The Twipping Point

No, this post is not about a guy with a lisp dropping acid, though that would be infinitely more exciting and informative than hearing yet another TV or radio news report about how some agency or other such entity is now using Twitter. Two weeks ago it was a story about the Mall of America using Twitter to inform drivers about available parking spaces; today I heard that the Ohio Department of Transportation is using it to update road condition reports. Wonderful, I say. If you're unlucky enough to be driving in Ohio in January, or damned so thoroughly that you have to find a parking space at the Mall of America, then you deserve all the psychic and electronic help you can get. But why the hell do I have to be told about it again and again from my news sources? Good God, we've got underwear bombers, NBA players bringing guns into the locker room, Rush Limbaugh being released from the hospital--bad news all over for news junkies like myself to sink our teeth into--and every day I hear about someone else using Twitter? My old journalism professor is probably spewing red ink in his grave right now (the grave I probably helped to send him to with my feeble attempts at writing cogent, succinct leads [what, prof? no parentheses allowed in leads?]).

I have nothing against Twitter myself, probably because I've never used it (though--full disclosure--I did sign up once because a friend invited me to, but then he never tweeted, twatted, twutted, so I stopped logging on, if indeed that is what one does to Twitter, log on [do you think, years before computers, the phrase "log on" was used by lumber town hookers to describe what they did last night: "Oh honey, it was pay day for the lumberjacks. I logged on all night long"?]). But I think seeing that this is 2010, the year after Twitter became so ubiquitous (if you refrain from partaking in something that is ubiquitous, are you ubiquitting?), it is high time to stop making its use "news." I realize that new technologies can change our world drastically, but eventually, like now for Twitter, they become rather dog bites man like the rest. Frankly, I can't believe people once lived un-psychotically in a world without readily available ice cubes, and while there once was a time when "Jay's Mini-Mart now carries ice cubes!" was undoubtedly big news, that time has now passed. So too with reports about who is now using Twitter. I don't want to hear another word about it until they come out with a device that will alert new mothers and fathers that their babies need a diaper change. Twetter, obviously. Good night--it's time for me to listen to some 8-tracks and play some pong.

The Replacements-Shutup