Twitter [or: the masses of ignorance]

Okay, you guys gotta help me with this Blog Every Day in April thing...if I miss a day I have to make a video blog. I won't be blenderizing any happy meals, but you could come up with something interesting for me to do.

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Yes, I have a twitter account. I tweet. And yes, I do feel silly every time I say that word.

Twitter is an awesome way of keeping tracks of all the hilarious things my brother says, like:

Mike: You going to the bank?

Mom: Yeah, did you want me to deposit?

Mike: I want a lollipop.

I've also begun to tweet some of my flickr photos. This is why I use twitter, I also like the interconnectivity with the 100 or so people I know who also...tweet, and I follow a lot of celebrities (because they are amusing) and I follow people who are extremely clever or post awesome links or who are fantastic photographers.

But there's a lot more to twitter than that, let's do a quick overview:

The "Following": Yeah, prima facie it seems a little creepy. I'm "following" my friend Devin. Does that mean I am stalking him? No, not really, what he writes on twitter, he writes for the people who follow him. It's like consensual stalking.

The Users: Practically every company and their mom has a twitter. That means you can get "exclusive offers" and updates from your favorite stores and companies. You can follow Walmart or the SyFy Channel (who have giveaways all the time, dude) or bands, bands are big on twitter. Anyone who has a name on the internet probably has a twitter. That means big youtube stars, webcomic founders and websites like hulu or CLASH Entertainment. If you want, you can even follow Lady Gaga.

The Lingo: Twitter has created its own subset of the English language. Words like "retweet", "twitter" and "fail whale" have become common monickers online. There are "tweetups" and "twitdowns" and Tweety Bird isn't just a cartoon character anymore. Man, I love Tweety Bird.

I feel like this post had an excessive amount of links. Also, no real point.

I can't really "defend" myself for having a twitter, I don't go around tweeting about my daily life every second, or posting only when I want something from my followers, but I'm not particularly profound on twitter either. Some have said that twitter and text messages and short emails have contributed to the downfall of prose and poetry in the everyday. But beauty can be found in 140 characters, like: "I believe that God does everything for a reason. I believe that God's timing is perfect. I believe He is wonderful beyond all imagination." [@dinologist]

I leave you with some of my favorite tweets:

"in honor of ken burns, please slowly move your head from left to right while reading this tweet" [@StephenAtHome]

"It is not the business of the law to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright. -- Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995)" [@LibertarianMike]

"...Just realized that fruit loops is actually spelled "froot loops." Consequently hate them forever." [@annalisa2]

"@katiemacmull you're COOLER than Captain Kirk" [@asilannax]

Tomorrow: Identity.