24 Hours in the Life of a Twitterer (sic?)

There are certain cultural references that both divide and define generations.

The Doctor and I recently spent an entire weekend in the Hamptons quizzing his 22-year-old nanny about music. It completely blew our minds that she had never even heard of Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Nirvana, New Order, or The Cure. How was that fucking even possible? Heck, I've never listened to an Englebert Humperdink album but at least I've heard of him.

After we got over the shock of feeling old, the Doctor and I came to realize that kids today don't know shit about music.

Just kidding.

Want to know what the new dividing cultural reference is?

Twitter.

Most friends my age have no understanding of Twitter.

Do you?

As Wikipedia explains it, "Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers)."

Could anything sound dumber or less intellectually-stimulating? It sounds like writing in Morse Code.

However, everyone from my agent to fellow bloggers to readers are pushing me to join Twitter. I literally get about 20 e-mails per week from strangers asking me to please start a Twitter page.

Here are my problems with Twitter.

(1) I don't like the fact that people who subscribe to your Twitter page are called "followers." When I think of "followers," I think of Jim Jones, Joel Osteen, and Oprah Winfrey. Call me crazy.

(2)  Everyone wants to believe that they’re important because everyone, at their core, is a narcissist. And how better to give yourself an inflated sense of importance than to think that there are large numbers of people who are reading a 140 word post you’ve written that says, “Going to the store to look for cereal. Hope they have Chex!”  Please spare me the details of your boring life.

(3) I was recently at a dinner with a bunch of 20 year olds. All of them spent the entire night twittering. All it did was make me realize that kids today have the attention span of fruit flies. If you speak to them using more than 140 characters, their minds literally go into shutdown mode and they'll go on their iphones and twitter "stuck at dinner next to some weird old guy who won't stop talking."

Anyway, in the name of science, I decided to imagine what I would write if I had my own Twitter page so I wrote down every thought I've had in the past 24 hours. I'm pretty sure I won't follow through on actually joining Twitter because really, who has the fucking time?

Regardless, here are the past 24 hours of my life as expressed via Twitter:

• New York City smells like a wet tampon today, n'est-ce pas?

• It's cool connecting with high-school friends on Facebook but the abortion bills are killing me!

• Why do they only do construction work in my office when I have a hangover?

• "I'm considering being one of those guys who claims not to watch tv," he said as he watched yet another episode of "Real Houswives of New York."

• Why would my co-worker think I would give a shit about his vegetable garden?

• My apartment has a faint smell of mouse poop and toddler pee.

• I want to join the NFL just so I can show off my dope-ass touchdown dances.

• Apparently I'm on a diet of egg whites and tequila. Lost 5 pounds and 5,000 brain cells.

• My daughter is high on chocolate and running around naked. It's like the pre-school version of Burning Man.

• Am I the only one who thinks Campbell Brown has freaky cheekbones?

• I am Kaiser Soze!

• Better name for my imaginary son? Jack Bauer Kim or Mookie Wilson Kim?

• Oprah joining Twitter is like your grandma getting a tattoo, a Brazilian wax, and a belly button ring. No offense, Nana. Love your new tats!

• The "Housewives of New York" reminds me of Dorothy Parker and the Algonguin Round Table. Not!

• It's really true. Sometimes you can just smell "the crazy."
  

• If you name your daughter Siena, should you be surprised when she grows up to be a stripper?

I'm still undecided on the whole Twitter thing. It seems too exhausting (and boring.) Obviously writing on this blog is kicking my ass enough as it is. However, I do kind of like the idea of writing down quick brain farts instead of fully-formed blog posts.

Hmm, dilemma.

I'm pretty sure that I'll never start a Twitter page. Honestly, I'm just too damn old. Forty-year-old dads should just not be on Twitter. In fact, there should be a law against it. However, tell me YOUR Twitter pages and some of your favorite ones so I can judge this whole phenomenon more rationally. Maybe I'll change my mind.

But I seriously doubt it.

