Twitter C/D

I hate Twitter bc it is addictive and somehow never filling; it (like social media broadly) ruined the output of a lot of great and smart bloggers/writers; it magnifies petty understandings and career anxiety; performative tweeting has become a way of getting work that gives the illusion of depth while offering very little; because few regular folks can understand it which is negatively shaping the writing Twitter power users create; because important conversations are lost or forgotten bc of the ephemeral nature of the medium; etc

Otoh it has undoubtedly been responsible for advanced networking linkedin could only dream of, and obv supporting positive social movements like blacklivesmatter

Performatively tweeting your brand is one of life's gr8 pleasures

I'm not advanced enough for twitter but I enjoy that aspect of (sorry) facebook

Deej what do you mean by few regular folks can understand it

I mean following the path of discussion requires an investment of both time and understanding; really it's a bunch of overlapping communities with their own values and rhetorical approaches, it's not made for a general audience. This is why it's fun / addictive, like ilx on steroids. But it's also like, a lot of important convos happen that only make their way to, like, my mom sitting back home in Illinois via a wack thinkpiece that attempts to translate the conversation via a trolly headline

And the second part of that was that I think a lot of heavy Twitter users who are writers forget that it's their job to communicate with regular ppl who don't spend 12 hours a day on Twitter

It siphons away conversations from our creative output and leaves them as half-realized thoughts that successfully relieves the urge to create and simultaneously produces nothing of value

Feel like those important convos have traditionally taken place in settings even less visible to the average deej's mom than twitter tbh? There are a lot of issues whose prominence seems down to twitter

Can't speak to the latter point I don't read a lot of "pieces" tbh

yah that's true, although I hate Twitter I do not think it's purely a force for evil at all, I think on balance it's actually very ambiguous

apart from gifted aphorists, im tempted to argue that twitter is less a communication platform where "conversations" can happen so much as it is a signaling mechanism for indicating that such conversations are happening somewhere else (and maybe it'll even direct you to them). it's like twitter is less about content or ideas per se than ~awareness~ of ideas/content. in semiotic terms it's very much a "indexical" medium (ie, pointing).

on the other hand making an essentializing claim about any communicational medium is a fool's errand since pushing against their supposed limits and forms is what such mediums do, to a large extent.

maybe it's just my feed though. a good majority of what appears in my timeline includes a link, a picture, etc.

龜 twit renaissance in full bloom

Thanks, d-40, for putting it better than I did. I agree with just about everything you've said.

I hate Twitter bc it is addictive and somehow never filling; it (like social media broadly) ruined the output of a lot of great and smart bloggers/writers; it magnifies petty understandings and career anxiety; performative tweeting has become a way of getting work that gives the illusion of depth while offering very little; because few regular folks can understand it which is negatively shaping the writing Twitter power users create; because important conversations are lost or forgotten bc of the ephemeral nature of the medium; etc

Otoh it has undoubtedly been responsible for advanced networking linkedin could only dream of, and obv supporting positive social movements like blacklivesmatter

― Keith Mozart (D-40), Saturday, May 23, 2015 6:30 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ryan otm

Schlump, of course you can tailor Twitter to be the most engaging, thought-provoking, and interesting timeline you can think of, but that is not my point.

I am criticising how people generally use Twitter and how it facilitates link-baity headlines and content. Twitter is like eating a bag of chips. So, yes, in short, you and most people are right in saying that Twitter is what you make of it, but the constraints and format (medium) facilitate a type of content that has little depth. It's like saying, "Well, if you like chips we've thought of our customers and have come up with a great vegetable option just for you!" The most pragmatic thing would be to stop eating chips because there are far better options, comparatively.

youre wrong and v obvs uniformed

The most pragmatic thing would be to stop eating chips because there are far better options, comparatively.

