Why I LOVE Twitter

Hi, everyone! This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share my thoughts on why I LOVE Twitter.  

You may have already seen my video on why I quit Facebook.  That was many years ago.  But about a year ago, my husband started reading me funny things from his Twitter feed, so I decided to sign up and now I have a full-blown Twitter addiction.  It's bad enough that I have to have self-imposed rules about when I can look at Twitter, for how long, and what things I need to have accomplished before I indulge myself.  

THE BASICS

So, basically, I started by following a bunch of my favorite comedians.  Then I added a bunch of authors whom I respect and whose opinions I value.  From there, I basically decided that my favorite tweets were insightful commentary on current political news events and so I follow actors, directors, journalists, statisticians, activists, politicians, social media influencers, professors, etc. who are smart, interesting, well-read, funny, and politically interested and savvy.  And of course, LOTS of comedians.  I do not follow anyone that I know in real life -- with the exception of my husband's work account, which is obligatory.  I follow basically everyone who I would have at the best fantasy world cocktail party.

I do not post much.  I do not have practically any followers. I retweet stuff that I want to remember later.  Twitter is not a monolith -- my Twitter feed looks different and reads different than anyone else's Twitter feed based entirely on who I follow.  My husband's feed reads like this: Steelers, Steelers, Steelers, Steelers, News, Steelers, Steelers, etc.  Black Twitter has a specific activist cultural identity that even has an entry on Wikipedia. Teens tend to follow their friends and do not send links to articles, whereas adults send a ton of links to articles with commentary.  One of the things that I love is the huge variety of news sources that I now read based on Twitter link sharing.  I enjoy the diversity of opinion, expert and otherwise, related to those articles. 

Platform Personalities

I recently heard a Note To Self podcast interview with Derek Thompson, who writes for the Atlantic.  I love the way he describes the different social media platforms and what would be considered the perfect entry or post on each platform:

• Facebook - Happy, optimistic, and slightly narcissistic
• Instagram - artsy, image oriented, like pictures of you with a sunset
• Snapchat - goofy, carefree, definitely no pictures of you with a sunset
• Twitter - ironic, slightly negative, sardonic, and snarky

Well, reading that -- it's no wonder I prefer Twitter!  The conversations I prefer in real life match the Twitter personality.  And believe me, I see the irony that my YouTube personality probably fits a little better in the Facebook world, but that might be a different post.  Here's another tweet that describes it perfectly: 

Hahahahahahahahaha!  Twitter does tend to be a little negative and alarmist, but because it is part of a larger community, at least you feel like you have company as the country burns to the ground!

Here are some of my favorite things about Twitter: illustrated by some of my favorite Twitter moments.

HUMOR

There are way too many examples of this, but essentially, when you have a bunch of smart, hilarious people trying to come up with puns and witticisms about any event, you can pretty regularly hit comic gold.  Here are some good ones just from the past couple of weeks:

On Scaramucci

One the firing of Reince Preibus:

But honestly, one of my very favorite Twitter moments was the covfefe morning.  Surely you've heard about this?  When President Trump tweeted an incomplete sentence that ended with the non-word "Covfefe" and that tweet stayed up unchanged for, like, 7 hours?  First, Twitter was like, "what happened, did he have a stroke on the toilet?" And then immediately started having fun with it.  Here is a smattering of the creativity and hilarity that ensued: http://nerdist.com/a-roundup-of-the-best-cofveve-memes-and-jokes-on-twitter/

I can't tell you how much fun it was to wake up that morning and watch the whole thing roll out real-time on Twitter.  It was like the funniest guys at your office huddled around the water cooler riffing off the same theme.  There were thousands of hilarious tweets.  It was a giant inside joke for our nation. So fun. Thank you, President Trump. 

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

My Twitter feed tends toward the multi-cultural. I follow a lot of people of color.  Despite the fact that I am half-Asian, I've always lived in a pretty white world.  For me, the ability to interact with and hear from diverse communities is eye opening and instructive.  Here's my Twitter example: I always watch the Oscars from beginning to end -- it's my Super Bowl.  My family tuckers out within the first couple of hours, so I'm usually up on my own watching the last several hours. But this year I had Twitter to keep me company, which was fantastic in and of itself.  Add to that the diversity of opinion about who should have been chosen as best actor (my twitter feed was not happy with Casey Afleck, but I thought he deserved it -- notwithstanding potentially past criminal activity).  Coming in to the night, I had two favorites for Best Picture, but after reading the impassioned multi-cultural debate, I was firmly rooting for Moonlight by the end.  And was horrified along with everyone else at the kerfuffle with the switched cards.  My favoriate tweet in that crazy moment by someone who was way more quick thinking and less confused than I:

DIRECT CONTACT

Most of all, Twitter is fun because it makes you remember that all of these folks you follow are real people with thoughts, comments, and lives.  And they talk to each other and their followers on Twitter.  People love model and wife of John Legend, Chrissy Teigen who isn't afraid to be a real person on Twitter -- she once tweeted "i woke up and thought john went the gym but nope. china."  Or how about this -- recently, a fan fantasized out loud on Twitter about a heist movie starring Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o with Ava DuVernay directing.  Nyong'o began by tweeting "I'm down if you are", Rihanna responded, "I'm in Pit'z" and then Duvernay with "Lights set.  Cameras up. Ready to call action for these #queens."  Netflix is actually doing this movie -- filming starts next year.  Thank you, Twitter!  Unlikely people regularly banter and call each other out on Twitter, like the smack down between Senator John McCain and reality star Snooki or really any response by JK Rowling or James Blunt to one of their many nasty trolls.  I do NOT recommend messing with either of them -- it will not end well for you. Here's a recent personal example -- last week I read a book by Steve Kaplan called The Hidden Tools of Comedy and I had a debate (in real life) with my brother about whether the current political situation fits Kaplan's comic equation. Just to clarify, this was prior to the legitimately scary nuclear threats later in the week.  For kicks and grins I tweeted the author to solve the our disagreement. To my delight, he tweeted right back -- unfortunately siding with my brother. 

So, that's why I love Twitter.  It's a constant conversation with my fantasy cocktail party friends, it's hilarious, I love the diversity of experience and opinion, AND there is sometimes fun, direct contact between -- and with -- your favorite stars and authors.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!