Thoughts on Twitter
Jan. 16th, 2009 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianSo yeah, I actually have a Twitter feed. Mostly it's used to talk to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
courtcat79, the_blonde_one and jedishadowolf (whose LJ I must start following), and pass along messages to dodgyhoodoo when I haven't topped up the call credit on my cellphone for whatever reason. I do, however, follow various celeb types and so on. Recently I added Wil Wheaton, LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner (who has started tweeting at the urging of LeVar Burton), but mostly it's been web comic artists - Danielle Corsetto, J Jacques, etc.
The question I keep asking myself is, "Why?"
I suppose I figure it this way - people spend absurd amounts of money keeping the masses up to date with their favourite celebs, given advertising revenues, magazine subscription fees and so on. I'm not really all that into the celeb gossip mags, and I despise the way the rise and fall of various Big Names takes up front page news all the time. I mean, hello - it's not like there isn't news enough. It's not like we need to know what celebrity is on the road to self-destruction, is it? Not the way we need to know what's going on in Gaza, just for example. Tabloid tat and its relentless consumption reduces current events interest to muckraking, and encourages the worst sort of paparazzi crap. Also, the desperate need to watch the great and the good spiral into miserable declines is schadenfreude at its worst - it reduces real people to little more than entertainment, and lets people forget that they are people, these celebs.
So what's the appeal of Twitter? Reality, and a lack of intrusiveness.
People decide what they want to tweet, knowing that unless they block half the planet individually, there's little way of ensuring privacy. I mean, it's online, for pity's sake. Therefore, it's not details of their private lives unless they want it to be. Mur Lafferty, for example, is very cautious about names, places and so forth because she likes her privacy and values it. Warren Ellis is just plain nuts, but we all knew that anyway. This isn't paying some corporate entity to dig up dirt on celebs - it's people who happen to be famous, sending Twitter messages to the world at large. It lets me know what they're up to and who they are, sort of, but only to the point they want me to know. That's kind of cool, really. And I'm not paying for it, so I'm not encouraging muckrakers. I don't have to. I get the news straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Plus if they really wanted to, they could follow me, so there's the possibility of quid pro quo. (I don't fool myself that any of them would actually do this, unless by some stroke of luck I actually get well-known and they become fans of me, which would be a little scary.)
In short, following the Twitter of the celebrities whose work I value and who I think might be interesting as people is a good middle ground for a fan. Less expense, less intrusion, and basically being reminded that these people are people, not just ciphers on a screen.
And as to half the cast of ST:TNG being on my Tweetlist? Shut up the lot of you - I grew up on TNG. I don't like it much anymore, as it got a bit repetitive (as it was going to be, considering the set-up), but I will certainly give the cast their props where appropriate. And Brent Spiner's awesome. So there.
courtcat79, the_blonde_one and jedishadowolf (whose LJ I must start following), and pass along messages to dodgyhoodoo when I haven't topped up the call credit on my cellphone for whatever reason. I do, however, follow various celeb types and so on. Recently I added Wil Wheaton, LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner (who has started tweeting at the urging of LeVar Burton), but mostly it's been web comic artists - Danielle Corsetto, J Jacques, etc.The question I keep asking myself is, "Why?"
I suppose I figure it this way - people spend absurd amounts of money keeping the masses up to date with their favourite celebs, given advertising revenues, magazine subscription fees and so on. I'm not really all that into the celeb gossip mags, and I despise the way the rise and fall of various Big Names takes up front page news all the time. I mean, hello - it's not like there isn't news enough. It's not like we need to know what celebrity is on the road to self-destruction, is it? Not the way we need to know what's going on in Gaza, just for example. Tabloid tat and its relentless consumption reduces current events interest to muckraking, and encourages the worst sort of paparazzi crap. Also, the desperate need to watch the great and the good spiral into miserable declines is schadenfreude at its worst - it reduces real people to little more than entertainment, and lets people forget that they are people, these celebs.
So what's the appeal of Twitter? Reality, and a lack of intrusiveness.
People decide what they want to tweet, knowing that unless they block half the planet individually, there's little way of ensuring privacy. I mean, it's online, for pity's sake. Therefore, it's not details of their private lives unless they want it to be. Mur Lafferty, for example, is very cautious about names, places and so forth because she likes her privacy and values it. Warren Ellis is just plain nuts, but we all knew that anyway. This isn't paying some corporate entity to dig up dirt on celebs - it's people who happen to be famous, sending Twitter messages to the world at large. It lets me know what they're up to and who they are, sort of, but only to the point they want me to know. That's kind of cool, really. And I'm not paying for it, so I'm not encouraging muckrakers. I don't have to. I get the news straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Plus if they really wanted to, they could follow me, so there's the possibility of quid pro quo. (I don't fool myself that any of them would actually do this, unless by some stroke of luck I actually get well-known and they become fans of me, which would be a little scary.)
In short, following the Twitter of the celebrities whose work I value and who I think might be interesting as people is a good middle ground for a fan. Less expense, less intrusion, and basically being reminded that these people are people, not just ciphers on a screen.
And as to half the cast of ST:TNG being on my Tweetlist? Shut up the lot of you - I grew up on TNG. I don't like it much anymore, as it got a bit repetitive (as it was going to be, considering the set-up), but I will certainly give the cast their props where appropriate. And Brent Spiner's awesome. So there.