You Are What You Tweet
Something has been bothering me for a long time. Lots of people I know, judge lots of other people they know, based on what they tweet. It just comes up in conversation. Things like, “He tweets about sports too much.” Or, “Her tweets or totally condescending. Who does she think she is?”
But is it really fair? Can you we really judge the state of another person’s soul based on 140 characters? The answer of course is yes, absolutely we can. And we do. You’ve done it. And so have I. But should we? Should we decide how spiritual, intellectual, emotionally balanced a person is based on @ replies and hashtags?
I know why we do it. What we think about is what we tweet (or Facebook status update) about. It only makes sense to judge a person based on the things they wrote. After all they shouted it from the social networking microphone.
Now, I can’t speak to why somebody else tweets. I can only tell you why I do it. I’m going to take a moment and make a large assumption that understanding my own reasons may shed light on the reasons a billion or so other people with an account tweet. Is this a bad idea? Yes! But I’ve already started this post so I might as well see it through.
I don’t give much though about what I’m going to tweet.
If I see a youtube video, or an article, or some piece of media I really like and I think: This was amazing. For a few seconds my life was a little better for having seen this. Surely someone else needs to watch it. Then I tweet it. Sometimes a thought crosses my mind about bacon or LOST or Mad Men season 3 and I tweet that. But that thought is fleeting and disposable and only meant to be only mildly entertaining. It is not the center of who I am as a human being.
I give WAY too much thought about what I’m going to tweet
On the other hand I wonder what should I be tweeting? Is this what the brand of Rob Stennett is about? After all more than anything Twitter is a marketing engine. We follow people based on a niche. We want pastors to tweet about the Bible, CNN to tweet about News, and Justin Beiber to tweet about how exciting life is and how much he loves his fans.
So, I need to keep within my niche. But I realize people follow me because I write novels, or work at a megachurch, or I’m a cinephile, or they know me. But this is too much for one twitter feed. Twitter is not for a Jack-of-all-trades. So, I go back to wrestling about what to tweet.
I give don’t tweet about the things that are most important to me.
My family is the center of my life. I think about them and love them more than anything. But I rarely tweet about them. I know nobody could ever find the crafts that my daughter makes at Pre K half as fascinating as I think they are. I don’t retweet the cute things they say during dinner. I’m not Bill Cosby and I can’t boil my daughters quotes down to moments of Kids Say The Darndest Things. I also think about writing all the time, but it’s such a crazy and weird and confusing space that I rarely tweet about it. Bottom line the things that are really important to me feel to big to fit into a sentence or two.
I tweet about what everyone else is tweeting about
One of my favorite quotes is from Men In Black, “A PERSON is smart. PEOPLE are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it.” So when you get lots of people talking about one thing they are usually the types of things dumb, panicky animals talk about.
Let me put it like this: Have you ever been at a party and been having a really meaningful conversation with a friend. Then someone plops on the couch and joins in the conversation. Soon after that a really loud guy arrives. Before long a whole group of people have gathered around and your once meaningful conversation has turned into a shouting match about what’s the better music video: Beastie Boys Sabatoge or Weezer’s Buddy Holly*? These are the types of conversation social networking is made for. The more personal, honest, one on one types of conversations just don’t work as well in the social space. It’s not that the person tweeting doesn’t have these conversations. They may have them all the time. It’s just they never appear on any sort of social network.
Anyway, there are more reasons but I’ve gone on long enough. I guess I’m not saying you shouldn’t judge people based on what they tweet. That’s up to you. But at least know the parameters worth judging someone. So, I give the question to you: Do you judge people by what they tweet? Do you care if you’re judged by what you tweet?
*Answer: Sabotage.
