DISCLAIMER: this blog is mine & mine alone. Thou shalt not blame family nor friends nor employer for what you may read here. Also, today I'm writing naked, in honor of SL.
Confession: I have yet another habit which has now become a vice of sorts, just another to add to the long & distinguished (or is it disturbing) list. Twitter. #Srsly. I'm fully aware that in my "Joy of Being Single" post I referred to a budding use of Twitter, but at that point I was rubbing sticks together. Now I'm wielding a flame thrower, and am one among a cabal of sorts.
Like most everyone else in the social networking slice of the interweb I started on MySpace years ago, and eventually migrated to Facebook. I signed up for Twitter in '09 but didn't really start doing anything with it 'til this year. In the beginning I was the textbook definition of newbie: following celebrities mostly, but spending very little time on the site. The majority of time I spent social networking was on Facebook. Sharing pics with friends, making what were in retrospect pretty meaningless, mundane status updates. But I realized that that's all I was getting back in return. Endless streams of pixelated projectile diarrhea like "can't wait for hubby to get home", "Junior won his wrestling tournament", "the weather sucks/is gorgeous". Whatthefuckever. I edited myself for content due to the audience, but really, what fun is that? I think I was trying to be kind, figuring that not many people can handle The Truth. Throw in the fucking constant streams of shitty updates I got from TV shows that I happened to mention I like and Facebook became painful. Then there's FourSquare. If I ever see another "I just became the mayor of..." update I'm gonna commit hari kari, and I'm not kidding.
This is the point in the story where our hero has the epic awakening, or maybe just a cartoon light bulb above his head. And with that, I turned to Twitter. A couple of weeks I made a tongue-in-cheek tweet about trying to get a few more followers, to equal the number of people I was following. A tweep that was following me clued me in: follow the *real* people, and you'll 1) get more followers and more importantly 2) get more out of it.
Let me set the record straight: I think I'm entertaining, I know I'm intelligent but I'm not the type that needs validation from others to know who or what I am. I don't get an ego boost off of having people follow me. But still, everyone wants a little feedback, some constructive criticism (or some not so much), am I right?
So I took my new advice & put it to work. I started looking at the people my advisor followed, and who followed them. The beauty of Twitter is that you can get a pretty decent read on a person based on their profile & timeline of tweets & retweets. And lo & behold, what did I find? An amazing myriad of other people like me. Smart, funny, and more than just a little sick & twisted. Birds of a psychedelic feather have flocked together.
See, each tweet is 140 characters or less, so people can dispense with the petty bullshit & really share. What they (and I) share may be scary, but I think it's closer to the real truth than Facebook, and probably even many IRL (In Real Life) or face-to-face relationships. Yeah, there are some that are just reaching for a retweet or a star for fav tweet, but I'm smart enough to know that the majority are in the same boat I am. We're all undersexed, self-medicating, cynical, snide, insightful, insulting human beings. We're all sick of the same stuff: shitty jobs & shittier bosses, annoying neighbors, running out of booze or batteries, and Justin Bieber. We all cheered when Charlie Sheen went absolute from zero to apeshit at the speed of light. We all uttered a collective "woah" when the earthquake hit Japan (at least those of us who weren't unconscious). THESE PEOPLE ARE JUST LIKE ME.
And isn't that a comfort to say if/when you really find it and can mean it? Fuckin'-A it is. I learned I Am Not Alone. It's common knowledge that most of us only let a small part of our whole personality or character out at a given time, based on where we are & what role we're playing at that time. I have Employee Brian, Son Brian, Friend Brian, Cousin Brian, yada yada. You do too. But none of those roles is Really Me, Brian on 10. Self-editing yet again based on the audience. But on Twitter, I remove the rev limiter & turn that shit up to 11.
What you get from me here, and especially on Twitter, is me as I am, pure & unadulterated. No additives or fillers like the other Brians. Until Twitter, my head was the only place I found that freedom. But as much as I like to hear myself think, even my own words bouncing around my head gets old. So Twitter is where I found a new voice of sorts, and a new outlet. Like getting out a relationship & being alone, I'm learning new things about myself, and I like what I'm finding. I hope in a very sincere sense that this latest self-discovery will help me loosen up the reigns if not just be more honest when I play the other roles. But the big win is that I can finally let it all go. I'm so constrained in my day-to-day that this freedom is bliss. And it's funny as fuck too. If you believe that laughter is the best medicine, then Twitter has in effect doubled my dose. I've known some funny people, but not quite like those I follow on Twitter.
The beauty of Twitter is the 140 character limit. I struggle to find time to blog, but Twitter allows me to, in essence, mini-blog throughout the day. Even though I may not be writing much here, believe me, I'm writing. I still enjoy my protracted purge-fests like this, but like sex, every once in a while a quickie can be just as good, am I right? By Twitter's count I've had lots of good quickies lately. ; ) Author's aside: if that's true then why the fuck am I still so horny? We'll put that away for another time...
Twitter is strangely erotic, and sometimes downright raunchy. But it's never dull, never fails to leave me laughing & wanting more. It's good to know there are others out there that think & feel like me. As much as I've found others who are very much like me, we're also quite diverse, coming from around the world & all angles of the spectrum. Even though it's cyberspace I can solidly say I like some of these people & consider 'em friends, or friends-in-the-making. Twitter is the most stimulating conversation you can have with hundreds of your closest friends, near 24x7. What could be better?
Edit: this next paragraph just came to me & it's too on-point & apropos to omit from this post.
The other gift Twitter gave me is reinforcing the importance of personality & sense of humor. Experience has revealed that looks bring two people together, but it's what inside that keeps 'em together. When I meet a woman character & personality are of the utmost import. Lack of a sense of humor is a deal-breaker. The women I follow on Twitter are probably sicker, funnier, and more interesting than the men. If I have to say that they're sexier too you don't know my very well, but what the fuck, there it is. But it's the words, the attitude that make's them sexy. You take that away & all you're left with is a shell. It's almost like Shallow Hal, with Jack Black. Beauty without brains, character, and humor ends up being pretty boring.
I've also seen how quickly the communal conscience can shift. We're all now so connected that ideas catch fire & spread quickly. That's what Twitter is so goddam good at. I'm all for it, 'cuz I think it makes mobilization of the people faster & more fluid. The world needs change - including the US in a bad way - and sometimes this requires Revolution; not enough time to wait for Evolution. As we've seen in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Madison, WI., people are getting more involved, being agitated & therefore becoming activated. Some of the greatest changes in history have started with the groundswell of an idea that grows among the masses via grassroots movements. Twitter just makes that more possible, and more likely.
To wrap this shit up, there was a time I didn't understand what all the buzz was about Twitter. But once I jumped in I found the water was warm, and with many others in the same pool - some naked - I don't think I'm getting out any time soon.
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