Twitter satire captures the craze

ross hill tweeted to me (and 1266 other followers): “Are you a TWITTER WHORE?”

Well, I certainly don’t want to be a Twitter Whore… so I clicked on it (purely for investigative reasons).

There have been 1,246 comments on the Twitter Whore video made by lisa nova

franke james tweeted thnx back to ross hill

“Excellent and funny video. Great satire of Twitter experience. Thnx for pointing me to it.”

But ultimately the send-up is scary for newbies. It presents the stereotype of what many believe the Twitter experience to be. If this is what Twitter was about, I wouldn’t be tapping into it. (But it is a funny parody.)

Is Twitter really just about the picayune details of other people’s lives? Is it just a voyeuristic thrill — like peeking in someone’s diary?

For me it’s the opportunity to feel the rhythm and texture of other people’s daily existence. We communicate who we are through the revelation of the things we ‘say’ we think about, the things we do, and the stuff we show to others as ‘cool’ and ‘neat’. Twitter helps me tune in to creative, environmental, and leading-edge thinkers. See my earlier post on my Twitter experience “What on earth is everyone twittering about?”

Twitter could be a sociologist’s (and definitely a marketer’s) wet dream… I hope the people who stumble onto Twitter Whore understand that this is a silly satire created to promote its creator. It gives a distorted, inane view of what Twitter is about.

Maybe Twitter Corporation’s brand police should ban the Twitter Whore?

Now about this Friendfeed thingy that lamarguerite pulled me into… Friendfeed is following me everywhere! I’m getting the power of social media. But I changed my picture to throw them off the track. franke james

What on earth is everyone twittering about?

About a month ago, I received an email from a friend inviting me to join Twitter. I’d heard about Twitter for over a year but had not given it any thought. It seemed like mindless entertainment for people who didn’t have anything better to do. Why would the world want to know the mundane facts of people’s lives? Why would you bother to tell others what you are doing — why not just enjoy the moment and be ‘present’? I didn’t get it… But when the invite came in, I decided to sign up… I was curious…

twitter id is a talented writer on the environment… What was she twittering about?

Maybe I was missing something? It was at the very least a nice show of friendship.

Well, LaMarguerite was twittering about all sorts of things, in 140 characters or less.

Mundane stuff: Making sandwiches for her kids and their friends.
Environmental ideas: Getting hooked on KrisCan’s green sex and humor.
Twitter etiquette: “I don’t like when people only use twitter to pump up their biz; I like when I learn random stuff from people just sharing, naturally.
And global:
Wondering how many of you my twitter friends, believe in world peace? if you do, copy this tweet in your next tweet.” A few days later another tweet: Thanking all of you my twitter friends who participated in the peace meme. The experiment was a success, and will be used for a Stanford class.”

Could I be a Twitter user?

I’ve always kept a journal and I am a blogger. twitter id

My tweets are a mishmash of ideas, but somehow I’m managing to keep them all short. Is less more or more less?

Environmental: “Just read Michael Pollan’s Why Bother’ in NY Times — thinking about growing veggies in our backyard… read Eccentric Glamour today – fun.”
Mundane: Weeding the garden — must root out the bad guys before they spread and choke out everything. But they keep popping up. Perseverance needed.”
Artistic: “Heard Malcolm Gladwell speak May 13. See my new visual essay: The Real Poop on Social Change.
Fun Brain Exercises: I challenge myself to invent a new word (most days).
Social and political: “Watching Marguerite get personal with Obama on YouTube. Congrats!!”
More environmental news: “Death of GM truck factory in Oshawa as gas prices destroy behemoth vehicles. Hummer thankfully endangered species. Glad we sold our SUV in 07.”

Friends I knew started popping up on Twitter and connecting with me.

twitter id added his thoughts on the GM fiasco:
“GM pulls head out of sand ten years too late, kills off Hummers (maybe), realize small cars are where it’s at, finally.” Of course Martin is up on environmental issues and social marketing so I shouldn’t have been too surprised he tracked me down.

Very quickly I started exploring other people’s Twitter pages. It’s like following the crumbs in Hansel and Gretel… perhaps that is not a good analogy as then we’d be worrying about witches and gingerbread houses and the like… But whatever — this Twitter maze is like a never-ending story.

twitter id and twitter id and twitter id are somehow all connected because I see their icons on each other’s pages. You never know who you’re going to bump into on Twitter. I guess that’s part of the fun of it. But if you dig deep enough, you’ll figure out who people are.

“Hi, I’m Co-founder and Creative Director of Twitter and also helped make Xanga, Blogger, Odeo, and Obvious. I’ve published two books about social media and have a more professional profile on LinkedIn.”

Some Twitterers have very cool icons with wonderfully designed pages. (Note to self to spruce my icon up. Surely I can do better?)

I particularly liked this one from a guy twitter id who spells his name backwards.

So some people have started following me — and I wondered, “How did they find me? Am I dropping breadcrumbs? Where is the trail?” I noticed that a super-prolific Twitterer, was following me. And that he also posted on LaMarguerite’s peace meme. I wondered, “Is he a friend of hers?” I sent twitter id a direct message asking him, and commented that I could not possibly keep up with all the twittering he was doing… Only to be a wee bit embarrassed when I dug further. Max is not an individual but a social media and green living company. Interesting…

Some people just have a knack for tweeting.

twitter id writes tweets that are funny, personally revealing and intriguing. Of course that is in keeping with her identity as the Boston Globe columnist and author of the Brazen Careerist. She also has many opinions on why you may want to keep your Twitter identity separate from your Facebook and other social media selves.

What I find so neat about Twitter is how you can connect with some very interesting people, very easily and quickly.

I happened upon the President of Pop Labs, twitter id who tweets…

“Playing Scrabble with my kids (age 17, 14, 9) . Is it wrong to punch one of them to get their mind off the letters ;)” He also comments that he wants to whip his sales guys into shape ’cause there’s a $35k deal on the line. He’s a pretty good writer. I discovered his motivational pep talk: How to Think and Act Like A Loser.

So can we ever know what on earth everyone is twittering about?

Yesterday I uncovered an app that answered that question. I tweeted happily: “Fascinating view of twitters around the world real time.”

twitter id

Well, I’ve only scratched the surface of Twitter, but I like the serendipity and fun of it… It may just be a social media tool that helps change the world by connecting us in ways we never could have imagined.

See you on Twitter.

Franke James


If you’re new to Twitter, here’s an informative primer by Koka Sexton:
Everything you ever need to know about Twitter

Twhirl is a nifty tool to compress urls. (Twitter is very strict about the 140 characters.)