The first of the 2 smaller posts that I promised below.
This one concerning the devil that is TWITTER!
I’m going to summarize it by saying this. My introduction to Twitter was basically Bravo coming out and saying that he didn’t bother blogging anymore because Twitter was his new shining mistress. This also prompted Granite’s brief Twitsperiment.
And, well, you just need to read the 17th comment on Bravo’s post to see where my general opinion of Twitter lay. From what I’d been told, it was little more than an MSN substitute, where all your conversations were overlaid on each other and every once in a while you’d have the Beastie Boys yell something from across the room.
For that reason, I would never bother picking up a Twitter account. It would be nice to hear from you fellas, but I don’t want to know that you just killed an exam. Or should be studying for an exam. Or are pooping. I don’t care. Unless those thoughts are coupled together and given life as a real statement, they’re just random thoughts. If I wanted to hear people’s random annoying thoughts every 5 seconds, I’d have a girlfriend. Except in that case, I’d also get laid. When Twitter can throw me a BJ, I’ll follow all of you to the ends of the earth.
But
Then I was at work one day. I haven’t told anyone what I’ve been doing for work these days, but rest assured that it’s not too too interesting. My crew and I spend most of the day talking to each other over the roar of the machines because our job is neither mentally stimulating or really physically demanding.
Anywhoo, I was chatting it up with an older guy on the crew. He’s a general labourer like myself, but he’s early 40s, got 3 kids. So I was amused to hear him bring up the subject of Twitter. Ready to vent spleen all over the dude, I instead sat shocked while he blew me away.
Let me make that even clearer: The combined (although perhaps not totally focussed) efforts of you rag-tag group of technophiles totally failed to convince me that Twitter is useful to my life. Then a month later, a middle-aged dude who thinks it’s cool that phones can take pictures managed to show me that Twitter could actually be a positive force for me.
In addition to mouth-breathing twitter-shitters, this guy followed 2 other things that I was way more interested in. He had our town’s newspaper. Every time they put up an article on their site, he was informed. But even cooler, the City has a Twitter account. Whenever a job opens up (I’m unclear as to whether this was working for the city or working in the city), they drop a Tweet. Boom. Throw out a resume.
It still hasn’t persuaded me to actually get a Twitter account. But that shit is fucking cool. If my band takes off (Those recordings are pretty bad. We’re going in to do some better ones in June), I’ll give it a Twitter account to help people keep up with shows and the like. I don’t value Twitter as a tool for personal communication, but as a way to bring attention to important things, I’m beignning to see the light.
The Conversation {12 comments}
You’re on MySpace?!
That’s all I got out of that post. I am no longer trying to get more people on Twitter. I pushed it for long enough. If you’re not on there by now, you never will be. And if you do one day decide to join, there will likely be something better.
Actually, Granite is still on Twitter. He’s far and away the most frequent tweeter I follow.
The fact that in a month and a half he’s racked up 420 tweets, and in a YEAR and a month I’ve only put in a few more than 850 should tell you something (if he keeps his pace the way it is, he could very well be clocking in his 3500th tweet about a year from now).
However, last time I said something he assured me that he hated it, and that his position remained firm.
Anyway, as for your position on it, I’ve never argued that it replaces other forms of communication, but that it provides another option. People didn’t stop writing letters after the telephone, and people haven’t stopped calling each other in favour of text messaging. I refuse to believe that Twitter will permanently harm human interpersonal relationships or discourse as a whole, so I don’t see the hurt in it.
Brandon:
I didn’t do it. The singer is the driving force behind the band.
He thought it was really cool that we had a Myspace. I quietly told him that Facebook might also be a good choice, and mentioned Twitter as something that I didn’t know much about but was probably a good idea.
As regards your position on my joining Twitter, I agree. I didn’t get Facebook either. When it was new I told everyone I’d ‘catch the next one’. If that’s Twitter, then I’m gonna have to sit it out too.
Binks: I didn’t mean to imply that Granite had left Twitter. I was really just trying to place it in the timeline.
It is funny that he’s so into it though.
Further, when did I suggest that Twitter was destroying personal communication? I don’t even think that it is personal communication. And I’m not trying to stop anyone from Tweeting their little hearts out. I’d rather you use Twitter to satisfy your urge to tell people that your bus is 5 minutes late then calling, emailing, or writing me a letter about it.
“People didn’t stop writing letters after the telephone”
I could write a whole post just on that. But I’m not gonna, since neither of you seems to have read (or maybe just didn’t think it was worth commenting on) the whole other new post below this one.
Whoa whoa whoa mouth breathers are an oppressed people – and twitter shittering is an experience that every free man should have at least once in their life.
I sadly use Twitter as an outlet for procrastination.
I think Twitter could be used as a medium for an ARG (if it hasn’t already).
I hate Twitter, and I hate myself for using it. But since some have abandoned blogging, it is an easy method of communication that I can access all the time and responses stay there indefinitely (except for when a huge chunk of my tweets disappear with no explanation).
The reason that I like it now is because it does remind me of MSN (in a way) but the people I’m sending messages back and forth to don’t have to be on a computer. So, I can carry on brief conversations without both parties having to be online at once. I find it convenient, because with MSN I’m often stuck in this weird limbo of wondering whether someone is actually carrying on a conversation, or if they’ve left the room. With Twitter, I don’t have to care. They get back to me when they get back to me…
I don’t know. Kind of sounds like I just described e-mail…but since discussion has all but vacated the comments sections of RCG blogs, I have to go where the talking is at.
Hmmm… well… Didn’t we used to have a forum rigged up somewhere here? I’ve never used a forum in my life, but that might get some better conversation going.
Jordan I can give you 442 reasons why you don’t hate twitter.
We need have a forum. I checked it daily. Then it disappeared, and I stopped caring.
The same would happen if Twitter disappeared.
Hey Liam, I`m back..
http://saturdaynightshootout.blogspot.com/
Guess who…
Yeah. If only you’d set your comments so that I could post one.
neat
Oh, I was aware.
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