There is a growing anger out there, and less scrupulous folks are attempting to use that anger for their own personal benefit, but then I read things like this and want to cheer on the pitchfork brigades with their survivalist talk and tea parties:
When you talk about Twitter, you might as well be talking about the Snuggie: People around you swear that it’s actually useful, but you can’t help thinking it silly and declaring, “I just don’t get what all the buzz is about.”
But in Washington, the social networking and microblogging service is quickly becoming part of the daily media diet — and a powerful tool in the hands of those who are adept at making their points in 140 characters or fewer.
Here are the new maestros of the tweet — Washington’s 10 Most Influential Twitterers.
No doubt were Nero alive today, he would be very concerned about his status as an influential twitterer.
*** Update ***
For fun, review all the kind words you folks had for David Gregory on the day of Russert’s death.
Dave
Well, they sure got the first four letters right.
What exactly is "influential" about being able to express half-baked ideas using lame abbreviations and mis-spellings? As far as I can tell, the only guy using it right so far is Obama.
BDeevDad
The use in Twitter will be as quick access for customer service. Otherwise, it is a half decent tool to update facebook statuses.
Xanthippas
Politico and Twitter: a match made in heaven. A shorter and more vacuous form of journalism meets a shorter and more vacuous form of blogging.
Count me as a member of that group.
oh really
I believe the correct name for inside the beltway users of Twitter is "twit." A twitterer is just a twit who stutters.
Tonal Crow
Ooo, I like the new front page. It’s neater and requires less scrolling.
Tonal Crow
Hey, what happened to the new front page? It was there for a moment, then disappeared the next time I refreshed my browser.
RAM
And Churchill. I bet Churchill would have been an ace at it. Whatever Twitter is…
former capitalist
Karl Rove is the #1 Twitterer? Well, that’s really important news. He’s #1 at a lot of things that are a little more notable, like lying, committing perjury, and being a douchebag. Among others.
Politico and Twitter. Big effing deal.
R-Jud
I am 29. This Twitter thing makes me feel about 92, because my reaction to it is so overwhelmingly negative. I do not get the appeal of posting one’s inner monologue for public consumption.
But then, I’m not a Beltway journalist.
bootlegger
I can’t wait to assign my students their first twitter assignment. It should be really easy to grade.
bootlegger
@R-Jud: But do you get the appeal of sending soft porn of yourself over your phone? Me either. So we’ll just have to hitch our pants up to our armpits and shuffle off to the retirement villa.
DPGK
I don’t get it. A following of 5700 people makes you influential?
R-Jud
@bootlegger:
"Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!" is less than 140 characters, too.
Xel
Here in Sweden the defendants of the Movie Industry vs. Thepiratebay trial are twittering even as they sit in court, with many of their supporters in the room using laptops to do the same.
jibeaux
@Tonal Crow:
Mine looks the same, although fortunately JTP’s mug isn’t headlining it just at the moment. Small blessings — there’s still a "tea party" ad.
You’ve got to love it. A protest modeled after the tyranny of taxation without representation, except it actually involves tax cuts duly enacted via the process of representative democracy.
Slogan contest – what’s it going to be?
Mnemosyne
You have to admit, though, the story by the guys who followed Shaquille O’Neal to a diner that he twittered he’d be at because they didn’t believe it was really him is hysterical.
Andre
If you want a real useful Twitter link, try the Shaq. Highlights here:
http://www.emocrap.com/?p=422
Andre
@Mnemosyne:
Damn it, one freakin’ minute!
Faux News
Agreed. I can also TOTALLY see W. Churchill wearing a snuggie while fighting the Nazis. Absolutely.
John Cole
@Mnemosyne: I laughed at the “Most Dominant Ever” bit.
in canaduh
no one’s linked to the futureman twitter breakfast?
http://www.blogonawire.net/blogonawire/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/screenhunter_006.jpg
Nikki
@Mnemosyne: Twitter, making things easier for your stalker.
The Grand Panjandrum
I thought I was particularly gracious in light of Mr Russet’s recent demise.
Even I know when to back off and give a Howdy Doodie looking schmuck a break. But that’s just how I roll.
