Fun Size Bytes (from @Tj)

“Ugh… Twitter… Why would anyone use Twitter?”

indefensible:

emmyinabox:

My friend just found out I twitter, and now she is talking loudly right next to me about how people who twitter and blog obviously think they’re important enough for everyone to hear what they have to say and how esentially they are all terrible people.

I have no idea what to do about it because it’s frustrating as hell that she is judging me for doing something I enjoy.  She won’t even listen to me try to explain what it is.

I know I shouldn’t care, but she’s a great friend and I really don’t like this and it’s making me really grumpy.

People say to me, “Why would anyone want to use twitter?”

I say, “Beats me.”

I don’t tell anyone I know about my online things (apart from the lady-shape). Furthermore, when anyone tries to start a conversation about Twitter, I listen, but don’t contribute. I’m not interested in being an evangelist, nor of defending myself for liking reading online more than I enjoy watching television.

I was in class a few weeks ago and there were several references to Twitter made by the instructor about how Twitter was the worst of all the social networks out there, how it was vapid, narcissistic, etc.

I just smiled and let them talk.

There were people who were against television.

There were people who were against rock & roll.

There were people who were against the telephone, for fuck’s sake.

How many times have I heard people complain about their cell phone? (I actually had someone tell me that they’d never get an iPhone because their current phone was too complicated and they never used any of the features on it.)

Now there are people who are against Twitter.

They are, as a whole, people who don’t get it. They haven’t spent enough time to figure it out, and so they make fun of it or put it down because they don’t understand it.

Same as it ever was.

A group of friends used to get together for a weekly webchait. We’d made a private room on AIM. Did I try to explain that to most people? Heck, no. I told them I had a weekly conference call, and I took my phone off the hook for an hour while I was chatting with them.

I was at a conference in Indianapolis in May where they were talking about the importance of friendship all week long.

Tuesday night I ditched the scheduled “Everyone has dinner together and it’s really too loud and it takes forever to get the food” and went out to meet a bunch of strangers from Twitter.

It was the most fun I’d had in ages, and I met some awesome friends. We spent 4 hours together, and I would have done it again the next night.

I was doing what they were talking about.

A few weeks later I drove 4 hours to meet another group of strangers in Pittsburgh, even though it meant having to drive home at 2 a.m.

When I was back in Pittsburgh in June I got together with a couple of them again. I sat around having drinks with Geoff and Julie, just hanging out and talking. Felt like hanging out with old friends, although we’d spent only a handful of hours in the same room before at the Twootenanny.

When I left Pittsburgh I drove an extra 4 hours to “swing by Cincinnati” to hang out with Ben and Erica and Josh and Ethan (@beep). We had dinner and got ice cream and talked and hung out.

This weekend we’re driving eight hours to Chicago.

When people asked why we’re going to Chicago, I haven’t said “we’re meeting a bunch of people we kinda know from Twitter.”

I’ve said, “We’ve got some friends who live there who are throwing a party, and we’ve never been, so we decided we’d go.”

If we ever get up the nerve to try and survive a trip to Australia, you’d better believe we’ll be knocking on Ross and Erin’s door. (We’ll be getting a hotel ‘tho. Can’t have the kid walking out into the kitchen at 3am and find them flying around the kitchen on the sex swing.)

We’ve got some other friends we’d visit too. Who? People I’ve “known” for 10 years on a mailing list made up of people who have beagles. I’ve only met a small handful of them too, but we’ve been through births and deaths and jobloss and moves and aging parents and all that together.

So let ‘em talk, and let ‘em judge. They don’t really know what they’re talking about, but it’s not something you can explain to someone who isn’t willing to learn. Heck, it’s taken The Wife months to “get it” and she’s been interested.