Thursday, April 16, 2009

This May Be My Andy Rooney Moment

So picture me with white hair and a cranky look on my face while you read this:

What's the deal with Twitter? Or let me rephrase: Will someone please, for the love of god, explain to me what there is to like about this website, because I am truly, madly, deeply uninspired. Every day this is all I hear about, it's on the news, it's all over facebook, but try as I might, I don't get it. And I've been on there for months.

Granted, myspace and facebook each took me a while to warm to. But not this long.

I have experimented with following only close friends. I have experimented with following news organizations and celebrities. I, who am a known fan of exclamation points, find PTwitty's use exclamation points alarming. I, who has an unhealthy interest in celebrities, am unmoved by the opportunity to know Ashton Kutcher or Spencer Pratt's every thought.

What am I missing?

A lot of times I don't understand the shorthand. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there's no rhyme or reason to the shorthand, like, everyone seems to have their own and you either get it or you don't. I have to say this too, and this may be just me, but it feels a wee bit like the cool kids party I'm not invited to. I'll give you that John Mayer has sort of a charming sense of humor, but what kind of relationship do we have where he gets to do all the talking? John Mayer and Demi Moore aren't going to answer my tweets. With all due respect, I can't even get Punky Brewster to answer my tweets, and she seems like a very sweet person.

If Lydia Davis and Deb Olin Unferth jump on board, maybe I'll be back. I think those gals make something out of that Twitter thing you kids are playing with these days. Meantime I'll grab my cane and stick with facebook until the next party comes along.

9 comments:

tammy said...

Ah, but when you find someone who shares your same sense of humor in 140 characters or less, it can be a beautiful thing indeed.

I read your third book today sick in bed and it made my shit day a lot brighter. I will be purchasing your other two forthwith (or once the stomach pains subside).

Elizabeth Crane said...

Glad you enjoyed, Tammy!

Mark R. Brand said...

I agree. I love Facebook in an unholy way, but Twitter is like the newspaper of LameTown.

Shanth said...

I agree, but I do think it's great to have a couple of friends on twitter who trawl through the junk and forward interesting news and blog posts.

And if you think this adaptation of Hamlet to facebook is funny, I hear there's a theater company that plans to adapt and stage famous plays on twitter.

Chris said...

Haha, I don't see how people can have 500+ followers on Twitter. Everyone seems like they're all speaking in the same language. I've given up on all social networking sites, including myspace, facebook, and twitter. Now I only use last.fm to show others how broad (or how small) my music taste is. The only nice thing that has come out of Twitter is Michael Cera because he actually replied to one of my Twitter's a long time ago when Juno first came out and was really nice, I was actually very surprised.

Love your books bytheway. :]

Elizabeth Crane said...

Mark - ha! Shanth - wow. Chris - very cool about Cera, and thanks for the kind words!

Gene Booth said...

Did you see the Twitters Phil Spector was doing after he was sent to jail - they were hiLArious (later turned out to be fake, but)

Elizabeth Crane said...

No, I can only imagine!

Dentists West Palm Beach said...

I also do not get why people are so nuts over twitter. I've seen a couple of pages and it seemed extremely boring.