I got into work today and had an hour to myself in the morning (which is really a great thing), so I did all of my noisy jobs because I feel a bit weird doing them when people are around. My phone buzzes in the front pocket of my shirt so I take it out and see I have a few Twitter updates. Usually I save them for later, like when I have a smoke. I looked at the updates and saw my coworker saying that she just got into work. Then I saw her come in through the front door. Now, I’m listening to some freshly stocked 16 hours of Howard Stern’s special this week “Mammary Lane” and it’s basically all the good stuff that has happened through the years that as a late listener, I missed. Since I had my phone in my hand and Twitter was accessible, I tweeted that I was listening to Mammary Lane.
Anyway, I started to realize that after I typed this, my coworker will see on her phone that I tweeted I was listening to Howard Stern and that we were silently having the most geekiest “conversation” you could have. Two people not talking to eachother, but just reading eachother’s tweets to converse.
Realizing the absurdity, I took off my headphones right when Gilbert Godfried was doing his “gob ‘a goo” bit and had a big laughing smile on my face when I went to start a conversation…a real conversation…to prove to people that even though I hate them, I can be sociable. We talked about coffee and the microwave I broke…not as entertaining as the gob a goo bit, but alright nevertheless. I was interacting with people and my psych would be proud. My coworker tells me the coffee she made is terrible, then tweets that she made terrible coffee and is sorry to her coworkers. I think “dammit! I’m part of this surreal Twitter backwards-conversation again” – It was an interesting scene, reading Tweets about scenes I was just a part of. It was like somebody was narrating my life through 140 character updates.
Then I started to think about if somebody could possibly Tweet what they were doing, to the last detail, every second of every day and if it would be interesting or not. I’m talking uncensored Tweets…like “just scratched my groin…sniffed hand”. I think that would be pretty interesting. You’d definitely need an intern or a friend with a lot of time on their hands. I would like to read Tweets from bums that read like that.
“Crossed street – muttered random things”
“Saw a lady getting out of her car and thought about stealing it…flashed her instead”
Now that’s tweeting.
Also, a little more on tweeting…it’s pretty interesting to me to watch people who are new to Twitter and don’t understand it and see how long it takes them to use other functionality like retweeting, direct messages or replies. First it’ll start with some updates, then maybe a few days later you’ll see an @username in their tweet and I’d think “hey! that’s their first reply! aww” and I’d never mention it to the person. That’s creepy.
Then, inevitably, their tweets are full of retweets, replies, trends and tags and they join the clutter of the masses. Some even go as far as to use their account to basically tweet ads for companies, tweet on a schedule, get their washing machine to tweet when clothes are done and so on. There are a bunch of uses…but the only time it’s fun to watch and read is when they’re just starting out. You only stay pure for so long.
I started this post thinking I was going to write about how people should talk to people instead of having Twitter conversations, but that would mean that I’d have to socialize…with people…
I can’t decide which sounds more appealing. Maybe neither…maybe that’s why I’m playing Warhammer and drinking beer at night instead of going out getting girls’ phone numbers, doing drugs and having unprotected sex (Jugdish).
Until tomorrow’s awkward moment.
I got into work today and had an hour to myself in the morning (which is really a great thing), so I did all of my noisy jobs because I feel a bit weird doing them when people are around. My phone buzzes in the front pocket of my shirt so I take it out and see I have a few Twitter updates. Usually I save them for later, like when I have a smoke. I looked at the updates and saw my coworker saying that she just got into work. Then I saw her come in through the front door. Now, I’m listening to some freshly stocked 16 hours of Howard Stern’s special this week “Mammary Lane” and it’s basically all the good stuff that has happened through the years that as a late listener, I missed. Since I had my phone in my hand and Twitter was accessible, I tweeted that I was listening to Mammary Lane. View full article »