Comments

[Katelyn]

Haha, great post! I absolutely refuse to get a twitter, for all the afore mentioned reasons. I agree, who has time? And more importantly, who the hell cares? Facebook basically serves the same purpose, no?

[gray matter matters]

My twitter entry:
Just read another hilarious, erudite post from MD. He thinks I'm lame.

[alecho]

"I am Kaiser Soze!" haha, that is a funny ass tweet! hahahaha, got a good laugh. Yeah, I'm a 30yr old Korean male who is addicted to Twitter. Somebody help me... twitter.com/alecho. Great blog, buddy. Will come by more often.

[Cam C.]

I thought Twitter was for narcissistic blather but started following some friends without actually saying much... after a while I realised it's like blogging - it's more about the conversation than one-sided broadcasting. Most of the stuff my friends and I post there are little snippets to start discussions that sometimes last the whole day, in little tiny spread-out chunks.

[ali]

I'm sorry...I'm so disturbed that she had never heard of Nirvana. disturbed by this, I tell you.

[Kate]

Cam C. is right: it's about the conversation. I would say it's more about the listening side of the conversation than the talking side.

Yep, I tweet. Nope, not gonna include either of my accounts here (one mostly personal, one business), 'cause why would you care? But there are surely lots of people about whom you would care - people you know or would like to know or who are just amusing or thought-provoking or whatever.

Yes, tweeting is often banal and narcissistic, just as every conversation is. So you ignore the shit and try to eavesdrop on the good stuff.

I thought Twitter was pointless when I first tried it, and only saw the power of the tool after messing around with it for a few months.

fwiw, I'm 46.

[alice, uptown]

Thank you, MD. I have had children of all ages explain Twitter to me and feel exactly as you do. When I think of a twit, the idea doesn't fill me with intellectual curiosity; it summons up a yawn or a waste of time, and I can certainly waste time without adding to my electronic gallery of toys.

hope you, the Boss Lady and the Peanut are well. Have you started making the rounds of preschools for P.? Love to hear your take on that scheme.

[Natasha]

LOL. I laughed out loud for a good 8 seconds about the abortion joke. Not that I think killing babies is so funny but still.

Excellent point about Englebert Humperdink. How can kids not know NIRVANA??!!

Twitter has helped me to be a little bit of a better writer. Most people are too wordy. Twitter helps you distill your thoughts and be pithy. But you already seem to have that down, so you don't need it for that.

It's good for laughs, if you follow the right people. @hotamishchick is hilarious.

My complete technopeasant of a husband @SomethinigGuy is on there and it's fun to flirt with him throughout the day via Twitter.

It can be good for networking.

Um, I'm running out of good things to say.

I think if you started a Twitter feed, you'd mostly be doing it for our enjoyment and your own validation.

Most people don't tweet about stupid, boring things or, if they do, you're following the wrong people.

I don't know. I was on there a lot for a while and now I rarely am. I think I got what I wanted out of it.

It's not all stupid and mindless, though. I think that was the point I wanted to make.

This was really disjointed. Maybe Twitter HAS affected me.

Natasha
@SomethingGirl

[s.i.]

Like was mentioned in one of the comments above, I like Twitter for posting quick thoughts on my website when I'm too busy/tired/brain dead to write a proper blog post. But I could do without the "Going to bed" and "In a meeting" newsflashes, and the blow-by-blow live-tweeting of sports and reality shows.

[muskrat]

I too would be happy to see you start one. I'm at www.twitter.com/themuskrat

There's even a cool picture of me pissing on the IRS building in Washington. And yes, it's real. I'm not sophisticated enough to photoshop that shit.

Probably my best twitter was in the late evening on Nov 4, I wrote, "Michael Jackson is so wishing he'd just stayed black right now."

And to think, you're missing this comedic gold.

[Jay]

Dude, you would totally OWN Twitter. Come on, help the peasantry out. Good tweets are in short supply! Plus the samples you gave were HI-larious.

