Twitter

It would seem our society has progressed to the point where we can tell any number of random people all sorts of things about ourselves instantly that we most likely wouldn't tell a stranger face to face.
Twitter, it seems, is the perfect way for any idiot to broadcast stupidly minuscule aspects of his life to numerous people who don't really care. A quick Twitter search for "penis" illustrates this rather well. I found this: "LAmaleCA NOT GETTING ANY MSGS ON HERE TONIGHT SO I AM OFF TO JERK MY PENIS AND SLEEP, GOOD NIGHT WORLD,,,"
See what I mean? How many of us care that LAmaleCA is going to masturbate and go to sleep? Those of us who are men and have been bored have all masturbated and gone to bed for lack of anything better to do. It's a fact of life that masturbation is something to alleviate boredom, help you relax and make you sleepy. That's great, now would you walk up to me on the street if you didn't know me, stop me and say, "Hey man, I'm bored. I'm going to go home, masturbate and go to bed."
I hope you would not, because frankly I don't care.
People may defend Twitter as the ultimate freedom of speech because it really is the free flow of information. At the same time, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Twitter is published information and I feel strongly about what published information should do.
It should inform, like most newspapers for instance. Sure, not all newspapers inform. Some waste inches upon inches of copy writing advance stories about events before they happen rather than putting them in a community calendar where they belong and covering the actual event. In most places this is not called journalism, it's called AD-VERTISING. Not all newspapers do this and I digress.
If it doesn't inform you, published information should entertain or move you. Poetry, for example; most of it doesn't inform, with the exception of that wonderful piece about the man from Nantucket valuable information that, what it does it move people to feel something and that is valuable.
Some prose both informs and moves people. Literature, for example has this power. While there may be a technical essay or two which accomplish both I just have yet to read them. Shakespeare, Hemingway, Dostoevsky and many many others have done this.
Now, I'm not saying Twitter doesn't serve some purpose. I in fact use it to "tweet" high school sports scores when I cover them. I'm sure the 16 people who follow me appreciate the score information they get from me, and I must be doing something right because I have three new followers so far this football season. So we have the informative part of Twitter under control.
Then there is the entertainment aspect of Twitter. I haven't done an exhaustive search and I don't spend a lot of time trolling Twitter but what I have found brightens my day every time it is beamed to my IPhone via magical wireless technology: Shitmydadsays.
Shitmydadsays amounts to a 29 year-old guy who lives with his 73 year-old father, writes down his ramblings and "Tweets" the best stuff. I wonder if this old fart knows almost half a million people look forward to hearing his thoughts at least once a day.
So, if you're an Iranian broadcasting police locations to protesters to organize a more effective dissent more power to you, until the government shuts everything down. If you're a poet who can't afford to print your stuff on paper, then move me with your "Tweets." If you want to talk about your penis, go to hell.
I personally feel 80 percent of what you can find posted on Twitter is useless crap the world can do without. My friend and colleague Logan Carver, Gentry for short, seems to think only 60 percent of Twitter posts are absolute garbage. So, after much debate; in lew of actual work mind you; we came to a compromise we could live with. We met in the middle and agreed that 70 percent of what is posted on Twitter is useless rubbish and that is final.