Tweet

If you ever wondered who invents / comes up with the text messaging jokes, you’ve never really been on twitter.

Twitter is where you see sharp wit at its best. People from all walks of life will surprise you with their opinions, which are sarcastic and enlightening at the same time.

But one has to remember, twitter is NOT a social networking site. It’s a micro blogging site.

Twitter is NOT for chats. It’s for conversations. And knowledge sharing by way of links.

One of the greatest by products of twitter is the URL shortener. 140 Character limit has led to further creativity with people inventing tags that make up for a whole lot of space. For eg. #FacePalm is a short for ‘How could you make such a moronic statement that makes me want to bang my head or yours preferably against the wall’.

People who come to twitter seeking to make new friends or seek relationships are instantly branded as #Orchutiyas which politely means descendants of the Orkut kind of socializing, with a little Indian colour added.

On an average, 20 tweets a day would be considered extravagant. But if some intense subject props up, or an interesting #HashTag trends, the number could go up to 100 or more.

Twitter is where you show off without worrying about showing off. You can be nasty without being looked down upon.

And this brings us to another startling fact. Which tells us more about people than we ideally would have wanted to know.

The fact being that twitter is the place where people with absolutely abysmal social or inter personal skills are rockstars.

Let me explain.

In a human society, there are many dynamics at play. And emotions are at the top of the food chain. One needs to be correct, polite, affectionate, sensitive, understanding, and quick witted. And a whole lot more.

But on twitter, because the medium is passive, you can rise above all these lacunae and express yourself without being apologetic. Twitter festers apathy. Twitter allows you to get away with anything without tact. And twitter gives you an alternate universe where in 140 characters you can show yourself to be someone you’re not.

There are people who wish they were actually doing the things they tweet about. And then there are those who do things just so they can tweet about it. At all times, catering to an audience. And get retweeted to become popular.

Retweets are horses. Meeks are studs. #SixWordStory

The whole world is a stage. And the truth is that 95% people suffer from stage fright. Where the sight of an audience makes them forget their lines.

Twitter allows people to take the stage by proxy.

Yet, twitter has far greater potential than a micro blogging site alone. Twitter is probably the only real threat to google.

You see, search is increasingly becoming context driven. And while a google search may throw up a million results, frankly, I don’t have the time for it. I need filtered results with some relevant links, thank you. And twitter does that.

Try it. Search for anything on google and on twitter simultaneously and you will be a believer.

And in today’s time and age, if someone is not on twitter, they are living in digital denial.