Total Number of Ratings: 14
In Defense Of: Twitter
Sunday, August 30, 2009 4:06 AM
This is the first installment of "In Defense Of," an occasional series that hopes to stick up for the whipping boys of popular culture. This is meant to shine the ray of positivity into life's dark corners, but don't let that stop you from using your valuable comments to douse the parade route; this is the internet, after all.
Many people I know were instantly tired of Twitter. As is increasingly common among people in my ever-decaying age group, they were tired of it before they even knew exactly what it was. In the words of a particularly holier-than-thou friend of mine at a particularly smug dinner party, "Twitter is like the perfect distillation of narcissism in the twenty-first century. Who are you, that I need an all-day unceasing update on your stream of consciousness? Why would I check twenty times a day to witness every trivial bit of nonsense that falls out of your think-hole like you're an oracle, preserving each head-nugget for posterity like it's Poor Richard's Almanac? Why do I need to know what you had for lunch?" ("What you had for lunch" features prominently in 85% of all Twitter mockery. The next time you hear someone belittling Twittering "what you had for lunch," interrupt them to let them know everyone has to take a drink.)
I am as guilty as anyone, maybe guiltier. No one was harder on Twitter than I was for the first month after I heard about it. "So, you send out a text message telling anyone who chooses to listen in where you are and what you're doing? Why didn't they just keep their original domain name, pleasestalkandkillme.com?" Forgive me, Internet; I knew not what I did.
No matter how tired people are of Twitter, though, they can never be as tired of Twitter as I am of hearing about how tired they are of Twitter. I'm bored to death with people decrying celebrity Twitter accounts. I could not be less amused by Conan O'Brien's regular "Twitter Tracker" bit on the Tonight Show. Most of all, I hate the fact that nobody looks down on Twitter more than the people who use it. You all feel so bad for enjoying yourselves! Any time the topic comes up in any other medium, it's either the Conventional Media acting like Twitter is some sort of magic talisman that will bring them fortune or it's a public figure apologizing to the world for knowing what a retweet is.
Don't believe the hype about the hype. Twitter is not a symptom of the dumbing down of America, nor is it one of the causes. It is simply one microphone into which the stupid speak to reveal their stupidity to the world. But so is the blog. So is the message board comment. So are most methods of communication, especially on the internet. The internet is in fact the most breathtaking technological advancement ever in the field of stupidity transmission. Television, the Black Eyed Peas and Michael Bay could never hold a candle to it, even if they teamed up.
Yes, you could post every five minutes about what was on your sandwich and how rude the waiter was. You could retweet TMZ twenty times a day. None of this means that Twitter is stupid, shallow, trivial or narcissistic, only that it can be when put in the wrong hands. Twitter is simply a tool, whether you are or not.
I enjoy using Twitter to challenge myself. Twitter represents an ever-present opportunity to say something clever, thoughtful, or funny that unbendingly demands pithiness. The 140-character limit is not negotiable; if you are long-winded, your only choices are serial "tweets" that read like Burma Shave signs or those bizarre u-for-you abbreviations that make you sound like Prince after a traumatic brain injury. Used well, Twitter sharpens you. It spares the world from your 200-word blog essay about the random observation you had at the laundromat, allowing you to think it, distill it, express it to the world, and forget about it.
Twitter also spreads information in its purest form, be it rumor or hard news. Twitter broke a news story to me literally as I began typing this. It was something related to my chosen hobby, something that CNN (or even Entertainment Weekly) would never notice, let alone mention, but it meant a great deal to me and I only heard about it because of a stranger in Canada with some common interests and an unlimited text messaging plan.
More than anything, I would liken Twitter to a (much less smug) dinner party that goes on every day. It's a vast room full of people chit-chatting about what's on their minds. I can tune out the ones who mean nothing to me and follow the conversations of people I care about. I have friends in Belgium, New York, Philly, San Francisco, and just across town; every so often, I can go to one location and eavesdrop on how their days have been going. My friends who mock Twitter as being beneath them, narcissistic and trivial are not coincidentally the same friends who find themselves saying things to the rest of us like, "You moved?? When did this happen? I didn't hear anything about this!" We can't all live in the same dorm anymore; that eavesdropping is invaluable to me now. I don't know what I'd do without it. If I get to stand in that same room and eavesdrop on a few famous people whose work I appreciate, so much the better.
