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So this morning I woke up late and didn't have time to post a reply to a blog entry on my f-list, but I want to address it here. This is not any form of passive-aggressive defensiveness on my part ('I'll totally talk about you on my blog!'), it's just that I have very limited access to the internet and e-mailing an entry to my own blog is just so much simpler. Plus, it gave me food for thought and is a rather old discussion that has been hashed about a few times.
So the gist of the post was that Twitter makes very little sense, and seems narcissistic. Who cares what you had for breakfast? (I have no idea if it was prompted by my faux-Twittering, to assume so would seem... narcissistic!)
This, at first, seems harsh and perhaps a little hurtful. At least, if you're looking at blogging from my perspective. It's like the time my ex-friend cut me off in the middle of an explanation of something I was doing and said 'You know, I'm really not interested'. Wow, what a nice friend! As if you never talk about something that's not riveting to me. What's the point of being a friend if you're going to be like that? And, from the addition of 'ex' in front of it, you can tell my take on it.
But see, that's looking at blogging from the perspective of friendship and community (what I really like about LJ). I'll tell you guys the same stuff I'd pop around to a friend's cube and talk the them about. No one would think it narcissistic to call up your best friend and say, 'Hey, you wouldn't believe what just happened...' - even if you were just about to tell them that you'd had the absolute best half-caf part-skim mocha latte ~*evar*~. Because that's what friends are for. [Insert discussion about faux-internet friends vs. IRL friends, blah, blah, blah - did people have these discussions about pen pals back in the day? Is it just technology that makes it evil?]
Now, I won't say that some people (not y'all! never y'all) aren't boring. Yes, if you catalogued every action and movement on Twitter (I just put on my left sock. I just put on my right sock. Now I'm lacing up my left shoe.), that would be... boring. But I think that runs completely opposite of narcissistic. Those people are... man, I don't want to say 'pathetic', because that's pretty harsh. But they're certainly not creative enough to be narcissistic. You can't think highly of yourself and post tripe like that. No, I think that's more the 'crying out for attention', which is very different from the 'I am god, worship me'.
And now we come to the flip side. The side I might be more willing to call narcissistic, were I feeling snarky. And I rather am, but that's the 'I don't feel good' part of me talking at the moment. So this should be taken with a grain of salt and a capful of Pepto-Bismol.
The people who think their opinion and words are so freaking awesome that everyone must want to hear them. The people who use their blogs to preach or sell or for a giant ego-stroking. This is not to say we all don't use our blogs as a platform to get our ideas across - it's part of our personality and who we are. But I think there's a line that some cross into true 'look at me' stardom. And the blog is no longer a place for discussion (heaven forefend that you disagree with the blogger!) but a place for the author to bask in the adoration of their loving fans (or, on the other side of that same coin, feed on the anger they can stir up). That's narcissism. I think we could all throw out a few examples of that...
But then, those are the people who would look down their noses at the plebes (me!) regardless of whether they had a blog. Because they are ~*brilliant*~ and ~*special*~. Not that I don't have my 'special' moments, but those tend to come in the 'should she be wearing a padded helmet?' variety...
Then, of course, there's the middle ground. The blogs that are friendly but not conversational, the ones that are informative but politely reserved, the ones that are technical and dry... And the ones that have a mix of postings, from humor to stupid one-liners, to pictures, to very serious issues discussed (my favorite!). I think most blogs (Twittering aside) fall into this last category. Of course you want people to read what you write, just like you want people to listen to you when you speak. Perhaps there's a bit of narcissism in that, but no more than is present in everyday (real) life.
Just like e-mails run the gamut from very proper (Dear Mr. so-and-so, I am writing to...) to the 'I'm too lazy to run over to your office' (what's for lunch?) variety, so do blogs. Twittering is very informal communication, long thought-out-essays (unlike this one) are more formal. Both have a place in the blogging world. Both have a place in the same blog, even!
Perhaps it helps to think of Twittering as public e-mail? Because, in a way, it seems very much that. The same thing you might dash off in a quick note to your pal is simply being made available to... whoever. I don't know. It all comes down, I think, to why you blog. I'll tell you that I do it as a way to be social without having to put forth the effort of going places and, on some days, getting dressed (because a day in jammies is the perfect day!). I can have fun, or serious conversations, with a variety of people all without leaving my house. I want to hear about you guys' lives just like if we were friends in real life - and I promise never to cut you off and say I don't care. :) Above all, I refuse to take myself (or most of you - you know who you are) too seriously.
And, to ease my narcissistic little heart, you can have some bonus points if you guess 1) how many words I misspelled typing this (it is only 8:30 and I've had one double cup of coffee thus far) and 2) how many ways I misspelled variants of 'narcissist'.
So the gist of the post was that Twitter makes very little sense, and seems narcissistic. Who cares what you had for breakfast? (I have no idea if it was prompted by my faux-Twittering, to assume so would seem... narcissistic!)
This, at first, seems harsh and perhaps a little hurtful. At least, if you're looking at blogging from my perspective. It's like the time my ex-friend cut me off in the middle of an explanation of something I was doing and said 'You know, I'm really not interested'. Wow, what a nice friend! As if you never talk about something that's not riveting to me. What's the point of being a friend if you're going to be like that? And, from the addition of 'ex' in front of it, you can tell my take on it.
