Who Else Would Be Following You On Twitter?

Strange thing about technology. Before you know it, everyone is doing it and you're woefully behind the ball. A few years ago, it might have even been last year -- I can't remember a damn thing -- the supposed burning question that I was sopposed to be asking myself when I woke up every morning was for what good reason I was not on YouTube? Now, I'm, if what everybody else is telling me is correct, supposed to be asking myself why don't I tweet? That is, why am I not on Twitter? I could have sworn that as late as three weeks ago, neither I or anyone else that I knew knew what a "Twitter" was. But now it's like Twitter is everywhere. I had, until I got technologically caught up, operated under the impression that one twittered when one giggled and trembled uncontrollably. But, my life it seems is incomplete if I am not giving the world updates about myself and exactly what I am doing and thinking in 140 characters of less. Well, I don't ... tweet. For awhile, or at least that's what they will let you believe, I thought that I was the only person who doesn't... tweet. Stephen King doesn't tweet. Neither does Kid Rock. Trent Reznor did but quit. By the way, Kid Rock said this about tweeting, " I don't have anything to say, and what I have to say isn't relevant". I thought that was pretty thoughtful. But then, he backed up his comment with "Twitter this dick, motherfucker". You decide. Like with YouTube, Facebook, and that internet dark alley, MySpace, there are stories aplenty about people ruining or semi-screwing up their lives with things that they posted online. It seems like these social gathering places have become modern-day slambooks (if that reference doesn't date me, I don't know what will). It seems like every one of these 'I got fired because my boss saw my Cancun pictures on my MySpace' became instantly overnight like Harriet in Harriet the Spy, when she lost her book of trash talk and everyone she knew got to see what and how she really thought about them. But it isn't just the people that you know who get to see you slutting it up in Mexico -- the whole world gets to see you. Twitter, launched in 2006 (why am I only hearing about this now?) co-created by Evan Williams, who is responsible for blogger.com, according to Nielsen, has 13 million users (well, I guess minus one). That's a number that's somewhere between alot and not alot. If you look at the fact that there are roughly 6 billion people on this island earth, 13 million is barely the number of people who simultaneously farted just now. But, if you think about things from the point of view of trends, 13 million is a pretty sizable number. You only have to sell a million records to go platnium. It's not that I'm down on the social networks. I slum the internet from time to time and I blog. But I'm not on Facebook, nor do I have a MySpace account. At my age, having either seems a little ... odd. Although I am well aware that the fastest growing segment of new Facebook users are women over 50. When I tell people that I don't do Facebook or MySpace, they find this fact rather incredulous. I am told that there is a world of friends and followers that I am not updating or communicating with, and that this fact is supposed to make me feel bad. It doesn't. Strange, with all the hubub about Ashton Kutcher, who, according to Entertainment Weekly's Mark Harris, is "someone who is, if nothing else, expert at staying famous" making it his life's mission to get more Twitter followers than CNN, it seems that the ordeal about Twitter is only about how popular you are or can become. And for folks like me, who won't even use their real name on their blogs, that strikes us as a little arrogant and a tad creepy. There's something more than unimpressive about Ashton Kutcher accumulating a million "followers". What we should be asking it how many people have to participate in something so incredibly inane before we can call it a bonafide mental illness? The bonus, they say, about Twitter is that my "tweets", unlike other forms of communication, like actually talking to people, takes place right now. Like the bank employee who tweeted when the bank where she worked was robbed, or when that plane crashed into the Hudson, they say that the news hit Twitter before it made the TV news. Plus, they say, on Twitter you get what really matters: sage advice from Dr. Drew, music listening tips from John Mayer, health tips from Ellen DeGeneres, celebrities musing about... whatever, or declaring that they're ditching Twitter because there are too many crappy-looking, fat chicks (who fantasize about banging rock stars) following them. We know tweets are full of self-importance (see previous comment), but the bigger question we naturally are inclined to ask is is there really important being said on Twitter? Afterall, how much can a person say in 140 characters (assuming, of course, that the point is to say anything important at all)? Maybe Kid Rock's observation about himself