April 13, 2010

Rant about Twatter

Posted in Media, Politics at 12:51 am by Paul Sagar

Right, as I’ve nothing nice to say I’ll follow my usual rule and say something anyway. At least this distracts from the fact I’ve got nothing politically or intellectually substantive to write about at the moment, what with the election ruining politics.

So I’ll just get this out there: I hate Twitter. Or more precisely, I hate the Myth of Twitter.

You might think that makes me a hypocrite. After all I use Twitter, occasionally, to plug this blog. But then it’s not really Twitter per se that I have an objection to, it’s the way that the conventional wisdom now has it that Twitter is somehow really important. That it’s a central feature of the modern political landscape, a vast resource of essential information, the new frontier in communication and 21st Century social networking.

I mean, frankly, give me a break.

Twitter is little more than a bunch of idiots expressing half-baked thoughts, joining herds of other stampeding #idiots, and at very best linking their “followers” to other place that aren’t Twitter, where things of substance are actually going on.

Partly this is an inevitable product of the Twitter format. You can’t say anything of substance in 140 characters. The very best you can do is say “read this” and provide a link. Alternatively, you can just spew forth some inanity attached to a hashtag so that it can fester in a long list of fellow irrelevant inaneties expressed mostly by morons.

This in itself wouldn’t be so bad. But what I find deeply irritating is people squawking-on about the “importance” of Twitter in the so-called new age of digital media. Yes, I know that Twitter gets some websites a lot of traffic. The excellent MyDavicCameron.com is a good example. Liberal Conspiracy benefits from the Twitter hordes too. Great. But that makes Twitter nothing more than a conduit for readership. You might as well celebrate Google Reader.

Every twit tweets these days – often with disastrous results. Take Andrew Rawnsley’s “tweet” prominently displayed on The Guardian’s website last night:

“Oh dear, @BevaniteEllie revealed, that was why The End of the Party upset you so much. It reminded you of why you called for GB to go.”

I have a vague sense that this relates to the Daily Mail’s hatchet job of Ellie Gellard. But I still don’t understand what the hell Rawnsley means. Such are the pitfalls of the public 140 character pronouncement.

Though Rawnsley himself is not a twit, his “tweeting” is symptomatic of the trend: anyone who is anyone now has to be on Twitter, pouring reems of inane irrelevance out into the internet regardless of whether they’ve actually got anything to say. But the truth is that the vast majority of “tweets” have the intellectual content and social usefulness of an extended discussion about the inside of a hermit’s handkerchief.

Twitter is a time-wasting device for a complacent generation with a great deal of time on its hands – and indeed there’s nothing wrong with knowing or admitting that in and of itself.  Yes, Twitter has the upshot of increasing some traffic to some websites, and sometimes that’s A Good Thing because we like the websites that get the traffic. But Twitter is not changing the face of politics – it’s not even applying a touch of eyeliner.

Twitter is simply a bunch of people prattling at each other. 4 years ago they did it via email, mercifully in private. Nowadays they hang their unwashed thoughts in public, whilst many others have the audacity to pretend that this collective babble is of any political or social relevance whatsoever.

In sum: I hope Twitter it goes the way of Bebo. Now back to my book, which is fittingly entitled Political Hypocrisy. It’s by the excellent David Runciman, you should all read it. That would be a better use of your time than spewing forth inane drivel into the internet. I should know, I’m a blogger.

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