to his comments. Everything was good, until.....
One afternoon, he blocked me on Twitter. And I'm certainly not the only one.
Over the course of the next several months to a year, here are my attempts to get to the bottom of this: I tried contacting him all of the different ways you could at that time to ask him why, or if it was a mistake. He had his phone number on his Facebook page at that time. I called him and he answered and he blurted out he thought it was a mistake, but that he had to go and he hung up. He then proceeded to NOT unblock me. Every time I tried calling him after that - once every week or two - it would go to voice mail at first, so I'd leave messages that Blitz never responded to, then the voice mail would be filled up for many weeks, then finally I got a generic message that said the person at this number was unavailable and to leave a message. I did that only once, because at that point Blitz could have gotten rid of that number and it could have belonged to someone else by that point. Meanwhile, I would be sending him Facebook messages and Facebook would tell me that they were read, but Blitz ignored those as well. All my voice mail and Facebook messages, as well as emails I sent him, too, were all polite and gave him the benefit of the doubt and treated the situation like he had just been too busy to unblock me if, as he told me, it was a mistake, and so my messages would act as just friendly reminders.
I also thanked him for not blocking me on Facebook, and so a small part of me thought maybe what I just wrote was true, because if Blitz had something against me, he would have blocked me on Facebook, too, as I had been making comments on his posts there. But then, the day came: He posted a video of him and some girl lip-syncing the song Promiscuous by Nelly Furtado and Timberland, and I did a comment praising him for that video and how great it was, and how I would have loved to do stuff like that to promote my show back in the day, but that was before the internet, so at least now I can live vicariously through him. And after I posted that reply, he blocked me on Facebook. I can still see his page, but only if I punch it up. I cannot follow him, which means his posts won't show up in my timeline, and I cannot like his posts or comment on them or message him. I can only share his posts. And I did share his Promiscuous post, if you look at my Facebook page.
Is this the way someone who aspires to be a top on-air personality at a Winnipeg radio station conducts himself? By showing though his behavior that he isn't brave enough to talk to me on the phone or send me a computer message that tells me as a common courtesy WHY he is doing this? If he's going to have a career dealing with the public, then he needs to be man enough to be able to tell any member of the public what he needs to tell them.
Now, as I said before, I am not the only one he is doing this to. I recall Blitz tweeting a screenshot without an accompanying comment that showed he was blocking over 4000 people on Twitter. On another day, he told someone on Twitter he couldn't remember the last time he had blocked someone. Then, on another day, he told someone he had to block a few people. Ummm, make up your mind, dude.
Do a search on Twitter on the following: DJ Blitz blocked (not as a phrase), and look at all the tweets from people who have discovered DJ Blitz has blocked them and have no idea why! I did that and below this blog are six screen grabs of a few of those many victims. Later on, after I had captured and cropped those screen grabs in preparation for this blog, I noticed he is also blocking writer Shelley Cook and comedian Jules Rowan, and they have no idea why, either.
I suspect that with all the stuff Blitz does involving high school students and the very young adults that hang out at Cowboys, that he only wants to deal with people of that age group. Ages 15 to, say, 20 or a bit older. People older than that are thought by the people in that age group to be "creepy." Maybe DJ Blitz thinks they're creepy, too. So he curates his followers by ruthlessly blocking everyone who is not in that age group. Well, if that is his mindset, as I suggested above, he's got a lot to learn as he gets older himself and moves up in the broadcasting world. Wouldn't it be rad if he has to interview someone live on air on Virgin one day, and in the conversation, that person randomly asks, "So, Blitz, how come you're blocking me?" Maybe he'll cowardly cut them off and move on to something else, the same way he got rid of me on the phone. And if the guest is live in the studio, well, then.....
If I am wrong in my theory about age groups, then why would he want to alienate all those people by blocking them on Twitter and being so disingenuous and vague on that subject? Why is he basically ghosting all those people and myself on the subject of why he is blocking them on Twitter and/or Facebook? Why is he pissing everybody off?
Wouldn't it be nice if things just got back to normal here, with him unblocking me and everyone else on Twitter and Facebook, and letting all of us be a fan of his? That's my only goal here. Positive feelings all around. No negative feelings.
Besides, doesn't he realize that blocking someone means that that person can still tag him in a tweet - if it's me tweeting, I just have to type out his whole handle, it won't auto-fill - and that it could turn out to be something earth-shattering he would want to see (whether it's positive or negative), but he can't because he's blocking me! Everyone else in the world can see that tweet except for him! And no one else reading that tweet would even know he's blocking me! Maybe they'll respond to both me and him. He'll see that response, but he'll wonder what they're talking about because he can't see the original tweet because it's by me, someone who he's blocking! This is why I don't block anyone: I don't want anyone tagging me in a tweet I can't see because I'm blocking them!
You can still view a person's Twitter page with their original tweets when you're being blocked by not logging in. You need to login to view their "Tweets & Replies," though, meaning any tweet that starts off by tagging someone, which Twitter considers a "reply." I can still see the "Tweets & Replies" of Blitz and anyone else who is blocking me with a couple of secret accounts I have that don't have my name on them. I choose not to reply on those accounts. but I may reply to anyone who is replying to Blitz after I login to my real account, making me a part of the conversation. That Blitz can't see! That'll fix his wagon.
So if this blog can accomplish something and give Blitz a change of heart and makes him see the error of his ways and the bigger picture here, inducing him to unblock everyone, then I'll remove it. If not, I guess this will have to stand as a testament that some people just ain't what they seem. Don't judge a book by its' cover, people. Be careful who you choose to be your heroes. And always keep your eyes open for a con job from a con man. Hopefully, in the years to come, as he gets older and more into the general public mainstream, Blitz's actions will come back to haunt him and he will answer for his actions. Not from me, but from all those other people he has harmed along the way by blocking them. As Justin Timberlake sang, "What goes around comes all the way back around." Take heed, Blitz. Be the bigger man. Be an adult.
