# Explain the allure of Twitter **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 24, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271 "2009-02-24T21:16:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EpicNonsense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@EpicNonsense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EpicNonsense)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/21 "2009-04-02T21:53:19Z")
I’ve never twatted… or tweeted… or whatever it’s called. Nor do I plan to. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/22 "2009-04-02T22:20:31Z")
My mom asked me what Twitter was. I told her it doesn’t matter to anybody but teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Woo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7c8e57/32.png) [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/23 "2009-04-02T22:26:11Z")
Based on what I can see without joining, which ain’t much, it looks like it has all the stuff I hate about Facebook, and none of the stuff I like. Coincidentally, I spent 30 minutes this morning trying to further restrict my Facebook shit. I do not really want to know that somebody is tired or bored or squeezing someone’s anal glad (thank you **Kalhoun** ). [old cranky woman] The idea of getting those bulletins as text on my phone? I’d rather eat my eyeballs, thanks. /ocw ---
**Author:** ![MichaelJohnBertrand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dfb087/32.png) [@MichaelJohnBertrand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelJohnBertrand)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/24 "2009-04-02T23:20:43Z")
> [@Dr.Woo](#): > > Based on what I can see without joining, which ain’t much, it looks like it has all the stuff I hate about Facebook, and none of the stuff I like. Coincidentally, I spent 30 minutes this morning trying to further restrict my Facebook shit. I do not really want to know that somebody is tired or bored or squeezing someone’s anal glad (thank you **Kalhoun** ). > > [old cranky woman] The idea of getting those bulletins as text on my phone? I’d rather eat my eyeballs, thanks. /ocw I rather like the little personal updates myself, anal gland squeezings aside. And unlike Facebook, I don’t get spammed with quiz results. Stupid new layout. But if you just don’t really care what’s happening with people, then honestly, social networking is not for you. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/25 "2009-04-02T23:27:51Z")
From what I’ve seen, it’s a marketing thing, badly disguised as a social thing. Actually, I think this is true of all “social networking” stuff, unless you’re a teenager. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Woo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7c8e57/32.png) [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/26 "2009-04-02T23:33:09Z")
> [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > I rather like the little personal updates myself, anal gland squeezings aside. And unlike Facebook, I don’t get spammed with quiz results. Stupid new layout. Yeah, I agree, the quizzes are a pain. That was one of the things I was trying to suppress this morning. Unsuccessfully, I might add. > [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > But if you just don’t really care what’s happening with people, then honestly, social networking is not for you. 🙂 This is almost certainly true. I don’t even want to know if **I** am “looking forward to Friday” or whatever. If you have something to say or pictures to post, great. Otherwise, I’m not so interested. It’s okay on the website, I can just skip over that stuff. I just can’t imagine getting it fed to me on my cell. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/27 "2009-04-02T23:41:02Z")
Twitter is about supply and demand. People who start twittering and actually have people read it think, “oooo! I’m loved! People care about me!” and it just encourages more of the same. I just removed some people from my LJ friends lists because their Twitter blather started showing up on my LJ. They’re welcome to get their obviously desperate need for an affirmation fix elsewhere, they don’t need me for it. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/28 "2009-04-02T23:44:19Z")
> [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > But if you just don’t really care what’s happening with people, then honestly, social networking is not for you. 🙂 I guess that’s me. I haven’t even joined Facebook yet. My social circle is extremely small: My wife, my parents, my sister. That’s pretty much it. Ed ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/29 "2009-04-03T00:19:28Z")