But see, that's looking at blogging from the perspective of friendship and community (what I really like about LJ). I'll tell you guys the same stuff I'd pop around to a friend's cube and talk the them about. No one would think it narcissistic to call up your best friend and say, 'Hey, you wouldn't believe what just happened...' - even if you were just about to tell them that you'd had the absolute best half-caf part-skim mocha latte ~*evar*~. Because that's what friends are for. [Insert discussion about faux-internet friends vs. IRL friends, blah, blah, blah - did people have these discussions about pen pals back in the day? Is it just technology that makes it evil?]
Now, I won't say that some people (not y'all! never y'all) aren't boring. Yes, if you catalogued every action and movement on Twitter (I just put on my left sock. I just put on my right sock. Now I'm lacing up my left shoe.), that would be... boring. But I think that runs completely opposite of narcissistic. Those people are... man, I don't want to say 'pathetic', because that's pretty harsh. But they're certainly not creative enough to be narcissistic. You can't think highly of yourself and post tripe like that. No, I think that's more the 'crying out for attention', which is very different from the 'I am god, worship me'.
And now we come to the flip side. The side I might be more willing to call narcissistic, were I feeling snarky. And I rather am, but that's the 'I don't feel good' part of me talking at the moment. So this should be taken with a grain of salt and a capful of Pepto-Bismol.
The people who think their opinion and words are so freaking awesome that everyone must want to hear them. The people who use their blogs to preach or sell or for a giant ego-stroking. This is not to say we all don't use our blogs as a platform to get our ideas across - it's part of our personality and who we are. But I think there's a line that some cross into true 'look at me' stardom. And the blog is no longer a place for discussion (heaven forefend that you disagree with the blogger!) but a place for the author to bask in the adoration of their loving fans (or, on the other side of that same coin, feed on the anger they can stir up). That's narcissism. I think we could all throw out a few examples of that...
But then, those are the people who would look down their noses at the plebes (me!) regardless of whether they had a blog. Because they are ~*brilliant*~ and ~*special*~. Not that I don't have my 'special' moments, but those tend to come in the 'should she be wearing a padded helmet?' variety...
Then, of course, there's the middle ground. The blogs that are friendly but not conversational, the ones that are informative but politely reserved, the ones that are technical and dry... And the ones that have a mix of postings, from humor to stupid one-liners, to pictures, to very serious issues discussed (my favorite!). I think most blogs (Twittering aside) fall into this last category. Of course you want people to read what you write, just like you want people to listen to you when you speak. Perhaps there's a bit of narcissism in that, but no more than is present in everyday (real) life.
Just like e-mails run the gamut from very proper (Dear Mr. so-and-so, I am writing to...) to the 'I'm too lazy to run over to your office' (what's for lunch?) variety, so do blogs. Twittering is very informal communication, long thought-out-essays (unlike this one) are more formal. Both have a place in the blogging world. Both have a place in the same blog, even!
Perhaps it helps to think of Twittering as public e-mail? Because, in a way, it seems very much that. The same thing you might dash off in a quick note to your pal is simply being made available to... whoever. I don't know. It all comes down, I think, to why you blog. I'll tell you that I do it as a way to be social without having to put forth the effort of going places and, on some days, getting dressed (because a day in jammies is the perfect day!). I can have fun, or serious conversations, with a variety of people all without leaving my house. I want to hear about you guys' lives just like if we were friends in real life - and I promise never to cut you off and say I don't care. :) Above all, I refuse to take myself (or most of you - you know who you are) too seriously.
And, to ease my narcissistic little heart, you can have some bonus points if you guess 1) how many words I misspelled typing this (it is only 8:30 and I've had one double cup of coffee thus far) and 2) how many ways I misspelled variants of 'narcissist'.
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We both ended up following the rss feeds, hurr.
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I can barely update one thing, let alone multiple accounts. I have a Good Reads and a Ravelry that are sorely neglected. :(
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I also generally stay away from blogs of the "elite popular ppl" who preach and carry on as if the world wants to hear their precious musings. The only journal I've friended that's like that is Elise Sewell's of ANTM fame, because she limits her narcissism to modeling, hehe. And she's funny about it. :)
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The conversation ones, which you are left out of, and the one-line blog entries. I think the former would be a little annoying, but the latter (like what I did yesterday) isn't much different from any other blog. Like right now if I Twittered I'd say 'Man, those sparrows are really going after that hawk right outside my window!' Which is probably no less irritating than my usual blog entries. ;)
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I do think "narcissistic" is way harsh, though. I don't think Twittering is a sign of an individual's personality flaw; I think it's just a result of the culture we live in, which promotes a need to be in constant communication over every single mundane detail. I'm more than guilty of making long, boring LJ entries about every little thing I did that day (although it's more for myself than other people, because my memory is so poor that without such posts to look back on, I'd literally have almost no recollection of the past few years), but I confine them to one place and, unless I really either have nothing else to do or have been so busy I can't fit everything in one entry, I try to space them out by a couple of days. While my one long boring entry is probably equal to a million little Twitter updates, I think the thing a lot of us find irritating about Twitter is that it's so frequent. When my flist is covered in little updates that don't really say anything, it's hard to not get annoyed. Then again, as this comment proves, I have a really hard time being concise so perhaps my rambling is just as bad.
That said, I was more amused than bothered by your FauxTwittering because I thought it illustrated exactly why I can't stand the thing: It's pointless. It doesn't accomplish anything you can't do with what you already have. I wasn't sure if that's what you were going for so I didn't comment, but that's what it made me think of.
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Yep... I'm a twitter shitter!
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