However, as a member of the sub-30 set I must agree...Twitter is not doing my attention span a lick of good. Right now, it's the size of a fruit fly and growing smaller by the day.

Nevertheless...Twitter is still awesome.
Checkout http://twitter.com/sacca for a preview of a decent Tweet stream. Nowhere near as good as yours though.

[Helen]

twit twit? I'm in 20s and FB alone is too overwhelming for me, let alone twit..twit?

[red2blue]

All of the hyperventational protesting proves a point, right? Either ignore Twitter or join Twitter. No need to lobby one way or another, middle-aged MD fans. I hugely recommend that MetroDad join - your voice would enrich everyone's day and pump daily oxygen into this blog, which you update every two weeks for a reason (um, blogs are a pain in the ass, especially for those chasing shorties around during all waking hours).

Why don't you start slow by doing what I did - start a Twitter account for your kid and, whenever she says something noteworthy (as my 3.5 year old daughter did yesterday: "Daddy, you don't understand me."), just type it in verbatim. Also, follow professional funny people like @azizansari and @anthonyjeselnik and @mindykaling - it's like having friends drop hilarious one-liners on you, throughout the day and night. If you have friends who are boring enough to tweet things like "Going to the store.", it has nothing to do with Twitter....

[Ms. Mama]

Looks like you've got a lot of loyal fans.

To tweet or not to tweet is that the question?

If you had a following that you liked to interact with, then twitter seems appropriate, but if you prefer to write without having to deal with us, then.... no twitter.

To me it is be less about toilet paper, but a lot like your imaginary tweets above. I started using it like a multiple text message to keep family and friends updated on my daughter's leukemia treatments. I sort of just hung in there with it.

I look forward to following you, if i ever find you considering MetroDad is already taken.

[samantha jo campen]

Dude, my tweets are protected so I don't get fired but here are some of my favorites:

http://twitter.com/Sundry/status/1722407278

http://twitter.com/slarkpope/status/1716029329

http://twitter.com/slarkpope/status/1360823979

(I'm totally addicted. It's like the FB status on crack)

[H2Mama]

Just found you - you are hilarious. I don't get Twiiter either.

[KTP]

Ugh, you already have 80,000 comments, but I'll take a chance that someone reads this. I wrote a fun thing about Twitter here
because of all the people like you who said "What/Why Twitter?"

http://www.kimtracyprince.com/2009/03/what-is-twitter.html

You can bark at me at www.twitter.com/@houseofprince

[Wordygirl]

I'm with you on the twitter disdain. I don't care enough about anyone to read the 140 character-tweets about their personal life.

[Xibee]

Hey I'm older than you. By a lot. And I'm on Twitter because it's a dose of zeitgeist that keeps me that much further from becoming that old Havishamish bitch on the corner who comes out in an ugly bathrobe screaming when you even Look like you're crossing that corner patch of grass on her yard. Connect, babes. Or die.

[E]

too funny i just looked for you on twitter!

[ParentopiaDevra]

I think Campbell Browns cheek bones are freaky too.

[Kila]

I don't use Twitter, but do enjoy Plurk. Though your "mini posts" are fun, don't join the craze. Stick with blogging. Once a person starts twittering or plurking, they don't blog much anymore, and nearly lose the ability to write more than 2 sentences at a time. Facebook is a far superior time waster :)

[Generic Viagra]

I want to read more about Twitterer and the disadvantages.

[viagra online]

It seems to me that the only reason there is even a debate about the underlying thesis here is that if anybody ever tried to advance it in a substantial forum their voice would be drowned by the chorus of boomer going "La la la, can't hear you..."

[air yeezy]

I like this concept. I visited your blog for the first time and just been..

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[Alvaro]

just one example of my concren in the world is: here in ontario we recycle, or most of us recycle as much as we can, in other provinces, an example is newfoundland, they do not practice the same, they do not recycle, they just throw everything out in the garbage, so my question is how do we make the world a better place for future generations and try to clean up alot of the landfill if every province, or countries dont practice the same, what difference are we making as a whole.Just sayin