Twitter suffering chronic banality, diagnoses Dr House Brit thesp and House star Hugh Laurie has told the BBC he's not that impressed with microblogging Web 0.2 phenomenon Twitter, even though he maintains a profile there. Speaking to Radio 4's Front Row programme, Laurie described himself as "bothered by the social cost of every tweet", explaining: "As I look around my friends' …
I gather Hugh didn't use Tw@tter to disseminate this message then. I also find these people who use this service (and who i can only assume are "Tw@ts") very egotistical. I dont care if you have finished your tea and are now going for a big poo, I have no interest in that at all. So I am neither a reader or a writer of any kind of Tw@ttery.
That said, this comment may constitute an ego trip, but at least i can use more than 140 characters to do it!
He added: "I think if people were able to take these 140 characters and develop a poetic Western form - a haiku of our own in which all human existence could be compressed into those 140 characters - that would be a satisfying thing, but that's not what I see when I read them."
Surely something for Lvvvies in the Private Eye
yeah that's right, don't have an opinion, just follow the sheep like everyone else and keep your head down. "I personally find Football dull." - isn't that a bitchy comment?
you seem to have the most comments of anyone on the register stories over the past few months don't you? or is there more than one anonymouse cowherder?
oh, and sorry, but hugh is right, twitter is for tw@ts, give it 6 months and the next online social revolution will be here...
I agree that Twitter is a waste of time and utterly without point. So are a lot of things people do to amuse themselves. Like, for example, writing articles and comments on the internet about how you don't get the latest internet fad and how it is a big waste of time. Not judging, just saying.
Encourage people to post short snippets of text at regular intervals, from mobile devices and what have you. That's not a recipe for coming up with anything even half decent.
I once contemplated (for about 6 seconds) being a Twitter serial killer, timing my posts meticulously to give my "killings" some credibility. That might actually be interesting to read but its far more effort than I'm willing to invest in taking the piss out of a a website.
Speaking of Twitter's website, the only time I went there I got bored after 3 seconds and closed the window. I'm still not sure I fully understand what it is.
It's my right as a grumbly Brit to moan about things i have no interest in. How do you think ombudsmen and watchdogs stay in work?
I didn't watch Russell Brand and Wossy taking the mick out of Manuel, but i jollywell complained to the BBC about it. After all, it's my licence fee and i want my overinflated opinion noted for the record.
Now. about you constantly banging on about your disinterest in football. Give it a rest, i am tired of your constant complaining......
It started with bogs. Now we have twatter. These are just more symptoms of a celebrity culture where some people think they can achieve fame and posterity by publishing details of their inane lives and pedestrian opinions. I don't give a bugger what you did 5 minutes ago - even if you are Stephen Fry. No really, I don't.
If your friends and family really want to know when you last had a dump, ring them, send them an email. But why do you suppose the other 6 billion of us want to know?
Stop it now before you start believing anyone gives a toss.
I think Twitter works very well for certain celebrities to give fans an imagined intimacy while in reality keeping them at a healthy arms length. As a means of delivering news alerts it perhaps has a place. What your definition of 'news' is however can be very personal. If someone in your circle of friends is pregnant a 'tweet' to alert everyone when the birth happens could be a very practical way to diseminate the information.
Then there is this guy, http://twitter.com/OneHandedWriter who is the closest I could find to what Hugh seems to want!
> I don't understand the purpose of it
It exists to massage the egos of individuals who haven't yet realised no one cares what they think or do (provided they don't have a gun).
The small number of characters it imposes allows messages to be typed and read without exceeding the attention span of (well, nearly all of) it's membership.
So far, it's the closest thing the internet has to a write-only medium.
OK so 99.999% of all tweets are dross, funny thing is it's probably a similar percentage of blogs, message boards or personal web pages (actually that probably applies to all web pages) are also shite.
I have a twitter account and follow a few individuals & company's on twitter. I find a reasonable percentage to be either amusing or informative (particularly for gigs / releases.)
Ben Goldacre and his bad science links are an excellent source of amusement / despair
But apart from unless you are very selective it really is shit
My favourite has to be the surgeon that twats during surgery. That was just bloody fantastic and I'm sure the victim err patient was delighted by the distraction.
Oh he probably made the right noises about not being worried because the doctor wasn't being a twat during the surgery itself, only on his breaks, but you have to be honest here and ask yourself if you would want your surgeon's mind on the fucking internet rather than the surgery itself.
'Yeah mum, I know, but I ask you who needs both kidneys? Besides my surgeon made history and my second heart is lovely."