MikeJ
But the Snuggie makes you look like a member of the Council of Elders in some bad sci-fi movie. That’s useful on some sad level.
Wile E. Quixote
Sign me up with the "Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!" brigade. I mean I hardly ever update my Facebook profile because most of what I’m doing is incredibly uninteresting (plus the whole third person thing that you’re forced to use reminds me of Bob Dole, which is creepy). If I used Twitter I’d just be degrading the societal signal to noise ratio even further. I can just imagine my Twitter posts.
Yeah, I’m sure that all of my friends and relatives and hordes of anonymous strangers really need minute by minute updates of my internal monologue. Plus there’d be a written record of all of the stupid, ephemeral crap I think about during the day, which would be pretty embarrassing, at least now I can forget about this stuff.
gbear
I know the feeling. I’m still using the first cell phone I bought. It still does everything I wanted from a cell phone, but people laugh at me when I use it.
&
you kidsFacebook can get off mylawnpersonal information. I’m never going to have a facebook account.Joshua Norton
How nice that they’re catching on to something "new" that’s really now old as the hills to Paris Hilton wanna-be’s, gangsta rappers and porn stars.
It’s gone from the hip set to the hip replacement set – which is a sure fire kiss of death for any idea lauded as hot and with it. They still have the pony express on hold just in case this whole "technology" thing doesn’t pan out.
T. Scheisskopf
I got my first Box o’ Satan in 1985, a Commodore SX-64(Ok, geekishly inclined: why were they so cool?), and I have not stopped since then, through Amigas, various PC’s running Windows and now Linux. I have seen thousands of these ever-so-cool must-have applications come and go.
I do not grok Twitter at all. Not one little bit. Could someone here help me out and tell me what the hell is up with this thing?
Curmudgeonly yours,
-T.
Surly Duff
@ bootlegger
Are twitters usually composed in complete sentences? If you can twitter using mass abbreviations and sentence fragments, then most students should be able to handle the assignment. Proper grammer typically confounds students these days.
Martin
They always look like Heavens Gate people mixing the Kool Aid while waiting for the UFO to arrive.
Wile E. Quixote
@Faux News
Yeah, but Churchill would have made it work. Do you know what would be even cooler? Churchill wearing a Snuggie and holding a Tommy Gun. It would be even cooler than this picture
TenguPhule
I look at them and I see a definite need for a flamethrower to be filled.
Binkyboy
Question for John:
Why review the things said about David Gregory? I don’t get your question, or if there is some kind of insinuation there.
Anyone else pay attention to MTP yesterday, though? Jindal evidently got the kid glove treatment.
Incertus
@Mnemosyne: Forget twittering–the thing I’ll truly never understand is the faux-hawk.
Incertus
@gbear: When I clicked that link, I fully expected to see one of those old brick phones from circa 1988, the kind Granddad from The Boondocks still uses. I was a little disappointed.
MikeJ
The kind words for Gregory. The first five, none left out:
1)David Gregory would probably be the best likely pick.
2)My money’s on David Gregory, someone I have mixed feelings about.
3)David Gregory is just gawd awful and is a total lightweight.
4)He bores me to fucking death so I could sleep right thru him. I give Gregory two eyelids down!
5)It’ll probably be some DC douchebag fluffer like Gregory.
#1 isn’t wholly negative, but can hardly be considered a ringing endorsement.
Brian J
I don’t really see what the problem is one way or the other. I have a blog, but I haven’t updated it in several weeks, if not months. As I learned what Twitter was, I thought to myself that I’d never use it, primarily for the same reason I stopped using AIM a long, long time ago: I just don’t have that much to say about my life, at least over the Internet. Even when I’ve thought about some things and how, if I shared those thoughts in one way or another, people might respond and make me more informed, I’ve been too lazy to really go forward.
That said, I can see the reason why politicians would do it, and especially why people in the media would do it: it’s a dirt cheap way to gain exposure and stay relevant, to the extent that anyone who uses such mediums or reads them is influenced by them. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, or rather, any sort of problems associated with it would probably pop up in some other fashion.
I’m not really sure how any sort of populist backlash is connected to Twittering. Am I missing something obvious?
