So Shut the Tweet Up!

  By Tac Anderson | August 7, 2009 - 8:32 am | Comm
Shut Up!

Shut Up!

I know I shouldn’t let crap like this bug me but it does. I’m not perfect, sorry.

Nicole Brodeur from the Seattle Times launched a rant about how glad she was that Twitter was down. In fact she’d like to send the Russian hackers who were trying to keep a Georgian blogger silent a fruit basket. Nice.In all fairness Nicole probably didn’t realize the down time may be due to political cyber warfare, she was to busy “…spinning around on a virtual mountaintop like Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music.”"

She goes on to complain that “Twittering three, four times a day seems more of a chore. And I wonder if all this “What are you doing?” is really worth the trouble.”

Really? Posting 140 characters or less 3-4 times a day is just too much to handle? Wow!

All of this griping is one thing but the lunacy she ends her post with is really special.

More importantly, does anyone really care?

A new Nielsen survey says no; that the “teens” we middle-aged folks are trying to keep up with really don’t Twitter at all.

So, because teens aren’t on Twitter no one cares? When did teens make up the only subset of the population that matters? And who the hell ever thought teens were on Twitter in the first place? Seriously? You want to know who? People who weren’t on Twitter. Ask anyone who’s been on Twitter and we could have told you teens weren’t here.

And finally:

In other words, our efforts to keep up with kids today are causing us to act like children ourselves. Narcissistic, time-wasting little Twits.

WTF?!? I act like a narcissistic twit all on my own thank you very much, I don’t do it to keep up with “kids today.”

Honestly and in all seriousness. To Nicole and anyone else if Twitter is that much of a problem, get off. Any social networking tool is about building a network of like minded people. Sharing and adding value. If you have nothing of value to add then don’t. Go read your morning paper and drink your coffee. I’m sharing links with my friends and discovering new and useful things.

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About Tac Anderson

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.
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  • http://twittermaven.blogspot.com warrenss

    @NicoleBrodeur has tweeted just 20 times since March. Hardly enough experience to pass judgment. It looks more like a gratuitous piece focused on getting noticed. No wonder no one reads the newspaper anymore when you see drivel like this.

  • http://twitter.com/KFontanilla Kristin Fontanilla

    Too funny. I was wondering why it was so important that teens don't use Twitter. Does that mean they won't adopt it once they get a little older? Maybe… but no one's really told me why it matters.

    And tweeting 3-4 times a day is hard? Cool. Then don't use it. Maybe it's time to “follow” the teen trend and not use Twitter.

  • http://twitter.com/spincycle3 David Patton

    Totally agree with Tac. I just spent the first five minutes of my workday opening tab after tab of interesting articles/Web sites posted by the people who I follow that are totally relevant to my job. Without my Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook and FriendFeed friends I would be less informed and probably less effective at work. Thanks to all who are adding value to my life via social media.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    I actually think it's kind of sad reporters feel pressure to use social tools like Twitter. It would definitely suck some of the joy out of it. You can lead a horse to water…

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    Yeah, I can't imagine feeling belabored over 3-4 posts a day (which she doesn't even do). I think for a lot of people it's less of a personality issue and more of a work flow issue.

  • jenanderson

    I have to disagree with you. At least with your opening statement anyways, I still think youre pretty much perfect.

  • jeremymeyers

    SAY TWIT AGAIN! I DARE YA! I DOUBLE DOG DARE YA!

    As for “When did teens make up the only subset of the population that matters?” the answer is “since the 1950s when Madison Avenue ad execs decided to make up the concept of “teenager” as a social construct in order to have a new market to cater to that would then 'grow up' using the products that were advertised to them.

    Didn't you know, nobody over 21 matters. There's a whole store dedicated to the concept.

  • http://www.surskeeg.com robe1221

    I can't say I sympathize with the reporter, but for someone that has just started to use Twitter, I can imagine how she feels. The more I tweet, the more I understand what it is that is happening. It is hard to explain any different than “I’m sharing links with my friends and discovering new and useful things”

    Great Rant!

  • http://twitter.com/jeremeyweeks Jeremey Weeks

    To Nicole:
    We aren't following you anyway, so feel free to be Tweetless in Seattle!

    Sorry, couldn't resist!

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    LOFL! That's hillarious!
    Nice one :)

  • http://dannybrown.me Danny Brown

    I wonder if Nicole would offer advice on my eating habits? I tend to eat 3-4 times a day, and that's probably a chore, remembering to eat.

    Maybe she could advise me of taking my dogs for a walk? I take them out about 3-4 times a day and that's probably a chore too.

    Come to think of it, I like to drink bottled water 3-4 times a day – man, this chore stuff is really building up – maybe Nicole has a point… ;-)

    Seems to me that (as someone else has said), it's someone craving just a little attention. Congrats, she got it – now she can probably go back to her job and do some journalism. You know – like the major gulf in Democratic and Republican opinion on gay marriage in Seattle, or the right of pharmacies to sell the morning after pill, or the abortion question, or embryonic cell use in stem cell research, to name just a few.

    There's a lot Nicole could write about, but I'm guessing she must be plain tuckered out from her maximum four tweets…

  • http://www.hubstreet.com/ Nancy Fox

    Just like anything else in this world, you can see the positive or the negative. You can see glass half empty or half full. You can see twitter a microcosm of the world and there is relevance or vapid time-wasting. I like your comment Tac, “Any social networking tool is about building a network of like minded people. Sharing and adding value.” Value is a relative thing.

    I was an early resister of Twitter and other SM sites. Now, my lenses are different. I see amazing connections and relationships being built that never would have happened without today's remarkable tools of connectivity.

  • mightysmith

    Tac,
    its an example of a person who understands that it is
    a. simpler to tear down that which you dont really take the time to understand.
    b. when you have the 'who cares' comment about everything, you are more likely than not to be right… eventually. Its a shortcut to intelligent analysis.

  • http://twitter.com/MediaCollective MediaCollective

    Hoo Rah, waving iphone in the air (if I had one lol)

    Seriously I love how a teen doing a paper while interning becomes fact (too small of a study) and. that somehow teens are the evaluator of communication tools.

    Hum what about what is the demographic
    Nielsen shows 25 yr old 84% growth in Twitter adoption over the past 6 months. Also interesting is the 20% growth happening within the 55+ age range.

    This demographic works for me on two fronts both for personal interest topics and as a connector to a vast sea of knowledge and incite from people I may have never come in contact with had not twitter perched on my tree.

    What I think is that the article was written to draw attention to I won't say the name reporter / paper, a old tactic, create controversy to gain attention. In this case, gain eyes to the article positive or not, it adds page views thereby justifying view counts to advertisers and drawing attention to a reporter that really had noting of value to write about at that time.

  • http://twitter.com/MediaCollective MediaCollective

    That is too funny now I have to get off the floor and share that = miles of smiles.

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