Microblogging and Twitter Shitters
I love Penny Arcade's take on Twitter, especially Tycho's to-the-point commentary:
It's not that I don't get it. I do.
. . .
The last "tweet" I ever did really explains it all, for me. I was up in Vancouver, and I put up a message saying so, and what kinds of activities I was engaged in. After I did it, I heard a voice - my own voice - saying, "Who the fuck do you think you are? Who are you that you can force your Goddamned minutia on other people, your stupid bullshit, your stone-ground artisanal condiments? How dare you. You should be ashamed." And I was.
I've noted that my gaming friends have reacted significantly different to the microblogging phenomena than my blogging-geek friends. Amongst the gamers, there's a collective shrug. My gf summed up the perspective:
I don't need to be informed that you're at the bus stop, now you're on the bus, now you're at your stop.
Amongst the bloggers, it's this whole 'important' social tool concept. Doesn't that make you roll your eyes? I used to love this stuff, I don't know what's happening to me, but I'm finding myself opting out of these kind of social circles. Like Tycho, it's not that I don't see the usefulness, it's that I don't see it applied to me.
Some of my friends are shocked I don't Twitter, Facebook or use a host of other popular-at-the-moment super-connected social toys. After all, I was trying to find ways to hook my toaster up to the 'net since the early 90's (and every other thing remotely resembling an appliance since I'd heard about CMU's coke machine). I had to get bored of the obsession sooner or later I suppose. =P