Glocksman
@gbear:
I had one of those Nokia 6010’s.
As a plain cellphone, it was hard to beat.
Inexpensive, loud ringer, long battery life, loud earpiece volume (important for us hard of hearing old types), user replaceable housing, and a simple intuitive menu system.
And did I say inexpensive?
It’s only real failing was lack of bluetooth connectivity.
Dennis-SGMM
I burned out on that kind of thing back in IRC days. The notion of pecking out my mundane thoughts on a cellphone keypad for the edification of anyone whose life is so empty that they’d actually take time to read them leaves me cold.
Mnemosyne
@Incertus:
A fauxhawk screams, "My mom won’t let me shave my head, so this is the closest I can get."
I can tell I’m turning into an old fart because when I see 14-year-olds walking around in mohawks and Dead Kennedys t-shirts, I just want to walk up to them, pinch their cheeks, and exclaim, "Isn’t that cute? That’s just how I used to dress when I was your age!"
I think I need a little more visible gray in my hair before I can really pull it off, though.
John Cole
@Binkyboy: Just stream of consciousness while I was eating a late lunch. I saw the twitter thing, posted it, Gregory was on the list, then I thought ‘I wonder what all the comments about Gregory on the day Russert died read like today’ and I went back and read them.
Nothing more, nothing less.
gypsy howell
@MikeJ:
Doing my best Judy Miller impersonation — "I was fucking right."
gbear
@Incertus:
It’s funny seeing those old ‘mobile’ phones as cutting edge gear in 80’s movies. I didn’t know they were still usable. I got along fine without a cell phone until I made a couple of trips out to San Francisco in 2003. Telling anyone in SF that you didn’t have a cell phone number was the kiss of death; a complete conversation stopper. People would drop spare change into your coffee cup if they saw you using a pay phone.
L. Ron Obama
@Dennis-SGMM:
"I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member," right?
jacy
Everytime I see the damned Snuggie commercial I see Victor Buono in Beneath the Planet of the Apes waiting to launch the nuclear warhead.
My teenagers don’t Twitter, and they are painfully hip. I asked them if they knew anyone who "tweeted," and it was like "WTF?" followed by the "oh my god, you are so lame" eyeroll. It is a bad idea already past its expiration date, and therefore the perfect platform for the Republican party. All hail shorter, stupider talking points!
Kris
What–colored folk don’t twitter? The only black "influential" person they could find that twitters is our President?
Village idiots.
Ash Can
Count me among those who at this point doesn’t give a crap about Twitter. I too had an online journal months ago, which I’ve more or less abandoned because I was boring myself to death with my entries. Maybe at some point in the future my writing muses will return and I’ll get back to it, but if humorous and philosophical observations on the world around me weren’t holding my interest, there’s no way in hell glorified texting is going to do it for me.
On the subject of journalists in general, I’m going to repost this because I think it’s a riot: two WGN TV news anchors have developed a silly little routine to amuse themselves during commercial breaks (click on the window to play the video). It makes me laugh every time I watch it, and on a day when I have Bottle Rocket home with a lousy cold (which I think I’m catching myself) after a night of raging middle-age insomnia, I can use the humor.
And speaking of humor, I notice that PJTV has a rotating ad up in the sidebar lauding the new American Tea Party! Huzzah!! The revolution is upon us!!11 WE HAZ DISKUVRD FISCLE RESPONS..REPONSIBL..GUVRMINT SPENDINS IZ BAD!!0.o::flail:: Fucking geniuses.
Um, yeah. I’m overtired.
Shawn in ShowMe
The vast majority of posters on the Russert thread had the good sense to point out Gregory’s innate sucktitude even while acknowledging that he was the likely pick. That kind of pragmatism is why I love this site.
pharniel
we’re thinking of picking up some snuggies for costumes for a LARP.
THeylook like something cultists should be wearing in a bad 70’s movie.
CT
@gbear: Check out Michael Douglas totin’ a cement block around the beach in Wall Street:
gypsy howell
I’m hoping the twitter fad will end before I have to figure out why people use it.
