Thursday, February 26, 2009
Radio 4's Today show and Channel 4 News are now both using Twitter as a tool of news coverage. I will not have anything to do with Twitter because there is an outside chance I might like it and the last thing I need in my life is a new way of wasting time. I joined Facebook because I was researching something or other, but, beyond simply saying yes to anybody who wants to be my friend (I think this is the correct game theory thing to do), I am largely inactive. But what is it about Twitter? It sounds like a 24/7 group therapy session for logorrheac (not a word but it should be) neurotics with exhibitionist tendencies. I am very much opposed to neurotics - this is, I admit, a Caliban in the mirror thing - because of the way you get drawn into their world view which is precisely what seems to happen in Twitter. Furthermore, once you are a Twit, you must feel an obligation to Twitter otherwise you will receive wounded Twitters from other Twits. Or maybe not, I don't even know how it works. Since it's now on C4 News and Today, I guess it's the future and I am, as ever, being borne back ceaselessly into the past.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I have neither Twitted nor Facebooked largely because of my own neurosis which dictates that if I'm not in right at the beginning of a trend, I don't want to know about it at all.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Dick Madeley has provided what seems like a fairly comprehensive guide to Twitter, and I can't say I'm sorry to have missed this one.
Hold fast, Bryan, and get on with doing what you do best.
ReplyDeleteTwitter does seem to sum up the spirit of the current era pretty well?
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting is that people still buy The Great Gatsby in bookshops (could be Amazon, Oxfam, Waterstones). Then they read it, then blog and, no doubt, twit about it. I expect there's a Gatsby facebook group.
ReplyDeleteSo rather than stuff being replaced, everything just keeps mushrooming. I don't know how much mushrooming the human brain can take, but it seems to be a lot. When we run out of space the transhumans will provide us with extra memory space on external hard drives or something.
And this is why God invented fishing, golf courses and county cricket. And, of course, death.
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ReplyDeleteYou can get a flavour of Twitter by looking at the top 50 list on Twitterholic. I expect there are one or two useful things in the list but it seems packed with businesses and professional publicity machines. Just too much background noise for me though I expect some desperado Zombeh Bankers might mutter "first mover advantage" since the point with Twitter is that its messaging system is ideal for mobiles. Besides, if enough people say something is the future then one suspects it's already in the past. Blogging is still best, perhaps.
ReplyDeleteSorry about reposts - trying to get the link to come out OK.
twitter ye not, missus!
ReplyDeleteEven discussing these things makes you lot such a sad bunch of bloggers. Can you imagine trying to explain them to people from say the 1930s ? they would try and have you committed.
ReplyDeleteMark, one more comment deleted and you lose your license.
What the hey, it's fun!
ReplyDeleteTwitter is pretentious mind rotting shite, but then so is trying to dress nice. Lol: Game theory. I think twitter might sum up the proto-human spirit too Danny. Prometheus was a twit.
ReplyDeleteWho do you think will win Facebook??