Talking…so 20th Century. Part 2 – Twitter #DesperatelySeekingAttention

Twitter is one of the social networking behemoths – it’s popularity has spread quicker than a good dose of chlamydia amongst randy teenagers. For the uninitiated, twitter is a social networking program which is part your own personal site, part a friends network, part email and part your own mini-blog site. In essence it’s a version of Facebook’s Status Update. Where Twitter differs to Facebook is that there is no limit to the amount of nonsense you can cram onto your facebook timeline. You are heavily restricted by how much you can post in any one go;

 So what is so bad about Twitter? For starters I would struggle to finish this sentence, what with a 140 character limit taking me only to he…I would continue, but I ran out of characters. Go on…count it, you know you want to.

If only…

Pathetic isn’t it? What can you possibly be expected to say in a measly 140 characters that is going to change the world or be worthy of note to anyone? These little nuggets of information, or brain-farts as I call them, that people trot out infuriatingly frequently are called tweets. Awwww, how quaint.

Should you be “lucky” enough to have any people looking out for your tweets, these are called your tweeps (essentially, twitter-peeps (people), otherwise known as your followers). All this ‘interaction’ happens in the twitosphere.Makes you feel sick doesn’t it? All you need to do to sound like a twitter aficionado (or alternatively, bellend) is to take off the first letter or two of a proper word and shove a “tw” on the front. What a load of twollocks.

Twittering reminds me of the time of LCD display mobile phones and monophonic  ringtones. When you would try to squeeze everything you wanted to say into one text message (for which you had to pay 10p upwards!) into your Nokia 3210. If you were a flash git like me then into your Motorola L7089 or your Nokia 8210. Top notch phonage circa. 1999/2000. There was nothing worse than a text taking up more space than available in one message and you having to desperately try to cut it down to fit into just one. 20p to send a one-and-a-bit text message??…Oh, the humanity!! Taking us for a ride or what?

For me, this gave rise to the birth of text speak, sorry, txt spk. One of my biggest bugbears. An instant level 3 on my GrumpCon Rage-o-meter!!

As such, all the mobile phone pioneers and latterly Twitter will forever be on my shit list.

I shall feel very dirty writing this, but here’s what I’m talking about with a translation into English;

 R U out 2nite m8? – Will you be socialising this coming evening my good man?

Yh, luv 2 m8. wot tym? – Absolutely sport, that would be fabulous. When shall we rendezvous?

Bout 9ish. Mt U in booza?  – How does 9 o’clock sound? Shall we meet in our regular watering hole?

Gr8 m8. Lkn fwd 2 it – Splendid squire. I’m anticipating a super evening ahead.

L8rz – Until this evening then?

Yh. CYA, TTYL – Indeedy. Toodly-pipski for now old bean, we shall converse further later in the day.

Unfortunately, despite text speak making you look like a semi-literate child, it generally does get the point across. I worry for our rich, beautiful language. Does it really have to be abbreviated so disgracefully? Why don’t we just get rid of all the vowels and be done with it?

Anyhoo, I digress. This was supposed to be about Twitter.

So what is the point? Unless you are a) a business trying to increase product, brand awareness or your customer base or b) a celebrity competing with others to show how popular they are, be controversial and hence increase their fame/infamy or have their massive egos massaged, then there really doesn’t seem to be one as far as I can tell. If you are neither of these things and you have an account, I bet most of your followers are people you know. The reason they are following is not because they care about what you have to tweet, it is simply to increase their followers. People frantically follow celebrities in the hope that one day maybe a tweet from them in response to one of the numerous tweets these people inanely send out will somehow validate this rather sad behaviour.

Personally, I couldn’t give a hoot about Jordan’s spoon-fed views on politics, or Joey Barton’s latest bit of philosophy he’s read and tweeted to make himself looks clever. And this is the main problem with twitter. Should you actually be interested in any one particular person’s views, if you follow more than 20 or so people anything that would be relevant to you is lost in a tidal wave of complete drivel. Some people follow hundreds or even thousands of people. How can you possibly be expected to find anything of worth in that twitter stream – you spend most of your time on there scrolling through all the nonsense. And with the previously mentioned small character limit, this means some people will send multiple tweets, all without anything remotely interesting in them, further cluttering up the stream. Eventually you will give up and realise it’s not worth it.