I keep thinking I’m obviously missing something useful about Twitter, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is.
If I ignore it, will it just go away?
Comrade Stuck
@oh really:
Which explains why wingnuts love it so. Low hanging fruit but somebody needed to pick it.
Shawn in ShowMe
I thought it was obvious. So we know where to hook up with Shaq when he’s in town.
reid
I, too, Millered the prediction! Where do I pick up my winnings? Tens and twenties, please.
BenA
@T. Scheisskopf:
Ummm the SX-64? A C-64 in a Osborne’s skin, what’s not to love. I love the design of those old "portable" computers. You don’t still have it, do you? There getting pretty rare… because they are breaky…. and there weren’t billions of them produced.
Incertus
@gbear:
Assuming you could find one in the first place. They’re disappearing rapidly.
Incertus
@Mnemosyne: It’s like when The Ataris remade Don Henley’s already craptastic "Boys of Summer" and replaced "Dead Head sticker" with "Black Flag sticker." Like those fucks knew who Black Flag was. And I was never even that big of a Rollins fan.
Changeroo
Off subject, but….WHEEEEEEE ! The Dow closes down 250 points bringing it to the level it was during Clinton’s second term. Unless we get a new set of leaders in DC soon, even the billionaires will be shining shoes to pay for room and board.
Shinobi
Twitter as well as Facebook Statuses are simply another way for humanity to prove that about 10% of the time 1% of the population has anything actually interesting to say.
(Though I do still use AIM, I find it very useful to be able to instantly communicate to other individuals. I do not however, find it useful to broadcast information about my boring life to a bunch of people who are only listening to me so that I will pretend to listen to them.)
bootlegger
@Surly Duff: Indeed my point exactly, because they all deserve A’s don’t-ya-know. @Incertus: Faux hawk, how about the skullet?
@jibeaux:
No tax cuts unless proposed by Republicans. No. No. No! Hey you kids, get off my lawn!
kmoney
I’m with you, John. I don’t see the point. I don’t tweet nor do I have a Facebook or MySpace page, so maybe I’m just old.
burnspbesq
Apparently it has never occurred to any of the Villagers that there might be important ideas that require more than 140 characters to be fully expressed.
Twitter is a lineal descendant of PowerPoint. Their creators are prime suspects in the Dumbing Down of America. They are all going to burn in Hell.
Conservatively Liberal
Since the Rushublican party survives by feeding their frenzied following tiny soundbites and easy to chant phrases, they realized that Twitter allows them to communicate as usual. Plus it gives them an excuse for a lack of in depth explanations: Hey, how else can I say it in 140 characters or less?
I could probably start a service called TwatDidUSay?, limit the communications to twelve characters per message and I bet the wingnuts would line up for it in droves.
It’s better than Twitter!
The Other Steve
I have had a twitter account for the past 2 months.
I honestly don’t understand the appeal.
It’s nearly impossible to have a conversation using it. You can’t seem to view a tweet and then see replies to it easily.
We’ll see.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’ve matured so much since then I hardly recognize my former self.
The Other Steve
The one thing I guess i think twitter is good at… is broadcasting messages out to a mass of people.
It’s not intended for conversations, as I said you cna’t really follow a conversation with it. but it is good for top down communication.
So I can understand why the Republicans like it. Karl Rove can send his commands out to his evil monkeys and tell them to steal dorothy’s shoes. But nobody cares what the monkeys have to say, and nobody is listening anyway.
bootlegger
Tax cuts am ok.
Libs is stupid.
Globe get cold.
God made mens.
This is too easy even for them.
The Other Steve
Ok… This is what I said:
Nothing favorable. Just pointing out the obvious at the time. So I can call David Gregory an know-nothing jerk without fear of being called a hypocrite.
Deborah
Thanks to google I have ascertained that the snuggie is that attack sleeping bag thing (opposed) and not the thing you carry babies around in (in favor).
So I like google, and well-regulated blogs. But I don’t get twitter. Ambinder would use it during the campaign, and I was left puzzling "But…where do I click for the story?" Evidently one does not.