I don't think there are, frankly. it's an ideal way for people I know and people I like to direct me to content that I enjoy. that's how I use it anyway.

twitter as junk food is the most common entry level ass face criticism of the medium deduced by people who are sure it just must be that way because well its... short? serious usage of the term clickbait (its clickbait not link-bait fwiw) is a clear signal of lack of engagement with the topic too

Thanks, d-40, for putting it better than I did. I agree with just about everything you've said.

― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, May 27, 2015 3:27 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hes saying a totally different thing than you!

which i disagree with too fwiw, deejs description is m/l accurate if overly negative, but having a power user info network is actually extremely tight

the best twitter thing i did recently is follow like a gazillion rare book archivists. so much fun stuff!

wow u r indulging in terrible junk food all this previously unavailable access to experts why wld u do that its bad

lag∞tm

like ∞ if twitter is so insubstantial why do its heaviest users tend to be people with expertise, why has it become so engrained in so many creative interesting fields, why do writers use it so much

when analyzing twitter it might be worth considering that writing short is actually good not bad (hint)

#brevityisthesoulofwit

common-entry level-ass face criticism

r.i.p. hyphens, thanks twitter

:|

when analyzing twitter it might be worth considering that writing short is actually good not bad (hint)

― lag∞n, Wednesday, May 27, 2015 3:39 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe if the info wasn't ultimately ephemeral

but: lol longreads, i do like long writing, sometimes. it's hard to advocate for that now when everyone filler-writes to keep their jobs

which i disagree with too fwiw, deejs description is m/l accurate if overly negative, but having a power user info network is actually extremely tight

― lag∞n, Wednesday, May 27, 2015 3:21 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tight from the POV of another user, but not from ppl who don't have time to invest in understanding its byways, or for those who finds their ideas lifted, or lost in the archive, etc

pfft do i look like n00b babysitter

anyway twitter is just one part of the internet let it do its thing

what you mean i should stop hacking twitter dot com. no way jose.

I have no idea what this "power user info network" is and this seems to be getting into how a very, very small subset of twitter's users (professional/semi-professional writers) use it, which is um perhaps not indicative of how the majority of users use it

yeah but if u think ryan was otm then i don't think you know how the majority of users use it either

ppl use twitter to 'hang out on,' not to be directed other places.

I'm old, I don't know anybody who "hangs out"

my observation is that the majority of twitter usage and content is generated by power users, that it has a much more top heavy distribution than say facebook or instagram, power users dont have to be writers they cld be just ordinary civilians with 5k followers, or heavy hitters in whatever industries (i follow a lot of design and dev ppl)

there are plenty of ppl who check in occasionally have like 65 followers and have made 650 tweets but where most of twitter is actually happening is amongst ppl who are on there all day every day, which explains twitters inability to grow past a certain point despite spending billions of dollars and trying everything

ppl use twitter to 'hang out on,' not to be directed other places.

― Keith Mozart (D-40), Wednesday, May 27, 2015 5:19 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk i use it for both, the majority of my reading prob originates from twitter links

where most of twitter is actually happening is amongst ppl who are on there all day every day, which explains twitters inability to grow past a certain point

huh weird this would not have occurred to me but makes sense

ppl use twitter to 'hang out on,' not to be directed other places.

i definitely agree that ppl are bad

lol

in deej's defense rap critic twitter is terrible

that sounds pretty damning to me

i've had to mute or unfollow most of "rap critic twitter" for being terrible

i so feel like a lot of ppl who disparage twitter argue that the form is bad when they really just don't like its users

here are the things i have found twitter valuable for:
* Complaining to corporations with twitter presences
* Following record labels that don't have RSS feeds
* Following bars in Philadelphia that announce when they're tapping something new
* That's it

corporate complainers are my least favorite class of twitter user tbh

surely they're preferable to rap critics

1 problem with twitter the platform: sometimes it's really hard to follow conversations, even if you follow everyone involved. you click the "see 10 more messages in this conversation" or whatever, and it's like, obviously there were more than 10 in there. not sure why that happens but i know people who start replies with .@ instead of @ can fuck the whole operation up