I’m proud to say I know _nothing_ about Facebook/Twitter/thenextpopularsocialnetworkingsiteforselfabsorbedshallowlittlemorons, nor do I plan to find anything out about them Now get off my lawn! I’m all for starting an ANTIsocial networking site, you basically keep all your meaningless personal crap to yourself and don’t use it to annoy people and don’t post anything, in fact, you don’t even need a _computer_ to run my ANTIsocial networking stuff, you basically keep to yourself and I keep to myself… the site motto is “Sit down and Shaddup!” a.k.a. Nobodycares dot com 😉 ---
**Author:** ![manx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@manx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manx)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/30 "2009-04-03T01:00:05Z")
I followed the G20 protests through a few twitter feeds. It was brilliant - between the BBC, Guardian and the feeds, I felt like I was getting a picture of what was going on. It wasn’t journalism, but it wasn’t pretending to be either. I’m on it, as are a lot of my friends are. I’m not inundated with _OMG taking the dog in for an anal gland squeeze!_, I guess because my friends are capable of not typing if they don’t have anything interesting to say. Seriously, if you don’t want to hear from people who are always boring, can’t you just not follow them? Most of my friends are back in NZ, so any kind of brief daily contact with them is wonderful. I can get a feel for what’s going on with their lives, and if I want more detail I can email them. If I was still in NZ, I probably wouldn’t use it so much, or use it to follow famous types. It’s not the stupidest thing on the internet, or the most narcissistic, or even the newest. It’s getting a lot of media hype at the moment, but I think that’s mostly because if there’s one thing a paper likes, it’s a bad pun for a headline, to which Twitter and the fact that the posts are called ‘tweets’, which I’ll admit is hard to take very seriously, lends itself. It’s been around for a couple of years, and doesn’t seem any more likely to disappear overnight than Facebook does. When something more interesting, or something with a sillier name comes to light, Twitter will get as much press as, say, MySpace does now. > [@](#): > > I just can’t imagine getting it fed to me on my cell. Neither can I - you can (at least in the UK and I can’t imagine it’s not the same for the US) chose not to have them sent as messages, and only read them on the website. > [@](#): > > What exactly is twitter? I know it’s short statements ala Facebook status as mentioned above, but are they sent to you by email? Text message? Podcast? How do you get the twitter things? As a couple of people have mentioned, you can have them sent to your phone. I joined just as they’d disabled that option in the UK, so I’ve only ever accessed it through the website. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelJohnBertrand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dfb087/32.png) [@MichaelJohnBertrand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelJohnBertrand)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/31 "2009-04-03T01:01:11Z")
> [@Kaio](#): > > From what I’ve seen, it’s a marketing thing, badly disguised as a social thing. > > Actually, I think this is true of all “social networking” stuff, unless you’re a teenager. Well, that’s simply not true. Social networking, Twitter included, existed far before anyone tried to market anything that way. Do you absolutely need Twitter and Facebook? No, you don’t. But don’t knock those of us who like them, OK? ---
**Author:** ![manx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@manx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manx)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/32 "2009-04-03T01:24:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*Originally Posted by Kaio \*\* > From what I’ve seen, it’s a marketing thing, badly disguised as a social thing. > > Actually, I think this is true of all “social networking” stuff, unless you’re a teenager. What is being marketed, exactly? Are companies on Twitter? Yup. Are they marketing their brand? Sure. In a different form than on Facebook, but that’ll probably change - I remember when Facebook didn’t have ads. The Dope has Google ads - does this also make it a ‘marketing thing badly disguised as a social thing’? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/33 "2009-04-03T01:32:36Z")
The distinction is ultimately trivial, because we live in a selling- and winning-oriented society. Social people market themselves and learn to do so competitively. Otherwise, they don’t get to be social. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/34 "2009-04-03T01:55:24Z")
I got it to follow C-List celebrities. No fooling. I mean, how fucking awesome is that messages from Data, Jordi, Wesley Crusher, Crow T. Robot, and Tom Servo regular pop up on my computer? And I can respond? I also follow Amber Benson, Weird Al, Stephen Fry, Michael Ian Black, Eddie Izzard, Adam Savage, and Tim & Eric. Do they post anything earth-shattering? No. Do their little 140-character messages make me happy? Yes. I also use it to follow other authors and as a promo tool, but really, I’m there for the LULZ. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/35 "2009-04-03T02:10:20Z")
