Twitter Witter
It’s been a bit of a toughie week for me in a number of ways. Firstly my Twitter account got hacked on FOUR occasions. This meant that not only did I send out hundreds of pornographic Direct Messages to all my followers ( and others besides), but that I also had to read hundreds of messages from people I had sent these messages to, telling me my account had been hacked. I have spent a LOT of time this week sending polite thank yous to all those people, apologising and explaining that “Yes, I will change my password.” What a pain in the B. U. M. A plus side was finding this video on YouTube telling me what to do if my Twitter account got hacked:
talk about laid back! I love this guy’s style. In my wanderings, looking for a hacker solution I also came across the good old Hitler ‘Downfall’ meme which this time has a Twitter slant:
Anyhow, that aside I have also been irked by the inane criticisms of those who ‘tweet’; the criticisms are usually about how Twitter people write banal rubbish all the time. This morning we had to endure comedienne Bridget Christie on Broadcasting House moaning on about how tweeting is
‘adolescent and childish and undignified and ridiculous’.
Reading a report if The Sunday Mirror about the policeman who uses Twitter and sneers at him, reading out his tweets in mocking tones. Obviously I don’t want to moan on too much about dear Bridget, and I am sure she was only trying to make us laugh. But basically, Twitter is going to represent the thoughts of a cross section of society, some of whom will get on our nerves, some of whom we will dislike intensely and some of whom we might even admire.
But it is just people talking to each other. Think of it like people talking on buses. Some groups of people on buses will talk to each other – and if you want, you can probably listen in. You can even JOIN in if you feel brave. Or you can listen to your ipod and tune them out. These people will be talking about all kinds of stuff and maybe the topics of their conversations will reflect something about the kind of people they are; or how they know each other; or it might have to do with where they are going. Sometimes the stuff they say will be profound and sometimes not. When we hear people saying stuff that is not interesting to us, or that is only about the weather, well that’s fine. They may just be doing their whole phatic thing and this is part of human behaviour. It’s all about saying hello; are you OK? I acknowledge you and your humanity and your right to be in the world. So. Leave the people on buses alone. And by the same token, let people say what they like on Twitter.
They will sometimes be talking about stuff that interests you and sometimes not. And yes, I know this stuff has all been said before.
But I will probably say it all again soon too. Because that’s what life is like. Bakhtinian Buzz.
Talking on the bus
