It took me a while to warm up to Twitter. I had a very-long-standing belief that there was really nothing of value that this quick-hit, status-update site had to offer. Not that I need everything I do to be substantive.
It took me a while to warm up to Twitter.
I had a very-long-standing belief that there was really nothing of value that this quick-hit, status-update site had to offer.
Not that I need everything I do to be substantive. Quite the contrary. I love “Saved By The Bell” and “Seinfeld,” and was a maniacal pro-wrestling follower when I was young — not exactly the holy trinity of thought-provoking entertainment.
For some reason, I just had this notion that Twitter was absolutely the lowest common denominator. I just assumed that I would find it pointless.
However, a few months back, after some people that I respect had extolled the virtues of Twitter, I decided to dive in.
I have to say, I’m pretty delighted that I did.
The range of entertainment that I get from my Twitter feed travels across a very wide spectrum.
There are lots of sports writers whose tweets I follow, which is really helpful when I’m constantly trying to stay up on everything being written. When my 10 favorite writers are all tweeting a link to their latest column, I’m able to stay as current as possible.
People also send out links of interesting stories, articles, columns they have read. When you begin to follow a group of people who have similar interests as you do, more often than not, what they like, you like.
I follow a lot of athletes and this new microscope into their minds is pretty fascinating. The personalities of many of our favorite athletes have always been kept somewhat cloudy, due to PR and media staffs.
Now I follow pro athletes who are constantly interacting with their fans. Sure, it’s within 140-character sound bites, but it’s a much more real relationship than what has been operating since players began making enormous amounts of money.
Some aspects of Twitter are pure creativity. Every once in a while a “hashtag” will appear as a trending topic that I’ll then kill some time with for a bit.
Some of my favorites have been #lastlinesofbadromancenovels or #sadchildrensbooks.
Thousands upon thousands of people all working within the same construct and spouting out ideas in rapid-fire succession. It not only cracks me up to read and write, but it also just makes me happy to know that while lots of people are just interested in reading Lady Gaga’s tweets about what she’ll be wearing on Leno, a whole group of people are also using their brains for a few minutes to be creatively active.
But I have to say, one of my absolute favorite things about Twitter is that it is just as flawed as the people using it, which makes it all the more real of an experience.
Very regularly, one of the 10 trending topics will be very similar to something big in the news, only not spelled exactly right.
Case in point, this week after the death of actor Leslie Nielsen (side note — I can’t state strongly enough how much I think my life improved just because of his existence… RIP), there were two different trending topics: “Leslie Nielsen” and “Nielson.”
Now, I know that “Nielsen” wasn’t necessarily a household name and spelling his name correctly isn’t essential to everyday existence. But it’s still pretty funny that enough people were all spelling his name wrong that the typo became one of the most-used words on all of Twitter.
I like to think that Leslie “Nielson” was actually a completely different actor who starred in the lesser-known film series: “The Naked Gin.”
Then on Thursday, when FIFA announced that the 2022 World Cup would be awarded to the Middle East nation of Qatar, within minutes the word “Quatar” sprang up on the right side of the screen as a TT.
Hopefully since Twitter is used worldwide, other nations won’t use that extra “U” people threw in there as another “Americans don’t know their geography” jab.
(Admittedly, I have no idea where Qatar is, other than it has to be somewhere that reaches 130 degrees during the summer. Hopefully it’s a dry heat.)
(I think anything at 130 degrees is a dry heat.)
(OK, inner monologue ends… now.)
So the combination of useful links from people I respect and admire, a portal into the minds of some athletes I find interesting, the constant recycling of topics to creatively spout off about and the unifying camaraderie of millions of people who all spell the same word incorrectly are a few of the main reasons that I can now legitimately be called a “tweep.”
Just don’t call me “Shirley.”