The Keyboard Warrior

The reason Twitter is so popular is because it’s a lazy option. It’s just too easy. A keyboard warriors wet dream. The perfect way to (fairly) anonymously hurl some abuse at some unsuspecting Z-Lister or cast a holier-than-thou judgement on them – either your own (hoping that some other loser will back you up) or jumping onto someone else’s bandwagon (which is even worse) and passing off their views as your own. If you are going to put your opinion on something out there, at least do it properly and put some effort in. Maybe write a blog for example? 😉

Hashtags…what’s the point of these? I guess it is supposed to be a way of grouping together relevant tweets. But with no discernible structure or restrictions in place, there are billions out there – as much of a mess as twitter streams themselves #wasteoftime #whyevenbotherdoingthis? #makeareallylongoneanditbecomesdifficulttoreadandthereforeannoying. It’s not just the long ones though, some people will put multiple hashtags on their posts. It’s not clever, and it’s not going to get you more followers. Just stop it. If hashtags were kept short and used sparingly, then they may actually be of some use. Alas, they are not.

Now there are even TV shows that include a hashtag label at the beginning of them to evoke a conversation online. Usually, that’s about the point at which I normally turn off these infernal shows as they will mostly involve searching for new ‘talent’, or be some soap-opera yawn-fest. Obviously, the last thing I want to then do is read all about the show I skillfully avoided in my twitter feed!

If Twitter isn’t simply a popularity contest as alluded to earlier, then why follow people you don’t know or have an interest in if not other than to hope that they follow you back? Surely the point of Twitter was to follow people who interest you rather than get thousands of people flooding your twitter feed with similar numbers receiving your posts which don’t interest them? Whilst I’m at it, please don’t use twitter as a conversational tool. If i want to eavesdrop on somebody I will, I certainly don’t want to be privy to your idle chit chat. This will happen if two people you follow are tweeting and replying to each other. It is completely unacceptable to expect me to read through all this! If it’s that important, send a direct message or a text message. Or here’s a novel idea, if you’re not me then how about picking up the phone??

And chronic retweeters….an occassional thought of your own may be nice. Why even have a twitter account if you don’t ever grace us with something you thought of all by yourself?

Let it never be said I’m not open-minded – I will hear other people’s views on a matter. I will undoubtedly dismiss them as wrong immediately, but I will at least hear them. As such, here are some reasons why you should be on twitter.

Much like death, twitter is inevitable. It has been around for several years – much longer than a fad and therefore is likely to be here to stay. If used properly, it can be a lot more than facebook lite. If unlike me you are an avid follower of news (There never seems to be any GOOD news), then you really do have your finger on the pulse – for instance, news of the death of Whiney Houston was filtering through twitter long before it made the headlines on the TV and radio.

Twitter is not about keeping up with your friends – it handily fills in the gap that facebook has. Generally, on facebook you will only be connected to people you know. I know for certain that anyone that tries to friend request me on Facebook that I am not at least a little familiar with are met with a scoff and a swift Ignore Request. However, with Twitter, you get more out of it by following people you don’t know. Whether that be movers and shakers in your industry or connecting to your customers (or potential customers) from a business point of view or on a personal level to those that live locally, share your views/interests, local news and sports or even (ahem) celebrities. You are unlikely to learn anything from your facebook friends that you didn’t really know already – it is quite insular, but with twitter you can connect to and follow anybody…whether they like it or not!!

And now, after that somewhat more pleasant than I’m used to ending, can I unashamedly ask you to follow my twitter if you have the power? I appreciate that I have just been slagging it off, but on the basis I need to increase my online “Personal Brand” (I feel hideous just using these hateful buzzwords) I’m afraid I am compelled to.

You can find me here @Al_MacKenzie1

And believe me, I’m dying a little inside making this request of you.

Ta-ta for now.

P.s. If you already have a twitter account, please be a sport and press this button. It’s handily located next to the facebook share button, which I heartily recommend you press too. If for nothing other than the fact you’ll make my pocket vibrate 😉