Even if none of this were true, the simple fact remains that I enjoy Twitter. I enjoy it. It's fun for me. Is that all right with everybody? If there's just a free, simple thing online for me that's fun? It doesn't cost you any money. It doesn't hurt anyone in your family. It's just something people are doing that they enjoy. Get off their backs, will you? Someone may be curious what they had for lunch.
This article has responses:
Very cool argument. The distillation of thoughts into 200 characters is the challenging bit for me but it helps me out of my habit to be verbose. It is also why many people with comedic talent make the most interesting tweets. However you get the thoughtful ones too.
Because of twitter, there is @veryshortstory. I think it is smart, creative and well done, and could only exist on twitter.
That being said, my boyfriend HATES it and busts me all the time for being on it, but it is clearly not just an insignificant, passing fad. At least for now.
I love Twitter because it allows me to follow people I find interesting whether they be famous in a big or small way. It has the added bonus of not having to see who got what high score on a game, what level of Mafia Wars they are on or handing out imaginary cracker jack prizes. I want to listen to people talk about what they are doing and how they react to that in a concise mannter. Something I'm obviously failing to do at this moment. Great article Jimski.
I love Twitter because it DOES give me some needed information quickly. If it wasn't for Twitter, i would not have known that Eddie Izzard was performing at Madison Square Garden in january, and I would not have gotten tickets to the show. So hooray for Twitter!
I'm a graduate journalism student at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and we are REQUIRED to have Twitter for breaking news purposes. The news angle in and of itself legitimizes Twitter's existence. Besides, who doesn't want to know what crazy celebrities do all day?
Addenda:
1) What kind of self-promoting narcissist does a whole article about using Twitter and then doesn't link to himself on Twitter? http://www.twitter.com/the_jimski
2) Call-out: a member of the Murmur staff who shall remain nameless gave up Twitter and other social networking tools for Lent as an experiment. I would love to hear why that person quit, why that person came back, and what that person learned while away. Nameless staffer, if you are within the sound of my Murmur, I am Calling You Out.
sigh. it's been so long that i've un-learned almost everything i learned and that half-written article is nonsensical.
i am considering a rebuttle to this article with a working title of "The real evil of twitter". it goes something like: jimski didn't feel the need to talk to any of his friends about important life events because, hey, he twittered it.
"I enjoy using Twitter to challenge myself. Twitter represents an ever-present opportunity to say something clever, thoughtful, or funny that unbendingly demands pithiness."
That's my thing, right there!
I'd sort of hoped that kind of bashing would have stopped after the impact Twitter had during the Iranian elections. Of course, the naysayers may not have heard about that -- they're not on Twitter.
Great defense, I'd love to read more of these.
Well said. I'm around college students nearly everyday, so I don't hear much of the negative feedback. However, a colleague came up to me on Friday and starting bashing Twitter. I informed him that there are feeds that will constantly inform you of recently released research in your field and that many prominent economists post and discuss legitimate economic issues EVERY DAY on twitter. He was shocked and immediately signed up for an account.
I had to remind him that it's not the tool, it's how you use it. #ThatsWhatSheSaid
I get a lot of flack for being on Twitter. Most of the nay-sayers are facebook addicts, which is pretty infuriating. According to them, no one wants to know that I've just wolfed down 3 tacos, but it's very important for all of in-your-facebook to know that their 2-year old had a bowel movement or that everone should take this quiz to see if they're a "classy bitch".
"In Defense Of: Facebook" cannot be too far behind, but you're absolutely right. I have one of these friends, an academic who reflexively tsks Twitter while using Facebook for the exact same purposes. The fact that she takes Facebook as seriously as if it's the community she lives and is their election commissioner is another matter entirely.
Respond
new theory: the real narcissists are the folks that complain about excessive twittering, as if they are the exclusive audience for everything everyone puts on twitter.