Oh, For the Love of Tweets

Daft Punk Took Best record and best album..which is really a miracle given the
fact, they repeat the same couple of lines over and over and over.

Thought Number One: Twitter: What is it Good For? 

 Historically, I haven't spent a great deal of time on Twitter.  To tell you the truth, I don't quite understand the purpose of sending out little wisps of thoughts to what may be, in my case,  the smallest group of followers in Twitterdom. (that would be @veryconflicted for those of you that like small intimate gatherings) There is also the fact, that it is very difficult to limit myself to 140 characters.  (You don't seem shocked by that.)  Up until recently I would of said the sole purpose of  Twitter was that it provided a barometer for celebrities to check the status of their popularity while at the same time rudely pointing a finger at those that are less popular.   I am assuming you don't hinge your self- worth to the number of followers you have on Twitter.

Katy Perry is the most popular according to Twitter

As a rule I don't typically  participate a great deal on any of the  social networking sites
unless, of course, you consider blogs as a type of social networking. 

It isn't that I don't see merit in some of the sites that actually have resulted in people connecting or reconnecting. I love to see what my school friends and relatives are up to.  Unfortunately, I tend to find other parts of it trivial and avoid marketing components of it.  I can't believe that I am the only one that is finding that I dis-LIKE being told by every business under the sun that I need to go to their web site and LIKE them.  I currently am not LIKE-ing the word LIKE.

As for today...I am talking about my foray onto Twitter.

It occurred to me a week ago Sunday,  that there weren't many programs available to watch on TV thanks to  the 4+ hours taken up by the Grammy Awards.  As I like music and was too lazy to search  ON DEMAND for a movie, I figured I would power through "live" TV. 

For those that weren't watching, during the opening number, Beyonce does a dance routine with a chair.  Does the idea of someone doing a dance in a chair getting wet sound at all familiar? Well for me it had a certain deja vu quality about it. It reminded me of Jennifer Beals in the "Maniac" sequence of Flashdance.

 

Also, I  began to wonder if anyone else beside me, wasn't loving this opening act.  (I am sure heads are exploding at the thought I didn't find this opening act  "the bomb".)

In an effort to find out the answer to these questions, I did what anyone that was within reach of an iPad or Smartphone would do.  I signed onto Twitter to see what the masses were saying.  Turns out that I am the only one in the universe that wasn't losing their mind over how wonderful this was and no one was mentioning "Maniac." I am, also, the only one on the planet that wasn't gushing and spewing nonsense about how Beyonce and Jay Z are the most romantic couple EVER.  (For those of you that missed this...by this point in  time...Beyonce and Jay Z were both on stage doing some serious rub-a-dubbing against each other and the cameras  are zeroing in on booties and crotches) Yeah,  the whole routine was totally the essence of romance. (do I need to point out the sarcasm here?)

Which brings me to my point....Alternate reasons to use Twitter other than stalking and/or measuring the popularity of a celebrity.

A. Finding affirmation and endorsement of your opinions related to "whatever" is happening.

B. Getting confirmation on how odd/wrong/unique you are or affirm  that you are "normal". 

C. Getting the opportunity to spew random opinions into the universe so others can A. or B.

Thought Number Two:  The Great Divide

I will say that because I have spent so little time on Twitter, it was somewhat of a learning experience.
The speed of  "tweets flashing before one's eyes" doesn't allow for participating in any meaningful way.  I had signed on to the thread  #Grammys so over the course of the 4+ hours of programming, there were 15.2 MILLION tweets.  Needless to say, every time I looked down at my phone there were 100s of new tweets.  

If Gaga tries to bite me, I will push her off of her shoes.  That's bound to do some damage.

I, also figured out rather quickly that some of the Twitter comments were nearly as entertaining as some portions of the program itself. The comments consisted in equal amounts of praise, mockery and comedic one-liners. There seemed to be some areas of general consensus as well as some of the acts brought a wave of opposing tweets.

Because this year's Grammy Awards performers were fairly divided between older groups and younger groups, there seemed to be some age divisiveness involved as well.