I have Twitterific on my iPhone. I only use it for one thing. One of the software guys made it so my test chambers send me status messages when they are having problems and to give me yield information when they complete. It’s been a lifesaver. It’s all in how you use it. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/36 "2009-04-03T02:15:25Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > I got it to follow C-List celebrities. No fooling. I mean, how fucking awesome is that messages from Data, Jordi, Wesley Crusher, Crow T. Robot, and Tom Servo regular pop up on my computer? And I can respond? I also follow Amber Benson, Weird Al, Stephen Fry, Michael Ian Black, Eddie Izzard, Adam Savage, and Tim & Eric. Do they post anything earth-shattering? No. Do their little 140-character messages make me happy? Yes. > > I also use it to follow other authors and as a promo tool, but really, I’m there for the LULZ. I was just about to mention the celebrities. Not only do I get messages from them, I have **interacted** via @replies and direct messages, with Peter Sagal (host of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me on NPR), Paula Poundstone, JP Manoux (you’d recognize him if you saw him), Eddie Izzard, Stephen Fry, Tom Bodett (he did not offer to leave a light on for me), Brandy, Kevin Pollak, MC Hammer, Weird Al, all 4 members of the band My Chemical Romance (and one band member’s wife) and had a multiple-day back and forth with singer Rob Thomas that left me aware that he’s a homo/transphobic twit. (I no longer follow him.) It’s fun. Celebrities, they’re just like you and me, sitting in a waiting room, tapping out Twits on the tiny keypad on their cellphone. Oh, I’ve also communicated with Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Pittsburgh City Council member and mayoral candidate Patrick Dowd, which is another nifty thing, the people who work for us are using Twitter as a fast and easy method of getting tiny vital statistics on what the people think. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/37 "2009-04-03T02:27:17Z")
Man, that sucks about Rob Thomas. I used to really like him. Oh, and I follow Penn Jillette. I can’t believe I forgot to mention him. I like to know when he’s going to be on TV, and how they’re changing their act up, and updates from the set of Bullshit! And John Hodgman, because he cracks my shit up. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/38 "2009-04-03T02:50:58Z")
I’ve been studying Twitter at Uni and I still don’t see the point for your average person. It’s useful for someone like Stephen Fry, who can issue a press release, put it on his website, then simply put a notice out via his Twitter feed with the url and people can go and read it (thus saving him and his publicist inordinate amounts of work), but for most people, it’s just another symptom of the “Me! Me! Me! I’m a STAR!” culture that we live in, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/39 "2009-04-03T03:11:25Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > Man, that sucks about Rob Thomas. I used to really like him. Oh, and I follow Penn Jillette. I can’t believe I forgot to mention him. I like to know when he’s going to be on TV, and how they’re changing their act up, and updates from the set of Bullshit! And John Hodgman, because he cracks my shit up. The Rob Thomas thing was bad, and it also garnered me a few dozen increasingly profane @replies from other fans informing me that I was all sorts of wrong for calling him out on his unapologetic use of a pejorative and demeaning insult towards trans people. It made me sad. If you follow Hodgman, do you also follow the rest of his little unholy alliance, Paul F. Tompkins (host of Best Week Ever on VH1), singer Jonathan Coulton (of “Re: Your Brains” and “Code Monkey” fame) and Jesse Thorn, host of the “Sound of Young America” podcast? Because all together, their funny is awesome. Also? Brent Spiner! He’s hilarious. He’s been tweeting all week about his stay in “rehab” at the Betty _White_ Center. The man is cracked, and I love him. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271/40 "2009-04-03T03:27:02Z")
My favorite thing about Brent’s stay at the Betty White Center was when he met James Woods there, because he had the same idea to jumpstart his career ;). I do follow Paul F Tompkins and Jonathan Coulton, but I haven’t followed Jesse Thorn. I think I will. The only thing that annoys me about Twitter is the sheer number of “spam” accounts. Thank goodness for the block option! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-allure-of-twitter/487271.md?page=3)