> Clearly you *could* care less, Stevie, because there is still room for you to care so little as to not even be roused to post comment.
This conversation would be really confusing to Canadians as they routinely say "I could care less" when they actually mean "I couldn't care less".
This in a place where they have cash machines that say "We appreciate your business"..as if a cash machine could/couldn't (choose as appropriate to your nationality) care less.
tw@tting is more appropriately aimed at Twitter's detractors than its users. By definition, they don't get it and hopefully never will. It'll save me having to waste my time deciding that they don't merit a follow and, to be frank, I'm deliriously happy to know I won't have the misfortune to be followed by your like.
Twitter, in any case, has rather shot itself in the foot with the @replies debacle. I'm looking forward to the better Twitter that will inevitably come along. That's the only sure thing in this game.
Yeah, that's right... we don't "get" it.
In the same way we dont understand why anyone watches big brother or buys Heat magazine.
We dont understand how anyone can want to follow benal d- list celebs and actually think that makes them interesting and part of the in-crowd.
And interesting to note that you are delirious that WE dont follow YOU, when we cant possible know who YOU are as YOU have decided to remain anonymous.
I Get the phenomenon, i just wish it wasnt used by so many saddo's who constantly say "you just dont get it" when they mean "we havent grown up yet and think the 353 friends we have on facebook are real, instead of people who hated us in school".
How would I describe it ?
"Persistent IM via the Web, designed for people with gnat-like attention spans, with a 1990's-era user interface and an obsessive compulsion to show me pictures of some stupid whale".
I'll admit "web 0.2" is a bit snappier though.
Alien, because we'll need the help of more advanced life forms to work out Twitter's business model.
You've made it abundantly clear that you "don't get it". No need to repeat yourself. That kind of behaviour would get you rapidly unfollowed on Twitter.
It's not all "benal(sic) d-list celebs". There are a lot of a-list celebs too if that's your bag. Plus lots of journalists, writers, experts in numerous fields, magazines and newspapers tweeting updated content a la RSS. In fact, I'm glad you're missing out. It's really great.
I don't use any of the other social networking websites although, inevitably, I've had to open an account on each of them for one reason or another. I reckon that's the case for at least 75% of Facebook's alleged users though I could be wrong. Twitter just isn't like the rest. You can refer to Twitter users as saddos if you like but it seems to me to be demonstrably much sadder to waste time slagging off what you claim to be a pointless website that you don't understand on yet another website which is normally only frequented by borderline austistic IT types with bad body odour, a full gamut of vocal and physical tics not dissimilar to Tourette's and precisely zero friends including family. 353 friends!? Dream on! I also suspect that everyone hated you at school right the way down to the janitor's dog.
P.S. If I google SuperTim will I find out exactly who you are? The super part is clearly a misnomer and doesn't look much like a forename to me.
Um so let me get this right Hugh Laurie says that only Twits Twit on Twitter - that almost rhymes doesn't it?
Could we make it into a tongue twister perhaps?
twenty two twisted twits, twitting together on twitter, twittering their days away ...
No sorry that all became too banal and I ran out of inspiration although it does sound like something out of a kids ABC book.
I'll get me coat then - that one there the one with the cuffs tied together...
Twitter's business model?
Given the number of places going: "contact us on Twitter, it's by far the simplest way to get in touch"*, I'd say this has to be:
1) Borrow lots of money.
2) Bribe world + dog to mention you as much as possible.
3) Get lots of extra users.
4) Sit back and smile at your humungous user base and bathe in the glory of the "darling of Web 2.0" accolade.
5) Ah. The money. Oops..........
*For the benefit of any Terriblegraph, Channel 4 or other ADD-ridden meejah types reading this: NO IT F***ING ISN"T!!
I recently read a very astute quote about the king twatter: "Stephen Fry is a stupid person's idea of what a clever person is like"
Exactly! There is a difference between, on the one hand, a ready wit and a pub-quiz-like ability to remember trivia and, on the other, genuine cleverness and erudition.
The thing that really gave Fry away (apart from his incomprehensible lust for the assinine and plug-ugly Alan Davies) was his moronic and gushing encomium to Saint Jade when Britain's favourite slut-chav-bitch shuffled off the coil in a blaze of toe-curlingly tacky hysteria. Christ, even Ol' Mother Kray's funeral had more style and dignity!
Let me summarise my thesis in just 82 characters:
Twatter away, you smug posh fat twat - and may your tweets come back to haunt you.
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