Originally posted some time in 2009. Don’t Facebook as much, or Twitter. Too dang busy (shoemaker’s children, if you know what I mean.) – dp
I have a confession to make. I signed up for a Twitter account close to a year ago. Had to. Working in advertising/marketing, especially on the creative side, demands keeping up with all the latest, even if it’s dumb, halfbaked, or just plain stupid (think: Jonas Brothers).
So I signed up and posted the following the day I joined:
“trying to figure out how twitter can possibly work for me (let’s just say I’m dubious).
And then I went radio silent for the next eight months. Because I just didn’t get it. Same thing for Facebook/My Space. I’m sure if I was 21 again and on the constant prowl for the urban legendary “booty call,” I’d be all over the social networking thing. But unfortunately, I’ve got a life. A damn busy one. And I just didn’t have the interest in adding another obsession to my acoustic guitar/XBox/Biggest Loser/chocolate Lab/new Apple tech/Mad Men/iPhone apps/tube amps/reading the Little House books (all of them) with Claire/cheap vintage guitars/TiVO/Lost/adoring Elizabeth and every thing she says or does/Daring Fireball/Fender Stratocasters/Eschaton/AmericaBlog/Talking Points Memo/Fender Telecasters/reading Harry Potter (all of them) with Anna/Boing Boing/TUAW/POPURLS/reading Katie Kazoo (all of them) with Julia/4 emails accounts/EBAY…you get the picture.
I’m pretty overloaded already. So who needs another comm channel opened. Apparently me, all because of Facebook status updates.
I started out simple enough: actually start using the Facebook account you set up a year ago. Post a status update (that hopefully shows how hilariously self-aware you are). Then wait.
What do you know. There are people I know on Facebook. People I have thought, seen or talked about since the day before graduation (high school/college, doesn’t matter). And the weirdest part? I was mildly interested in the fact that they were getting coffee after a Bikram yoga session. I didn’t know they were still alive, much less doing Bikram yoga. That’s kind of cool, in an incredibly trivial way.
One status update begat another. And another. And another. But all that other stuff on the Facebook page? Too distracting. That’s when a little bird entered and quickly took over my life (or as much of it as I’ll let it).
Twitter is nothing but the status update in their Aristotelian form. Pure communication. To the point. With no extraneous B.S. (depending on the writer’s talent and editing ability).
And Daddy likey that. No pictures of your kids (cute as they are). No vacation shots to rub in the fact that you got to go to Florida in February while I’m near frostbitic in Madison. No need to load an overloaded page. Just pure, bumpstickers about your life. Bumperstickers that are incredibly easy to ignore.
So now as I type this, my eye subconciously scans right to my Twitteriffic client, my ears await that cute little chirp, my “Gawd I’m bored of what I’m doing right now” need for distraction is anxiously anticipating the next little bird seed of data to be delivered via my favorite avian interloper. And it’s all because of Facebook status updates. So please, don’t pick up the pipe, unless you’re prepared to do hard time.
Crack has nothing on CHIRRRRP.
-dp
