If I Had My Way: Volume 2

Matthew Burr | February 24th, 2010

Disclaimer: This post is meant to be purely satirical. It is tongue-in-cheek, and we ask that readers keep that in mind. Please take no offense to anything contained herein. Wpromote and many of its employees are active users of Twitter and other similar services, and we encourage all to explore and utilize these social media tools. — The Management

If I had my way… there would be an end to inane tweets.

I mean, who gives a crap?

I don’t. That’s for certain.

I don’t care that you’re extra tired today because you stayed up late playing Farmville. I don’t care that some days, your shoes just won’t stay tied. I don’t care that your favorite song just came on the radio. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.

Now, I understand the hypocrisy of writing a blog post criticizing microbloggers (I secretly hope no one reads this), and I understand how easy it is to avoid Twitter and the other sources of mindless drivel. However, this is one of those things, the mere existence and popularity of which just bother me.

To whom are these people speaking? Their friends? I can’t imagine they have many. Otherwise, they wouldn’t feel the need to tweet in the first place. Does tweeting make them feel important? Heard? Connected? They’re not. They’re merely putting noise into the desolate wasteland of cyberspace. It is a disturbing trend of self-importance being used to mask feelings of loneliness and low self-worth. I’m pretty sure that were Narcissus alive today, he would have died from Tweeting.

A study published by Pear Analytics last August found that over 40% of tweets can be classified as “Pointless Babble,” defined as “I am eating a sandwich now” tweets, the worst kind. That seems about right. The next most common classification was “Conversational,” which consists of back-and-forth communication between individuals. These tweets make up almost another 40% of the total. Why are these people having one-on-one conversations in a public forum? What’s wrong with phone, email, IM, text… ? They’re like the people who have conversations in crowded elevators. I hate them, too. To top it off, another 10% of tweets are made up of “Spam” and “Self promotion.” So, that brings us to almost 90% of all tweets being completely worthless and devoid of anything other than self-service and -import.

Now, this is not to discredit those who use Twitter responsibly, those who fall in that remaining 10%. Wpromote has dozens of clients who use the service effectively as a tool to communicate and interact with their potential clients and customers. Further, we have a number of employees who distribute insightful, thought-provoking or humorous stories and musings through their Twitter accounts. In fact, right here on this blog, our one-and-only Amanda Moshier published an informative piece on the opportunities and benefits presented by Twitter. There is simply no questioning the potential behind this platform.

However, this is meant to address those who abuse it, those who clog our existence with their desperate needs for attention. Next time you go to tweet, ask yourself a few questions first. Do people want to hear about my iced soy vanilla green tea chai latte? Do people want to know the color of my dog’s poo? Do people care how full I feel after eating In-N-Out? No, they do not. Ask yourself if people actually will give a crap or if you just really WANT them to give a crap… because there’s an enormous difference.

Oh, and make sure to retweet this! Loves!

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