I don’t tweet much. Once a day or so, just to blast out blog updates.
On Twitter, I follow more than am followed. I follow 26 people and only 15 follow me. I really must do something about this.
The reason I follow most of the tweeters I do is to get information. While it might be mildly relevant to know where someone is lunching, I am more interested in newsier Tweets. These often include items that don’t make the major newspapers, are written with esoteric angles or are relevant to narrow industry sectors. Or they’re just plain funny. Those I follow are publications mostly—The New Yorker, Fast Company, Vanity Fair, Advertising Age, Politico. Freaknomics puts out good stuff. I’ll make another pitch here for Fake AP Stylebook.
One night recently, as I was scrolling the latest Tweets before bed, the most bizarre collection of headlines jumped off the screen.
I wondered how these would look to someone having just awakened from a decade or two of hyperbaric sleep and wanted to catch up on the latest developments in fashion, politics, the environment, cable news or travel. Then again, Twitter in and of itself might buckle the brain of anyone who’s been out of touch for, say, 10 years.
Here is just a sample of the headlines I read within in just five minutes’ time:
New York Fashion Week to Include Designer Sex Toys
Barbara Boxer aide charged with possession of pot
China Beats U.S. to First Offshore Wind Farm
Scandal Glossary: The Complicated Past of Piers Morgan, Larry King’s Replacement
Airport “Naked” Body Scanners Get Privacy Upgrade to Anonymize Your Naughty Bits
Pinch me; I must still be dreaming.
Please remember, there are no blog updates on Sundays. I’ll be opening the Sunday paper with caution.
Word Nymph 