In class last night, we spent a couple minutes watching a You Tube video about how Twitter works – the video was clearly produced by Twitter to show how, as a loyal Twitter-er, you can let the people who care the most about you know what you’re doing minute by minute between phone calls and emails.
I have already experienced a little weirdness in this respect from my new Facebook account. The other day, my sister introduced me to the word “chillax” – I know, corny, but she’s in high school, and high schoolers like to make up strange words and use them incessantly. After our conversation, I updated my Facebook status to: “Julie is chillaxing.” The next day at work, several co-workers came up to me and asked me if I had a good night chillaxing. One co-worker even asked me where I heard that great new word that he now wants to incorporate into his daily vocabulary.
This little run-in left me with two impressions. One, people like reading status updates. Two, be careful what you write up there because not only are people reading them, but they absorb, store in their long-term memory and save for later mundane conversation by the coffee maker. I'll even admit that when I’m having a really slow evening at home, I will check status updates of certain people who are particularly funny or who are blood-related.
Despite this, the idea of Twitter still confounds me. I cannot think of a single person whose Twitter account I would want to follow. I cannot think of anyone who I would want to follow me! Even my mom, who I would think would be the most interested person in my every move, could probably care less that I: am at the grocery store, am home from the grocery store, am walking the dog, am bored, etc.
In fact, when I really think about it, the whole concept of Twitter is narcissistic. Who am I to think that anyone really cares about what I do all day long? A random chick’s blog I follow that has a pretty loyal readership recently posted recently about how she has 1,000 people following her on Twitter. Ew. She is NOT THAT INTERESTING!!!
I would really appreciate some other opinions – this class is full of smart, interesting people, so if someone could please clue me in to Twitter, I would most certainly listen! (More than 140 characters is perfectly fine)
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3 comments:
Hi Julie,
Great post. I agree with a lot of your thoughts on Twitter. I've made a lame attempt at Twittering, but I've yet to really get the appeal. After last night's class I decided to increase my Twittering and follow a few more people since I think this is something that can't be understood without commitment. I will say that I thought blogs were for narcissists when they first became popular, and look at where blogs are at now!
If you're up for trying to follow some folks on Twitter, I highly recommend Tina Fey. She's hilarious.
Joy
There appears to be many forms for using Twitter. The one we saw in class was pretty intense.
I always thought that the status update bar at the top of Facebook was also a "Twitter" because you can update the, "Paul is..." section.
Joy/Julie/Class, is that function on Facebook considered a form of "Twitter?"
If so, perhaps we Twit more than we know. If not, than perhaps far less people use it...
Just curious.
Thank you for the clarification.
I have heard that your Facebook status update thing is automatically adjusted when you add a new status on Twitter. Of course, I can't confirm since I'm not active on Twitter...
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