Dissecting Twitter
Posted by Trey Ho | April 9, 2009
I can’t go thirty minutes driving in my car without hearing about Twitter. From this, you can safely assume two things: 1. I don’t have satellite radio, and 2. Twitter is officially mainstream, spreading like chickenpox in a third grade classroom.
To my girlfriend, it’s nails on a chalkboard as she rolls her eyes every time Twitter gets mentioned on the radio… on television… by me. “So lame,” is the general reaction for non-twitter-ers. In the back of my mind I’m thinking, little do you know, my dear, that you will someday succumb as well… just you wait until the day you discover that Stephanie Meyer is tweeting. Yes, she is one of one hundred gazillion raging female fans of the Twilight novel series – my turn to roll eyes.
[The hottest new social utility and the hottest new novel series share the same first three letters. Coincidence? I’m officially inventing a new iPhone app and I’m going to call it (yup, you guessed it) the Twiddler – the first iPhone app that will automatically filter work emails by “fun”. Okay sorry, back to the post.]
Unlike the radio hosts I listen to, I’m not here to plug and promote Twitter. I simply find it fascinating that such a simple tool has mutated and formed into different uses for different people, purely based on personal interpretations.
For me, it’s an entertaining tool for boring flight delays and random funny observations at the local Starbucks, but no celebrity stalking or excessive grocery shopping updates will come from my phone. It taps into my silent desires of self-promotion and insta-voyeurism.
Celebrities (and their publicists) love it as an equity-building tool to connect with fans on a more personal level (e.g. “OMG, Michelle Obama just twittered a reply to me!”).
For others, the simplicity attracts them. No need to setup a profile or upload pics like Facebook and MySpace to become engaged. It’s good clean fun that’s super approachable for those of us that are less willing to jump over registration hurdles, follow setup protocols, or simply have a low tolerance for pedophiles (sorry MySpace).
Some twitter-ers actually use it for its original purpose, to stay hyper-connected to their friends – walking down the street, eating lunch, wasting my friend’s time by making him read a twitter post about me ordering a bagel for breakfast. Not exactly my personal style but I’ll withhold judgment, sort of.
Advertisers are catching onto the goodness too. Movie studios can scan Twitter for candid feedback on their latest movie releases, car manufacturers for new vehicle launches, videogame developers for game launches, the list can go on forever.
Twitter is quickly becoming the ubiquitous social utility for life’s updates and musings. So much that it has become socially synonymous with the definitions for both words.
Is it too far fetched for twitter to one day become a socially accepted substitute for the aforementioned words? Meaning, can you ever imagine yourself or somebody else saying, “Hey! Long time no see! I want the full twitter from the past year.” Yeah, probably a bit far fetched but it worked for Kleenex with tissue and Post-It for little square pieces of paper with sticky backings – so you never know.
Much like a couple of four-letter obscenities I can think of, twitter, as a word, can exist as a noun or a verb (e.g. “Twitter is great” or “don’t forget to twitter while you’re on vacation”). I know I know, the proper verb is “tweet” but I feel that “twitter” is also an acceptable verb so calm down Twitter Sheriff.
Its cultural resonance warrants stunned faces whenever the question, “what’s Twitter?” is asked and is usually followed by a semi-condescendingly inquisitive, “you don’t know what Twitter is?!” answer. Oh you poor un-informed, un-hip member of society.
@Denuology. Signing off.