 Age disparities? Yes, how else can you account for this?

While  Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr sang a duet ..one of the tweets that came up asked:   
Where are the other two Beatles?  Pretty rude of them not to show up.

And there were hundreds that went along those lines....

Really??  These people have no idea who the Beatles were?

Of course, there were a lot that were just one-liners...and I do mean A LOT.

Again..for those that missed the program...Queen Latifah married 33 couples on air. I am not sure you would of put that together with this being an awards show...but yes, Queen Latifah was made a Commissioner by the State of California so she could legally marry all the couples.

Commissioner Latifah marrying 33 couples along side the wedding singer.

which led to more tweets....

Soooo...while I don't think I will become a habitual "tweeter"...it was a fun experiment to see how people interact online during a program.

Do you Tweet?  If so...what do you enjoy about it?  If not...what are your thoughts?

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Who's At Fault?

Have you followed the news story concerning the mega party that a group of approximately 300 teens had in the vacant home of ex-NFL player, Brian Holloway?

If you haven't let me catch you up to speed.

On August 31st, a mob of an estimated 300 teenagers broke into the Stephentown, New York home of former pro football player Brian Holloway and trashed it, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage.

At the time, Holloway was in Tampa, Florida  where the family currently resides, but learned of the party as it was happening because many of the kids there sent out tweets about it! (some of the reports say that one of Brian's sons saw all the tweets and called his dad about it.)

At first Holloway thought the whole thing was a joke, until he saw photos of the damage on the Internet.

Holloway described what he was seeing on Twitter in an interview with Fox News, saying, “We started
reading all these tweets of people tweeting ‘I can’t believe Holloway’s house, this is awesome. We are trashing the joint. I can’t believe it. We can’t wake this girl up. You know who cares. This is the best party of my life. I can’t believe there is this many cool drugs.’”

By the time police arrived, windows and doors were kicked in, holes had been punched in the walls, and all of the carpets had been destroyed by beer, vomit, and urine.

Thought Number One:  Fighting Fire With Fire


So what is a guy to do when he realizes that an out-of-state property that he owns is being trashed?  In this case, Brian created a website called  HelpMeSave300.  Interesting reading, especially if you want to
find out all the ways to misspell bad words.

I am positive that Crabby Pants, had nothing to do with it.

Anyway,....On the website, Brian and his family started posting all the  pictures and tweets from the party to point out those responsible for "hosting" the party, those attending and all the resulting damage.  He issued an invitation for those that attended to come forward and take some accountability.  At that point, there was more a tone of  trying to give the kids a chance to make amends without charges being filed. (a few more current revisions aren't sounding quite so friendly.)

BUT...of course, that's when things got problematic.  The parents of the kids that have their partying little trespassers exposed on a website, are not happy.  NO THEY AREN'T HAPPY AT ALL.  They have had their lawyers tell Brian to take the website down or they will file suit.  The parents say that Brian has no right to hurt their children's reputation and possibly cause them future problems such as having trouble with college admittance.

Brian's lawyers on the other hand, say the kids posted the pictures to public spaces for all to see and they have no right to insist that they are private.


AND YET THERE IS MORE....Now TMZ reports that the Brian was behind in his mortgage payments and the house potentially was going to go into foreclosure.  They went on to say that there was some disrepair there anyway.  There is a  barn on the property, for example, had some graffiti prior to the party. The family does say that is true, but it was just friend and family names, not the huge amount of obscene graffiti that the party goers left.


So...have we got it right?  The kids are being defamed, according to
the parents.  Oh, and their little darlings didn't do all the damage because the house wasn't being cared for properly.  I am so confused!!! So if you get behind in your mortgage payments,your house is open territory for 300 drinking, partying teenagers that can tweet their little asses off and not be held accountable? 


Thought Number Two:  When Will The Time Come When Victims Quit Being Victimized

I don't really see how the condition of the house, prior to the party matters.  Nor does it matter if Brian was defaulting on the loan.  The fact remains that about 300 kids had an unauthorized party, with underage drinking, illegal drugs and now have parents that are sheltering their kiddos from taking some accountability.

