Thursday, October 15, 2009

Twitter is stupid

If you're an avid Twitter user or lover, you might want to tune out right now and tweet about @bmills serving up a heaping serving of Twitter hate in 3....2....1...



Twitter sucks. I should really just end this "tweet" here, but I'll go on, pretending I get paid by the word or that you actually have an attention span long enough to read my writings. I'd debated doing this post in 140-character segments but then realized I'd be adhering to the Twitter rules of the road, so F Twitter for screwing up my plan at making fun of them...


Well stated, little freak bird thingy...

All Twitter does is tell you what someone is doing and vice versa. That's it. That's it? So basically, we're all just voyeurs; peeping Toms, groupies who are on a need to know basis about the mundane details of someone else's life, not in a Facebook sort of way, but in a 140-character or less way. It's like non-stop text messages; ADD with a cutesy blue bird and proprietary jargon like "tweets" to make people feel special. In what way is this a good thing? How does this help you learn who a person is, besides by reading every single tweet, the majority of which are pretty useless anyway? I love y'all...but there is no need for you to know every single thing about me and my exciting daily life. I'll gladly share it with you if you ask, but there's no way I feel so special that it would be a privilege for you to share in everything I do.

So, I gotta ask: what's so boring about your life that you need to know every single detail of someone else's day? I guarantee your life is far more exciting than you think it is. Why do you need to "follow" someone and see they just got to Starbucks.
And that Starbucks is out of Chai Lattes. 12:53pm
And that Peet's over at Bella Terra would have been a better choice. 12:57pm
And now they don't even want coffee :( 12:58pm
And that this picture from @AshtonKutcher was re-tweeted. 2:22pm
And ZOMG there's a squirrel on that guy's car! Kewl! 3:12pm

Now, I'll admit that I'm guilty of updating my Facebook status from my phone; a sin I rarely commit and never more than once a day. But, let's be honest: that's not the essence of Twitter. Twitter is what happens if ADD, Minesweeper and Perez Hilton were combined into the ultimate time-wasting service.

"But it's great to know what people do throughout their day through the exchange of tweets!" Then pick up the damn phone or Skype each other; at least you can hear the angst or excitement on the other end, as they've yet to develop a font that can express emotion quite like the human voice (Helvetica and Comic Sans come close). Isn't that how we did it back in the olden days, like the early 2000's? Hell, go look at Facebook or Myspace every couple of days; you're bound to get all caught up in about 1 minute.


Does not tweet...

"But Facebook status updates are no different..." You may have a point, but the similarities between the 2 services end right there. Think of Facebook as a Swiss Army Knife, capable of doing all sorts of different tasks; everything you'd need. Think of Twitter as a can opener, capable of...well, opening cans. While Facebook may be a time-waster, at least it's a sort of one-stop shop where you can satisfy all your desires for information about anyone who's willing to accept your friend request, from photos to stupid quizzes about which Star Wars character you were in a previous life. Twitter is still just telling everyone what you're doing...and that's it.

Here's what I really don't get: the valuation of Twitter. Google has reportedly been in talks to acquire Twitter for $250,000,000. 250 million...to know that Ashton Kutcher is at In-n-Out or that your neighbor is watching Idol with the TV on too loud. This is absurd. Now, I do believe there is a need for instant publishing of news and such and that situation in Iran a while back is a great example. Fine.

SCORE UPDATE: Twitter 1 | Complete F'n Waste of Time 85,827,335

Oh, and the shameless self-promotion. OK, if you're a band, a comic or some sort of performer and you want to let your fans know where you're gonna be and what times and that sort of thing...I guess there's a use for it. But guess what shameless self-promoters? You're better than 140-characters and you know it. Besides that, people are going to be at their computers and can access Ticketbastard, Facebook, MySpace or anything else where they can buy your stuff, find out tour dates and all that jazz without a stupid little blue bird tweeting the way. Oh and don't kid yourself: you really want people to go to your website anyway and are just jumping on the Twitter bandwagon cuz it's cool...or kewl, as the Internet-kids would say.

Now, Twitter is getting into the wine-making business? Granted, it's for charity--and that's great cuz I'm sure the Twitterati will flock to buy the stuff which will benefit the charity big time--but this is just silly. Maybe you should find a way to earn revenue and stop sucking on the teat of venture capital? Nah, that'd be too easy...besides, once they roll out their way of generating revenue (most likely ads) it's not like people are gonna drop Twitter like the bad habit it is, right? (my sarcasm font style didn't seem to be working during that last sentence...) What's next for Twitter: Twitter Scooters or maybe TwitterMart where you can buy everything that the instant-publisher needs? You laugh, but you know there's a chance...


Oaky with some notes of desperation, stone fruit and a lingering lameness on the palette...

So if you like Twitter, good for you; there are millions of others out there that you can tweet with. Personally, I have to draw the time-wasting line somewhere and I see Twitter as being WAY on the other side of necessary. Nobody is so exciting that you need to keep up with every minute detail, every second of every day of their life. And if you feel so inclined to share that much with people, do so in a much more productive outlet such as writing, posting photos, creating something where you're not forced to define your life by 140 characters at a time because that's just stupid.

OK, that felt good. Go re-tweet this.

BTW, this guy has a great rant about Twitter, too...

3 comments:

Lauren said...

Hilarious! I added twitter on my phone for about a second, before I realized how annoying Demi and Ashton were (and I love me some Ashton. Dont judge.) Your blog gave me my first morning giggle, thank you

Drewser said...

Hey Bryan, I had run across your blog a while back through the BMW forum and subscribed to it back then -- great to see you posting again.

I will follow any Twitter updates you make as soon as I open up an account...which will be never, so I hope you keep the blog active instead. The tweeting thing I just don't "get".

bmills said...

Thanks for following me, Drewster! Wait...following is a Twitter thing...so I'll just thank you for stopping by here and will keep on keeping on :)