isn't limited to himself, but also spot-on about every other Tweeter out there. All of this, of course, begs for someone to examine it with the philosophic eye. (even if it doesn't, philosophers are in the business of relating anything, whether it is "philosophic" or not, to some philosophic theory). It doesn't take too much deep thinking to come up with a few philosophy-like questions. Since Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc, are collectively known as "social networks" our philosophic sense leads us to ask about the "social" gathering places that these sites claim that they are. We all know, whether we like it or not, that humans are social animals. We want to find and look for people who are like ourselves. This is how these networks are marketed -- you may not know anyone who is like you where you live, but rest assured that there is some dude in Sweden who likes fresh blueberry pancakes, hard-core Japanese Animation porn, Chuck Norris flicks and Grizzlybear just like you do. Anyone can find their brethren in cyberspace. No longer are we the lonely beegirls looking for our hive like that adorable bee kid in that Blind Melon video. All I have to do is post a profile, and people will want to be my friend. That sounds good. But is it? Is it really better for us? There's a saying that you can spend so much time looking elsewhere for what you want that you miss it right where you are. There's a fear that we might be sacrificing potential local relationships with people relatively near to us for "relationships" with people who aren't anywhere near us (or who might never be -- and that's not always a bad thing). We might be giving up actual connectivity for what seems like real relationships, which in turn, leaves us actually disconnected from other people (it seems that plenty of people have experienced this one: you're having an actual physical conversation with someone. they tell you to send them an email. but, you're right in front of them! it's not that they're pressed for time, it's just that they're so used to not speaking to people face to face that they can't actually speak to people when they're in the same room with them). The question is, who are we connecting to? The idea of the internet and sites like Twitter is that there we are free to be who we really are. The lure, for some, is authenticity. We're not bound by social conventions or even by distance -- I can discuss how cool Forced Vengeance is with a pal in Sweden as readily as he can discuss the merits of the new S&M comics stuff put out by the dude that co-created Superman with his buddy in Clairmont. We may never admit to our predilections among our philosopher friends, but on the internet, we are free to discuss whatever we choose -- to be who we are. But are we? Of course, this issue relates back to the question "who am I?" And, asking "who am I?" relates to our own questions about the meaning of life and existence. There is a tremendous amout of pressure to be online. Local news stations tell us to follow up their news broadcasts by looking up the stories online. We are told that we can get the best deals on restaurants, cars, stereos, plane tickets or whatever we might want by looking up bargains on the internet. We're told that the printed book is dead and that what we need is kindle. It goes on and on. For those who aren't hooked up to the world wide web, we might begin to think that we're being left behind. By not joining the bandwagon, we become relics, as useless and outdated as a dog-eared copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (do you know how many people haven't read this book?!? It's amazing!). It's almost like, if I'm not online somehow, I don't count. I might find myself thinking that I'm like a tree in the forest. If I'm not on MySpace, do I exist? If I'm not telling the world exactly how I feel at every minute of the day, what other purpose is there to serve? I might think that being online -- Tweeting, being on MySpace or Facebook, somehow varifies who I am, not just that I "exist". But the problem is, is that I may be so caught up in the zeitgeist that I forget that posting my whatnot online isn't just a matter of what I reveal online but about what I reveal online reveals about me. I think this is why people often post things that they shouldn't. They gey so swept up in the idea that they lose who they are. We become profiles. We become 140 characters. That enevitably leads to a kind of detachment and (to use a term) alienation from others and I think also from ourselves. I heard somewhere that 60% of Twitter's users drop out after a month. Maybe they find that relating to people who aren't really there isn't really relating to people. The problem isn't so much a matter of corpulent followers, as it is a matter that the experience isn't very satisfying for alot of people. It doesn't replace actual human to human interaction. It leaves us wanting. Maybe Kid Rock had it right. He said that Twitter is gay. His words, not mine, folks.