There’s been far too much attention granted to Twitter here in the States where it’s not like we’re using it to stage the next revolution, so I won’t add considerably to that heap of noise.
Let me just say this: moderation in all things, people.
I promise you that only your most uninteresting friends care what you just ate, said or posted on your blog. (It’s not cross-marketing if you’re using one channel of communication merely to state that you’re using another channel. That’s call forwarding.)
Likewise, on the other end of the spectrum, Twittering the birth of your first child does seem to me to diminish the importance of the event. Call me old-fashioned.
I had settled on two categories of tweets I like. One, the info tweet from places like MUG (Manhattan User’s Guide) that sends event alerts and such. Fine. Two, the clever tweet, the one-liner dispatched into the ether to substitute for a witty pal when I’m all alone at my desk.
Today, September the 8th, I would like to officially retract my endorsement of that second category.
For a while, I giggled to Favrd‘s stream of favorite tweets but then it went sideways. Reading through them was like having a conversation with someone who’s going for the laugh with everything he says and not paying attention to the rest of the conversation (or his life, it would seem, in the case of these tweeters). You start out thinking he’s funny, but then he thinks he’s so funny that you end up thinking he’s kind of a self-involved a**hole.
Then I read this piece in Wired on how Twitter is the new joke notebook for comedians: they can try out all their unfinished material in a place that’ll archive it for them. So first of all, get a back-up drive and leave me alone. Second, that’s the official word: I’m deleting all you comedians – wanna be and actual – from my following list.
If you want to see who I’m talking about, check out Paul Feig‘s feed. God. What a jerk.
I don’t want your B material, for Chrissake. If I did, I’d come by your apartment and watch you annoy your girlfriend with it. I know Twitter’s free and not $20 + a 2-drink minimum, but I’d much rather pay for actual punchlines than cringe through your practice round. That practice round, by the way, makes me want to never, ever hear you say anything again, so it may cost you my twenty in the end as well as the future of our non-existent but maybe-someday-when-I’m-famous potential friendship.
Show some decency guys. You’re approaching reality TV levels of self-humiliation. My aunt used to say, “If you don’t have something nice to say, come sit by me.” I say, “If you don’t have something interesting to say, shut up.” Some things are just better left unsaid.
Displaced 