Jun
26
2009
Seriously? It’s Cool To Not Use Twitter?
Author: adminOK – I’m going to go off on a bit of a rant here because I’ve noticed a trend in the mainstream media to knock Twitter and social networking as a whole. Usually the conversation goes something like what I saw on CBC yesterday:
Weatherman to Anchorwoman: “Are you on Twitter?”
Anchorwoman: *Blank Stare*”No.”
Weatherman to Anchorwoman: “Why not? It’s kind of awesome.”
Anchorwoman: “I’m just not into that stuff. Nobody wants to know what I had for lunch.”
Really? You’re just not into that stuff? This reminds me of the first days of the web for commercial use, when Stepford wives everywhere were going around saying “oh, I don’t SURF THE WEB, it’s just for geeks.” I imagine these people got on the bus when Oprah told them to.
I know I’m part of an early tech adopter demographic, but for some reason it just snarfs my drawers to see people putting down Twitter because they prefer not to know what it is all about, especially when they aren’t presenting any useful alternatives and are just trying to act like they are cool because they remain ignorant on a subject. What is that?
I’m not saying everyone should hop on Twitter right now, but I am saying that knocking a service simply because you don’t believe that you have the time or inclination to explore it isn’t in any way cool. Oh, and contrary to what most people think, people really do want to know what you are doing. Complete strangers even. That is why Twitter exists. I guess my point is to get on the Twitter train or stay at the platform, but don’t put down those who have chosen to board.
June 26th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Great post! Sadly, people still react this way even to blogging, which I feel is so mainstream now!
June 26th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Your objections are correct in form, but not in content. It’s just dumb to dislike something without knowing anything about it. And as for Cool, well, Cool is conservative fear dressed in black (Bruce Mau).
However, there’s really nothing about twitter to get (see http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/06/on-twitter-most-people-are-sheep-80-percent-of-accounts-have-fewer-than-10-follower/). There is some useful technology there. Most people won’t understand why the technology behind Twitter is useful for another 10 years.
That’s what makes this Onion parody so poignant: http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/twitter_creator_on_iran_i
Enjoy,
David
June 29th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
@Admin – I’m not sure the anchorwoman was “putting down” Twitter or said that it’s cool not to Twitter — not according to your transcript anyway (I didn’t see this on TV, so that’s the only information I have to go on…)
But it is interesting to me that Twitter has now entered the realm of social status symbol — either you’re one of us, or you’re one of them…
Twitter is a great tool for those who want to use it. But it is definitely not for everyone. You have to admit, there is something vaguely ridiculous about Rick Sanchez tweeting from the middle of a hurricane, or Perez Hilton asking his followers to call the TO police.
I experimented with Twitter about a year and a half ago — mostly as a listener — and gave up on it. The truth is, too many people do add “Just had lunch”-type tweets. (Thankfully, no one I followed tweeted that they were being attacked or were about to die in the middle of a tropical storm — how do you handle the stress of that…?)
The technology may have future applications, but not everyone is going to be into how people use it today.
And that’s cool, I think.
~Graham
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:20 pm
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