An Extended Date with Twitter

                                                                                                                                                                            image: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid
The moment of truth for my existence on Twitter, arrived when I read this tweet from someone battling the summer:

“Today i [sic] didn’t take bath….”

I laughed, which was unfair, as the tweet was a marked departure from logs of the world’s coffee time and bedtime. It was a voice urging, “I am telling you, please listen,” and with social media, the voice had a platform to express.

Hesitant with accounts in almost every virtual network, and a skewed sense to be there, it was rather a testy step when I strolled in to join the Twitter bandwagon.  But what option did I have? There were pages and pages of words written on the virtues of Twitter; how celebrities were reaching out; how people were finding meaning in their lives; what  the latest in the field of connectivity was.

I hardly looked at my account and when I did, I was following celebrities I had no clue about. Being partly tone-deaf didn’t help as, apparently, I was following pop stars well-known across the world. I followed Ashton Kutcher and Stephen Fry. What are the chances of them answering a tweet, one in a million? Probably less.

I couldn’t agree more when one of my former colleagues’ sole tweet for an entire month was “this Twitter thing is very boring.”  The casus belli for my presence on Twitter was not to shuffle my life, rather just for the sake of it. The tweets were almost like deciphering hieroglyphics symbols. For example, crack this, “Bd nws is tht it cud hpn so vry simply thrby prvng tht”. Why don’t we have a Twitter dictionary yet?

One fine day, I was staring at the computer monitor when lo, came a tweet with instructions on “the happening crowd” to follow. Yes, I was amused, which turned to other less pleasing emotions when several more tweets followed. I shot a direct message to the writer, asking why he kept flooding my timeline. At last! I received my first meaningful answer from Twitter. He was a star, but it was one of his entourage tweeting and thus the massive retweets. He asked me to follow his personal Twitter account.

As I started following more people and started receiving more personal replies, I learned to shorten URLs and retweet when bored.  My allegiance was still with Facebook, as it has a more personal flavour. When I wrote, “George Bush is on Facebook. Some can now 'like' him,” I received three “likes” and twelve comments on Facebook, and not even a feeble response on Twitter.

But some of us addicted to news will vouch for the breaking news syndrome of Twitter. I follow BBC, CNN, The Guardian and what not. Right now, it’s possible to be the first to read the news. On a more informal plane, I see people saying “good night” when it’s morning for me and vice versa. Some people even send links detailing ways to make money from Twitter. That bait is a little old, my friend, and not for people like me.

That and the never ending stream of quotes. I guess my knowledge has improved by leaps and bounds since joining Twitter, what with twenty quotes every second. A book of Twitter quotes must be on the list of bestsellers by now.

Twitter is a mighty force; surely I am not the only one thinking on those lines. Jack Stevens, fresh off his music album, High, Dirty & Low, and the first to reply to “yours truly,” says:

“I am sincere when I state this to you, that I truly believe without my Twitter family, there would be no career and no JACK STEVENS..at least to where I am now! I even thanked all my Twitter family in my CD!”

I can believe because Jack replies to all the tweets he receives and every tweet has a personal touch.

I must tell you, not without a twinge of remorse, I have never been blocked or harassed on Twitter. None of my tweets have ruffled any feathers. But I saw my friend, Kaeli Ferguson, being subjected to personal attacks. In her case, she had retweeted attributing the quote to a wrong person. That was taken up by one of her followers and a non-follower. She says, “I immediately tweeted the quote and gave the proper credit. I received 2 more of the same tweets spaced 2 hours apart from the non-follower. I didn't block them but it certainly didn't make me want to follow them.”

I saw a famous novelist skewered on Twitter for her support of a people’s movement. Refusing to give sound bites for television has its downside, as even the media were up against her. And in 140 words there’s only so much you can tell.

The best reason for a Twitter experience is to--quote Kaeli Ferguson (haven’t I been in Twitter long enough to fall into the quote sea)--“I get my news from Twitter, talk to people all over the world, share my music and poetry. It's like being in a giant room full of people but not having to wait a turn to say something...LOL. You can say something and it will get heard by someone. Twitter is chaotic and helpful all at the same time. I love it!”
She has also promised to enrich my non-existent knowledge of football.

Has there been any palpable change in my life, apart from the Twitter friends? No, not really. I would have heard the news anyway, even if it was a bit late. Now that emotions have been sorted, could I live without Twitter? You bet!

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