Monday, January 12, 2009

Terrible Twitter


If you don't know how Twitter works, watching the above will be helpful before reading my impassioned prose/rant.


Twitter is creepy and although I have no affiliation with Facebook, other than that I use it and the creator and I went to the same high school, I find statements saying “Facebook status updates are analogous to tweets,” (really people… “tweets”?!) a little offensive. I mean it’s true, they are quite similar…but there’s so much to Facebook, whereas Twitter is simply CREEPY.

As a networking tool, Facebook kills. It allows you to share all manner of videos, pictures, articles, rants, links, games, etc. with people across the globe. It enables you to keep in better touch and maintain connections with people you do not interact with daily as well as the people you do. While you certainly have the option of updating your current status, keeping people informed about what their friends, family, co-workers, associates, cyber acquaintances, neighbors, and grocers are doing is NOT Facebook’s only reason for existence.

In my experience, most status updates aren't even necessarily indications of what a person is doing at any given time. More often than not, they are song lyrics, pithy quotes, links to YouTube videos, gibberish, or blank. And even if Mrs. Fields DOES write in her status box that she’s baking warm and nourishing homemade cookies and she actually IS baking warm and nourishing homemade cookies, Facebook is a good way to stay connected; Twitter is a stalker’s dream.

All Twitter does is provide a forum for you to update your every move and the ability for people to be kept abreast of what those moves are. Why, might I ask, does that information need to be readily available? Must people know that:

at 8:37am you ate wheaties for breakfast
at 9:12am you are back in bed despite your goal of going for a morning run
at 11:30am you've decided to start your day and are in the shower
at 1:29pm you're en route to your local bookstore to find art history books
at 1:58pm you've abandoned your search and are going to peruse amazon.com instead (better prices)
at 2:14pm you stopped in Duane Reade to buy sprite
at 2:46pm you had an awkward encounter with your ex and are now crying unabashedly on a street corner while updating your status and ruminating over a love lost
at 2:53pm you're on your way back to Duane Reade, because now you need ice cream to soothe your mental anguish
at 2:59pm you are contemplating moving to Vermont because Duane Reade has no ice cream and the Ben and Jerry's headquarters is some where in New England...you believe Vermont but maybe it's Maine....yeah...maybe you're moving to main or why not Alaska? It’s cold there.

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

First off, why does anyone think that anyone really cares to know all of this information? And if they do care to know, why do they care to know? And why do you want them to know? Is your life any less fulfilling if people aren't interested in knowing what's going on in it at every turn? I think not. The only practical purpose Twitter could serve is if you’re interrogated by the police and can’t remember what you were doing on Friday, January 9th at 7:09pm, (debating whether or not to have brussel sprouts or cabbage with my fried whiting) you can just consult twitter…your handy e-alibi. I guess it’s not really an alibi so much as a log that will refresh your memory in the event that you do actually have an alibi, but you get my drift.
Twitter- I don’t like it.



Below are hilarious videos that illustrate perfectly why Twitter is a problem!
Watch them in succession.




1 comment:

Missie Rich said...

Erika, I am so in love with you now. I could have not ranted better than you just did. The alibi shit had me kicking in lol heaven in my bed! That shit IS a stalkers dream and makes NO sense. This post reads like a movie critique! I fucking heart the moon and stars for you. Damn girl you got me feeling like having textual intercourse with you! We will not twitter or facebook status that either! Did I mention I loved you? Hehhe!