I have been told I talk a lot. I have also been told I don't talk much at all. I think that if I do talk a lot, it's less talking and more rambling. It would then be natural to think that something like Twitter would be ideal for the side of me perceived as talkative.
But there is one problem.
Sometimes I don't even care what I have to say.
It took six hours of downtime in DC about a month ago for me to finally create a Twitter account- much to the chagrin of my lovely fiance. I had followed a few people on it throughout football season and when it came to baseball off season rumors, I'd be hard pressed to find a better news source. But the actual joining of Twitter seemed to be a step too far. It seemed as an embrace of the self-indulgent nature of Twitter and I've never considered myself a self-indulgent person. But with the click of a button in a DC coffee shop, I suddenly had to wonder just how indulgent my self was.
It took me only a few moments to realize it wasn't just my self-indulgence I should be worried about.
I will argue for hours the benefits of Twitter as a news source. It was instrumental when MJ died and since then, it has consistently been one step ahead of other major news organizations. I quickly learned that if you want to know everything about sports- pick one sports reporter for each sport and you're covered. Picking more than one starts to get redundant because most of the time, they all copy each other's tweets whenever one of them breaks a story. So you only need one reporter per sport. This also applies to news and news outlets. Follow your political leanings, pick a name and/or news organization and run with it.
Where things get dicey and if anything, completely useless in the Twitter landscape, is when you dabble in entertainment and pop culture. For example- a comedian is awesome when they're being funny. But a comedian complaining about boredom in a hotel room and not being funny is a waste of time. This can also be said for sports reporters. If you're reporting about sports- useful. If you're bitching about lines at the airport- not useful. And even further, it's not entertaining. Maybe we need Twitter, but maybe we need Twitter with more rules.
No one is that clever, that interesting, or that captivating to make Twitter work on every single level. Twitter seems to be at it's best when people stick to their specialties. Steven Colbert is great on Twitter because he sticks with his speciality- comedy. Peter King is mostly great because he mostly sticks with football. Patton Oswalt is a funny dude because he's a lovable loser, but he's not funny when he tweets about the details of his lovable loser life. Making lovable loser observations = funny. Explaining a lovable loser life = not funny. Musicians are good when telling you about tour dates or album news, but they cross the line when they start commenting on world affairs, breakfast foods, or TV shows they like.
That line? It's the Should I Give a Shit Line and it's the line that marks out where Twitter is beneficial to our society and where it's a severe detriment to our society.
It goes back to my initial feeling on Twitter- that sometimes I don't even care what I have to say.
One of the most important things in life is knowing when to call it a day. It's like Seinfeld when George became obsessed with leaving on a high note. That's a life lesson right there- not wearing out you're welcome and going out at the right time. And it's a lesson that the Twitter-verse should take to heart.
Because sometimes we're funny, sometimes we're useful, and sometimes we're beneficial. But most of the time we're not. Twitter for the funny, useful, and beneficial- something we can hang our hat on.
For everything else, maybe that's what Myspace is for.
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