Watch out if you take things of ours, Crabby Pants is looking for a fight.

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Networking between bloggers and to have fun while doing it!
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Are We Making Progess?

Lindsay Lohan does it while she is in jewelry stores. Newt Gingrich does it.  Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore do it a lot.  Chris Lee and Anthony Weiner did it and caused a ruckus. 

I have done it but frankly, I just don't get the point of it. I am, of course, talking about the  ugly little half-sister to Facebook, TWITTER.

Would someone, please explain the enjoyment of Twitter to me?   Why do people want to put the limitation on their communication at 140 characters?  Who even came up with that number?

Did the developer say something to the effect " Gosh, I think anything over 140 letters and spaces  is just tooo much information.  Shut up already! Really, man, if you can't say what needs to be said in about 20 words, just keep your mouth shut."

Periodically, I go over to my Twitter account  (@veryconflicted) to see what funny one liners have come my way.  I follow 7 people.  Most of those 7 are famous comedians.  Now that in it self, pretty much would limit me from wanting to tweet anything.  Who am I to go up against the professionals?

As for just being one of the lemmings that hang out over at Twitter,  looking around, I have noticed things that do make me smile...occasionally make me laugh. 

Sometimes there are tweets that touch on current events. In this category there are tweets, which I might add is not for the faint of heart and  are not particularly funny.

(**For disclosure:  This is a fictitious Twitter feed as I didn't want to dirty up my site with the likes of you-know-who and are sick-of-hearing-his-name.)

One of my biggest objections, behind the whole 140 character restriction, is the "subtle" but very real rejection...exclusion  being perpetrated  by the "big time" Twitter accounts holders.  The poor rejected followers don't even realize that they are summarily being kicked to the curb.

Think of it this way....Some accounts have millions of followers  but they only follow a very few of their followers.  (This might be confusing so here are some examples)  Conan O'Brien has 3,259, 555 followers, he on the other hand follows...one person.  Well now, over 3 million people are interested in what quick little short bits of inspired thoughts he is thinking and he is interested in what one person might have on his/her mind. (who would that be??? His wife? Jay Leno?? hmmm)

Even Lady Gaga, who currently holds the top spot with 10,875,986 followers, is currently following 143,157 of her closest pals. Still, for you nearly 11 million friends that are hanging out to see her tweets, most of you aren't really part of her inner circle.  You do get that, right??? If this was a Dodge Ball game, she is not picking you to be on her team!!!!


After numerous stories of the stupid things people do on the Internet that get them into serious trouble, I was thinking "What would  things  have looked like if all of this Tweeting and Facebook friending had started in the middle of the 19th Century.  What if, people like Poe, Wadsworth or Frost were limited to 140 characters when they had a thought?  Would they want to share these little epiphanies with their pals?  Would they ever have finished one of their poems, if they had to write them in 140 character increments? Would there be crotch shots, or maybe ankle shots of the hussies?  Would there be shocking statements dealing with bloomers or petticoats? 


Is this what Twitter would have look like in the mid 1800's for a few creative friends, just thinking some interesting thoughts and tweeting them to their friends....

So, I welcome your comments to explain, why you use Twitter and why you enjoy it.  Why isn't this the same thing as emails and texting that wouldn't limit you to 140 characters.  Feel free to tweet me at @veryconflicted as it may be the one and only time anyone actually tweets to that account.  Or just comment or email me...whatever is your thing.

The Good for the Day...Social media can be fun and seemingly a lot of people understand it better than I do.

The Bad....Overuse, using rudely, sending offensive crap that can get you in trouble, morons that don't use it correctly,  and the list goes on and on and on.

The Weird of the Day...The ladies over at the View were talking about the tweeted pictures of Anthony Weiner and Barbara Walters said and "the pictures of the Congressman were very flattering...you're saying ...uh uh ...no she dihn't...yes she did.  You can watch this on Youtube or ABC. It is the Hot Topics section of the program aired on June 7th.   Flattering??? Really Barbara?? You are losing it!!!