oh, that's right, I was going to rant about something.
Guys! This is a fun rant for me. I tried to rant to my mom about this earlier but she was like twitter-wha? So I'll do it here because I know most of you (unless you're hiding under a big, big, big rock) know what Twitter is and some of you even -- gasp! of! horror! -- even use it.
Twitter is annoying!!!
At first, I didn't mind it. When it wasn't being touted on every single news show as the single most amazing and wonderful present from the gods of absolutely unnecessary technology ever, that is. Last summer, when my supervisor would twitter while we were drinking, or whatever, that was fine with me. I was curious. What was this obscure and fascinating service and what was its point? I signed up for it but didn't even have the heart to twitter anything or follow anyone because I couldn't convince myself that I cared what people were eating or watching on tv or whatever, and that they cared what I was doing either.
Twitter and I were cool because we didn't need each other. I didn't have to hear about it unless I was around Brandon (or Jen -- you know you twitter, Jen!) and even then it was like, them: "Twitter is awesome!" Me: "No it's not! End of conversation!" The end.
But now it's soooo not cool and soooo not even on my not-good side anymore. It's on my I-hate-you-and-I-hope-you-die-a-very-painful-technology-trend-death list. Ooooooh Twitter.
My problem is that I simply don't CARE what Courtney Cox or the senator from some other state or my OWN fucking senator or the 11 o'clock news anchor or that old chick from Entertainment Tonight or Rainn Wilson or even John Motherfucking Mayer has to 'tweet.' If you are eating chicken soup, eat your chicken soup! If I wanted to know, I'd ask! Since I don't want to know, I won't ask "were you eating chicken soup at 12:37?" It's that simple!
Or it was... because I didn't follow anyone, I didn't have to hear about it. Now, all of the sudden, it's on the news and on talkshows and people who are trying to sound cool are talking about it and signing up for Twitter accounts. People are comparing how many followers they have and they're trying to be all clever and witty and funny and smart and goofy with their 'tweets' and it's just... ugh. So, even though I opted out of Twitter, I still have to hear about it all the damn time. No, I don't have to use it or follow anyone, and that's why I don't. But I shouldn't have to avoid every single show I like to watch on TV just because they might mention this stupid trend! I mean, seriously!
Technology has already invaded so many areas of our lives. There are so many outlets now for that kind of activity -- text messaging, e-mail, Facebook status, MySpace status, personal blogs, away messages -- that it strikes me as completely incomprehensible that someone decided we were in need of an entirely separate, independent website that would allow us to send or receive a text message at 4 a.m. that was somewhere along the lines of "I'm so drunjk rightnoy," when already I can read a text, get a drunk dial, read a status update or away message or IM or e-mail or LJ post that says the same thing.
Maybe we all need to take a step back from this technology for a while. For three years of my life I was glued to a computer screen, constantly checking friends' away messages and blogging three times a day on LJ and communicating with a vast number of people online, many of whom I will never even meet in person. And then, I ran out of money at about the same time my computer stopped working, and I had about six months of what I didn't realize was going to be blissful relief from computer craziness, and I felt so much more free! Now I know I can sit down in front of a computer screen and get up again when real life comes calling and not be so concerned about what I'm missing online, and it's nice! Perhaps this Twitter trend is just another sign that people, for all our love of technology, are really craving some face-to-face interaction and some ties to the real world. And ironically we're creating needless technology to make that happen.
I can understand why people who like to Twitter, well, like to Twitter. It's because you get to kind of remind the people in your life that you're THERE, you're doing SOMETHING, and they should be paying attention. Isn't it? That's what it seems like to me.
Well, I say, if you want to do that, pick up the PHONE and call somebody! My general, self-imposed rule for sharing information through technology goes like this: If it's something I want to share with someone, I'll call. If it's not important enough to merit a phone call, I'll e-mail. If it's not important enough to e-mail, I'll blog. If it's not important enough to blog, I'll pretty much assume no one cares. People are taking that a little bit further with the Twitter thing, don't you think?
You know when you're sitting at the doctor's office waiting room, bored, and you're playing with your phone, wanting someone to call and entertain you because you have no idea how long it's going to take but you know that if you called THEM and then had to end the pointless conversation so it'd be kind of rude, so you text a bunch of people and say 'hey, what's up,' instead... that's as far as it should go. But now there's Twitter. So you can go beyond the random, I'm-bored text and send a mass text to anyone who signed up for your feed that says "I'm bored at the doctor's office." And then they can get the alert and have a distraction from their boring meeting or boring commute or boring wait in line at the grocery store.
This is what our lives have come to?
Imagine that you're time-traveled to the pioneer era. You're having a chat with Pa Ingalls and he asks you, "What is life like in 2009? Was all the sweat and hard work plowing this field and building this log cabin by hand and baking a loaf of bread from scratch every morning worth it? Did we accomplish what we set out to do?" And then you say, "Yeah! Life is so great now, we have computers, and a show on TV about dating Flava Flave with six or seven spin-offs, and I can follow --insert random celebrity here -- on Twitter!" And Pa Ingalls looks at you like you're an alien from Mars.
Anyway, that's my rant on Twitter. Thanks for reading!
I now banish that word from my sight and from my ears henceforth.
No, I won't hold my breath -- I'm sure there will be a plug for someone's Twitter feed on the 11 o'clock news or something. Ah, joy.