Twitter Strategies for Journalists: An Existential User Comment Rodeo

CJR posted a great bit about getting Twitter followers that almost makes me want to dust off my twitter account and make it live. I used to try to follow twitter. Now I mostly blog lackadaisically in order to tell myself I am doing productive writing. I see people tweeting and they repost their tweets to facebook and I think, "Goddamn that's insane." but on the other hand they sometimes get 100 or so impressions. Which is generally still pretty insane. They are engaging with the imaginary yet somehow relevant aimless messaging system. Some people who have encouraged me to join actually have audiences and purposes for tweeting – which, in a fast-moving, egalitarian telegraph machine, are the most difficult things to achieve and understand.

I might be biased. I see every twitter account as the equivalent of a Minecraft video on YouTube. It does not inspire me. I see tweets in various news media and have to restrain myself. Jimmy Fallon uses twitter in cool ways, though, and the service has been used for all kinds of mischief so it can't be all bad. But on the other hand, the volume of tweets alone is a barrier to entry. The slavishness of hashtag culture, the ruthless advertising. Twitter has as much of a mercenary heart as facebook. But who cares what I have to think or say. I still have to think or say it if it's not broadcast.

Still, I do my best, despite having posted legitimately cringe-worthy abominations, to say interesting or informative things in a neutral language which does not rest on lazy assumptions, fallacies, or promote negative patterns of thinking. I try to do my best, on the internet or at least this blog, at least sometimes but it can be so hopeless and tiring. The internet, used anonymously, has a tendency to communicate the worst aspects of individuals and their cultures. There are heartbreaking stories about these kinds of problems and what their fallout is. Unless you're not paying attention, you have probably heard one.

Probably you came here to add followers to facebook and increase your clout score or whatever. I already linked to it at the top.  The specifics of the linked article are great and all, but there was one user comment that was essentially critical of Twitter, but also probably uncomfortably accurate:

The flood of user-generated everything, from literature to the internet to economics, is an incredible problem that is both happening and waiting-to-happen. An unthinkable volume of information is kind of awesome, but also kind of terrifying. This brave new world is, after all, the kind of world that spawned the hollow 'expert culture' – an institution that is essentially quackery in all but name. The fact that the article shows at least one case of people forced to contribute to twitter against their will is equal parts hilarious and sad.

News for the Internet: I do not Not have a mobile phone.

I am sick to death of mobile content and the big existential stink about that shit. It's not going to end the world if people start having Pavlovian responses to touchscreens and ringtones. If anything we can construct an industry on that business, which is good, because our current vacuum economy is starting to sump. Whaddup?

Here on the internet you get a lot of offers to use, say, some useless app on your mobile device. Mobile devices (will we even call them phones without any sense of irony in 20 years?) already do all kinds of shit. But as I log into my account here I get news that something will look great in my mobile. I guess I owe it to the 3.4 people who have viewed this blog once with a mobile phone to ensure it looks good on a tiny screen when you could probably be talking to the people you're with, watching the road, interpreting your surroundings, or facing an uncomfortable situation bravely.

I'm hardly even in step or in touch or in contact with my generation, but they look at their phones enough times each day that you could harness that action for enough electricity to power their electronics with energy left to sell into the grid. If we do enough little things like this we could eventually create localized, public, energy markets. Maybe just electricity, but we can do things with electricity now.

Anyways I'm tired of mobile content. Give it up, internet. You and I both know I'm not on my phone right now.