“Tweedle-lee-dee-dee-dee”

I've been digging lately and found this. Rebuttles?


I consider myself behind on the times. My father, a 52-year-old construction supervisor, spends countless hours a week “Tweeting” on his i-Phone while his three kids (all within the scope of Twitter’s audience age-range) can’t even fathom such a silly thing. I possess only the seasoned, less-than-trendy Myspace while my two brothers frequent that and Facebook. The first time I even heard about Twitter was when I received a mass-delivery e-mail saying that “Chevelle is now on Twitter!” Knowing me and my indifferent ways, I blatantly ignored it. It only pops up a few times until Sprint pulled the final straw. You know that Sprint commercial with fact after fact of cell phone information you would otherwise not care about? Well, the television ad happens to mention Twitter and that only 26% of the people viewing that commercial at that exact moment know what it actually is. At this point, though Sprint is still running the 60 seconds of statistics, that percentage must be widely inaccurate because with every run of it, more and more people search it on the Internet. It seems like every year a new website comes out and the next year it gets abandoned. Myspace was in and then attention crossed over to Facebook, a website seemingly the same. How can someone net so much money off of something that already exists? Because where the comments go is called “____’s Wall” instead of being nameless makes the website worthy of grossing thousands of more dollars. Now I see why money is in the internet. It’s always changing. There are so many websites out there that we don’t even know what to do with them (Stickam anyone?). But the question that I have had since the beginning of the Twitter craze has been: What’s the point?

So, to figure this out I caught up with the gang and got a Twitter of my own. After countless tries at getting a screen name (apparently almost every variation of my birth name is taken) I have to settle with something obscure to the point of humiliation (something to do with Finland). Almost automatically I’m matched up with the likes of Dave Matthews, Jimmy Eat World, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and… Stewart Cink? With a semi-star outfit I get the feeling of uniqueness and that I will rock the Twitter world! I post about sitting in my chair and beg to get a reaction. I guess that going for the personality of a needy, attention hungry girl will give me plenty of responses. I wait and I wait and I wait some more and I wait even longer, but after waiting for hours, I have no one following me where as I am following twenty other people. Instead of becoming an online celebrity like Perez Hilton or Amor Hilton, I become the Twitter stalker of Britney Spears and California’s governor. Not to mention the fact that I was lost amongst the expanse of Twitter. When I went to the search profiles page and was asked “Who would you like to look for?” I just typed in “anyone”. What am I supposed to look for? Mariah Carey’s page so I can read about her latest car accident or Angelina Jolie’s for her inflating lips or brand new baby? In response, I got a list of pages, all names involving “anyone”. The first result had over 500 followers, but was in Chinese. The next was a pointless page about the i-Phone and the next was about golfing. I’ve never felt so pathetic in my life.

Twitter, in essence, is online texting. It’s just a giant collection of naughty messages that should be confined to phones, but instead, because of our internet desensitization, are sprawled across other people’s personal profiles. Going on the internet only to give a one sentence sum up of what you’re doing at that moment (most likely sitting at the computer with the television blaring, popcorn hanging out of your mouth) seems kind of pointless. A problem I could just call my friend about or even just text doesn’t need to be dissected on the computer screen of Dominic from Iceland or Peter from Estonia. As bad as we are with the estranged texting and non-verbal communication, it’s at least better than ripping your heart out and handing it to the stranger next to you on the train. Some things need to be left personal.

So still, I wonder, what is the point of “online texting” via Twitter? Is it to pry into the lives of numerous strangers? Is it to fill the void left in leisure time? Or is it because we get so bored so quickly with what we have that we compulsively search and scavenge for something with more novelty? Unless the barrage of Twitter e-mails never stops, I know I won’t have to worry about Twitter for too much longer. I’ll only be back on Myspace in three months.