I’ve been using Twitter for a couple of months now and am able to provide critical analysis from a clinical psychology PhD dropout’s perspective. This should hit the scholarly literature any day now. Any day now.
Too much @tting back and forth on a single topic will serve to 1) alienate those tweeters, twits, twats (per @borneochica) who are following both you and the person you’re tweeting and 2) make you look a little like a tweet whore. A twore, if you will. It’s a little like passing notes really loudly in class while everyone is watching. Shelly, are you going to Sally’s party on Friday? Circle one: Yes No. YES! Me too. What are you wearing? My mesh pasties and my mom’s pink daisy dukes. AWESOME! Did you hear that Billy Goat is coming and HE IS SO IN LURVE WITH ME? ZOMG TTYL LYLAS!
Normal social graces do not apply on Twitter. People will reply to you for all to see, and most times people do not reply back. It’s commonplace for conversations to drop off in what seems mid-stream. People also don’t end threads or direct messages with some sort of closing, as you would in person. Given that I am my mother’s daughter, and all written communiqués are done in proper form and with the best penmanship, this is not something I generally observe. I’m the last one to DM or @ back. I’ve only realized in the last two weeks that it appears stalkerish. The restraining orders pretty much confirmed this.
Twitter is completely responsible for the success of Jillian Michaels’ 30-day Shred DVD. If it weren’t for word of mouth via the Interwebs, Jillian would be living in a trailer in Montana with one of the Greatest Loser dropouts. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Your own mother could be following your every tweet and you wouldn’t even know it. FYI: she’s one of the ones without an avatar.
The Twitterweb - or maybe my network (read: PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME MAIL TO CONVICE ME OTHERWISE) - is considerably more liberal than Provo, Utah. Or pretty much anywhere, actually, including the East Village.
The single girls are apparently the last to get porn followers. I’ve mentioned porn in my tweets, virtually inviting Ron Jeremy over for Pinot and pigs in a blanket, and still nothing. Nothing but naked crickets.
The Twitter bed is really, really small, like smaller than your grandma’s air mattress. I have yet to be six degrees from anyone. It’s more like two, no matter where you live in the country, which for me is not enough distance between me and Jesus. He really doesn’t need to be reading my porn tweets. Or my mom’s.
There is a good bit of good that can come from social media. Using the twin bed to your advantage, you can within seconds get the word out about an important cause or an event or your cat sitting on the piano keys. I’ve been thinking I’ll start something like Twitter Against Litter, to keep our highways clean, or possibly Twitter Against Litters, my personal crusade to neuter the feral cat population and the husband from Jon & Kate Plus 8. Maybe I’ll keep thinking.
26 Comments
Twitter has helped me end my “Be the last to reply” addiction. Twitter is here to help.
I think that my own sensibilities about communication etiquette are the root of my problem in really getting into Twitter. I log on every few days or so to say something, respond to something or just read through some tweets and immediately close out after getting completely overwhelmed. I always say that when I’m on Twitter, I feel like the foreign exchange student in high school - surrounded by conversation, but not really understanding any of it. (And I’m only following/being followed by something like 60 people!) Needless to say - I have not become addicted as I was warned. Maybe if I get an iphone…
omg, you ARE paying attention to my twats! I feel so loved!
And I think to get the best porn, you have to be male. Which is really very unfair.
The other day I discovered that “Guy Kawasaki is now following me on Twitter!” and I was all set to squee about it, on Twitter, naturally, but fortunately for everyone, it was an impulse easily squashed by simply blinking my eyelids a few times.
Provo is a bastion of liberal thinking.
As proof, I submit the following: Ralph Nader’s Utah Campaign office is located there.
I’m pretty sure you can follow him on Twitter.
Where are the porn twats again?
I still don’t get this thing.
I agree that the porn followers that you seek spurn you because of your non-male bits. I’m often mystified by who is following me (not the pornies - I understand them). Today I got followed by a dog walker. Is this person really going to Twitter stalk me and see if I’m going on vacation and need some dog walking?
I’m the same with @s and DMs. I’m also a fan of the 140 char limit on my DMs - forces some otherwise uncharacteristic pithiness.
Arjewtino, are you referring to my blog or Twitter?
And here I thought twat was the past participle of tweet.
@thewino I don’t care what u think. Just happy to have u there.
PS–Talk about boobs. That will get you more porn followers.
This post is ripe with gems. Two of my personal faves- “twore” and neutering Jon from Jon & Kate plus 8. Heh!
I have started unfollowing people with too many replies and excessive tweets. It’s like they are the only ones in the universe.
oh! talk about pregnancy or the like. you’ll get a gem of disgusting porn followers.
dammit, i am going to have to start playing. i am getting sucked in…
I’m pretty sure Kate neutered Jon a long time ago.
I never noticed those things you mentioned until you mentioned them, and yes, you are so right. I totally bought 30 day shred b/c of twitter.
I need to figure this whole twitter out as I am feeling socially inadequate with this one!! Time to get in the sandbox and play with everyone else on this one.. Thanks for the kick in the back side :)
I love the Occasional DM from you as well as all the Very pithy comments! I am totally not a twhore but would be if I could get paid for it. It’s nice to have some “personal” contact from folks whose blogs I follow.
Honestly, I kind of don’t even understand why I’m twittering, except that each time I write a little thing about my latest blog and link it, people visit. I’m hoping someone will contribute, but it has yet to happen.
Love the part about 30-day shred — i totally bought it. hahah.
Yesterday someone asked where I bought a pair of shoes from and I seriously said at “@zappos”. They had new clue what I was talking about meanwhile, I’ve gone completely mad and a tad bit obsessed with Twitter.
P.S. Sometimes I get mad that you and Holman don’t use it more often. It would be so much more fun if y’all did. Just a thought.
LOLZ (srsly. ;)) to @zappos ZOMG. ;)
Meanwhile I’m just on twitter for the happy hour dms.
My husband asked me who someone was the other day and I responded @person’stwittername
I know. It’s sick.
Actually, my mom does follow me on Twitter, informally. She’s not on Twitter herself, but she bookmarks my Twitter page and she keeps tabs on me like that. It’s unbelievably freaky.
Also, there are so many different rule lists for Twitter, and it’s so hard to know what to do. There are the people that think all that @ing is obnoxious, and then there are the people that think you are a bitch if you don’t respond to their @’s and they drop you. That’s just one example. There’s really no winning.
And yet, I love Twitter more than bunnies. I really do.
Dear heavens, anything is more liberal than Provo, Utah. Including Sarah Palin. I’m just sayin’….
there are many things about this post which resonated for me despite my pathological aversion to twittering. however the most disturbing thing about this post was that it took me exactly 0.65 seconds to discern the english language translation for LYLAS.
Also if you’re going to go replying back and forth, there are off limit topics like birth control, IUDs and biopsies of the cervix.
This is why Mr. Twitter invented the DM.
Yes, that really happened.