Sometimes 140 characters just isn't enough
In the lag of time when I've pretty much not blogged, or only blogged about stupid things like American Idol or used this venue for posting my mealplans, I started watching Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. And I love it/him :) Except for a couple of really painful bits (Let us play with your look and Competitive Spit-takes, to name them), I find his show fun and refreshingly NOT THE SAME as other shows I find boring. That doesn't matter except to say that I watch Jimmy Fallon. There, I said it :)
Anyway, recently (I think the May 25 show), Jimmy told a most hilarious joke (you can watch the short video here): BP wants Twitter to shut down a fake BP account that is mocking the oil company. In response, Twitter wants BP to shut down the oil leak that’s ruining the ocean.
The fake Twitter account is BPGlobalPR, and whoever is writing for it really is snarkily entertaining.
So a day or so later, a Twitter user named @Tw1sty posts the joke online, giving no credit to Mr. Fallon. When you read something funny or interesting on Twitter that you like enough to pass on to your friends, you "retweet" (RT) it. So an unsuspecting guy named @fontosaurus RTs Tw1sty's tweet. Only in a bizzare mechanical error, it doesn't RT, so Fontosaurus doesn't give Tw1sty credit, and it appears as if Fontaurus made the joke. It flew all over the Twitterverse, and everyone was RTing it. If you go to the Retweets by others menu on Twitter, you'll see lots of things that someone important said, or are newsworthy, or are really funny that lots and lots of people RT'd. Obviously, it got in that menu, and then Roger Ebert, who has a huge following, RT'd it and then it was basically all over the world. And the whole time, it looks like Fontosaurus' joke.
Meanwhile, shortly after Fontosaurus tweeted it and realized it had been RT'd with credit to him, he tweeted again, noting that it wasn't his. Of course, that tweet didn't have the wildfire response of the previous tweet. So he, being a stand-up guy, posted in his blog that he wanted to give credit where credit was due.
If you read the blog entry, you'll notice that Tw1sty seems like a decent fellow too; not minding that Fontosaurus got credit for his joke. Perhaps Tw1sty was so not-mindy because he knew it wasn't his joke either?
Anyway, the sad thing is that today someone else tweets the joke -- as an original, since he's not giving credit anywhere -- and again, it's been retweeted by more than 100 people (according to the site)!
Why did I take the time to write this all up? It's that overactive Righteous Indignation gene again, I suppose. Sure, it usually applies to small children and those who can't defend themselves, but it also applies to people who don't give credit where credit is due. If you're going to tell a joke on the interwebs, it should be original, or you should give credit. Period. People can look it up, ya know.
website stats
Anyway, recently (I think the May 25 show), Jimmy told a most hilarious joke (you can watch the short video here): BP wants Twitter to shut down a fake BP account that is mocking the oil company. In response, Twitter wants BP to shut down the oil leak that’s ruining the ocean.
The fake Twitter account is BPGlobalPR, and whoever is writing for it really is snarkily entertaining.
So a day or so later, a Twitter user named @Tw1sty posts the joke online, giving no credit to Mr. Fallon. When you read something funny or interesting on Twitter that you like enough to pass on to your friends, you "retweet" (RT) it. So an unsuspecting guy named @fontosaurus RTs Tw1sty's tweet. Only in a bizzare mechanical error, it doesn't RT, so Fontosaurus doesn't give Tw1sty credit, and it appears as if Fontaurus made the joke. It flew all over the Twitterverse, and everyone was RTing it. If you go to the Retweets by others menu on Twitter, you'll see lots of things that someone important said, or are newsworthy, or are really funny that lots and lots of people RT'd. Obviously, it got in that menu, and then Roger Ebert, who has a huge following, RT'd it and then it was basically all over the world. And the whole time, it looks like Fontosaurus' joke.
Meanwhile, shortly after Fontosaurus tweeted it and realized it had been RT'd with credit to him, he tweeted again, noting that it wasn't his. Of course, that tweet didn't have the wildfire response of the previous tweet. So he, being a stand-up guy, posted in his blog that he wanted to give credit where credit was due.
If you read the blog entry, you'll notice that Tw1sty seems like a decent fellow too; not minding that Fontosaurus got credit for his joke. Perhaps Tw1sty was so not-mindy because he knew it wasn't his joke either?
Anyway, the sad thing is that today someone else tweets the joke -- as an original, since he's not giving credit anywhere -- and again, it's been retweeted by more than 100 people (according to the site)!
Why did I take the time to write this all up? It's that overactive Righteous Indignation gene again, I suppose. Sure, it usually applies to small children and those who can't defend themselves, but it also applies to people who don't give credit where credit is due. If you're going to tell a joke on the interwebs, it should be original, or you should give credit. Period. People can look it up, ya know.
website stats