I also don’t get the new "If you’re looking for a job you MUST have Facebook, or why would we even interview you?" that some like to claim is now essential for job searchers. Unless it’s a sales/recruitment just-how-many-casual-contacts-can-you-claim position, having 300 facebook friends who would never consider meeting you physically for a drink doesn’t strike me as proof of your superior qualifications.
AhabTRuler
@burnspbesq: The road to hell is paved with Power Point slides. I once got an "A+! Super" for a project for which I created a Power Point that merely cribbed the chapter and section headings with a few obvious remarks thrown in. But it had cool animations! Surprisingly enough, the professor (for a writing class) also worked as a Washington reporter. Moran.
I still feel dirty for having made that presentation, though.
Shinobi
I gotta be honest, I miss when facebook was just for college students.
John PM
Doesn’t the fact that Gregory "tweets" 18 times a day indicate to him that perhaps he has too much time on his hands and perhaps he SHOULD DO A LITTLE MORE F-CKIN WORK FOR HIS SHOW SO THAT HE ACTUALLY KNOWS WHAT THE F-CK HE IS TALKING ABOUT?!?!?!
BTW, I do love all the new technology because it allows me to more easily locate people I want to depose and/or sue. It is amazing the amount of information people put on Linked-In, Facebook, My Space, etc., and then try to lie about it. "So, Ms. Smith, on the night of August 10 were you at bar Lesbos?" "No." "Well, that’s not what your Facebook account says." Cue Perry Mason music.
So I say, bring the technology on, and let’s hope that Rove slips up and says something that can be used against him in a court of law.
Andre
Is the past tense of "twitter" maybe "twat"?
Dennis-SGMM
@L. Ron Obama:
Exactly!
norbizness
Avid twitterers (remember the first four letters of that word) can eat a Sam’s Club Economy-Sized Bowl of Dicks.
bootlegger
@Andre: I hope so, I could get use to saying "I twatted you last night".
bootlegger
Here’s something you shouldn’t document with the new tech.
T. Scheisskopf
@BenA
No, sold them both off years ago. I had so much computer stuff(including the Holy Grail: an Amiga 3000+ given to me by Dave Haynie) that I was running out of room to move.
They went to a wonderful home where they were loved and cherished. I vetted their new owner closely.
mak
I’m sure I don’t care how often Gregory twats, but I just need to share that every time I see his mug, I think of the spot-on appellation given him by someone hereabouts: the "shaved ape."
Still cracks me up.
passerby
I’ve barely visited My Space or Face Page or whatever it’s called, much less do I understand what Twitter’s all about. Don’t know / don’t care (shrugs). I don’t even have a cell phone. I’m happy enough that I figured out how to use the blockquote function, dinosaur that I am.
As for Gregory? weenie is the word I used to described him back then and I’m sticking with it. In fact, I’ll borrow Dave’s description to be applied to Gregory too:
big woo
This is never going to work for conservatives. Twitter is way too new-fangled and complicated.
What the RNC clearly needs is a cutting edge, hip-hop focused IRC channel with branching invitational chat rooms.
Mnemosyne
The classic PowerPoint has been preserved by the web:
Yours is a Very Bad Hotel
Yes, it’s real.
Krista
Chalk up another one who doesn’t really get the point of Twitter. To each their own, I guess. I do enjoy Facebook, but mainly just because it’s an easy way to share pictures with folks — they can look at them if they wish, and it doesn’t clutter their email inbox. Also, I can continue to dominate at Hedgehog Launch and gloat.
Cris
When I was a kid, the word "snuggie" meant what most people call a "wedgie."
As a result, though I don’t know much about Twitter, comparing it to a snuggie doesn’t make it sound attractive.
Laura W
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Are you still 6’2"?
You really did work hard to deserve your handle in those days, didn’t you?
No wonder I avoided you.
DougJ
Look for David Letterman to be introduced as "And now, one of America’s ten most influential Twitterer….David Letterman."
bago
So the twitter thing is for capturing amusing ephemeral moments, like that time you saw a Zero Wing mosh pit.
burnspbesq
@AhabTRuler:
Someday your shame will cause you to make some grand but silly gesture intended as penance. Please give us 60 days notice so we can sell tickets.