Sometimes I wish I was good at Twitter. It would be proof that I’m not just intelligent but super witty and have something to say about the state of the universe. There may be no “I” in team, but there is definitely “wit” in Twitter.
If I was a tweeter, here’s what I would tweet
Here are a few things that have crossed my mind to tweet but never made it to the Twittersphere because, well, I have a filter. And the filter reminds me that I’m not as smart as I think I am.
This is legit what I was thinking one time watching Jane the Virgin. I then had a moment of dissonance when I realised my boyfriend obviously doesn’t look like Rafael Solano, but I couldn’t shake the resemblance. In the end, I didn’t tweet this because it’s really just a BF brag. Also, part of me knows that I would only tweet this because of the possibility of a positive response on Twitter … maybe even a comment or RT from Justin Baldoni himself!
After typing this I went and looked at the trending hashtags: #ScomoMustGo #ScottyfromMarketing #LiarfromtheShire. I wish I hadn’t. It was pure vitriol that left a bad taste in my mouth. But … is my untweeted tweet really any different? Adding this to the Twittersphere would only inject more snarkiness to a platform already saturated with it. And, it would make me – lover of overseas travel that I am – a total hypocrite.
I mean I need a whole blog post for this – that’s the “tbc”, because I haven’t figured out exactly how I feel about it all yet. It’s a pretty lame “tbc”, like I’m externally processing on Twitter.
The only reason this tweet may even vaguely be worthwhile is that I’m Asian and therefore have some authority to speak. Apparently. Otherwise, who cares what I thought of this movie? Not Ali Wong or Randall Park. Not Keanu Reeves, that’s for sure.
This is also a cool thing I want to share about my colleague, but only people who know the guy would understand this, let alone find it cool. And those people probably already read Michelle Obama’s book two years ago so the news is way too ancient for Twitter.
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The problem with me tweeting
So here’s the thing about these “sample tweets” – when I read them back to myself, I feel like an absolute tool. I can’t shake the sense that it’s all about being clued in or snarky or witty or the trifecta of being all three at the same time.
The unfiltered nature of tweets won’t sit right with you if you thrive on reflection and processing. Which is kind of the point, I think. The Twittersphere was created to be noisy, to be a platform for people to air unfiltered bubbles of thought.
Except that in a huge twist of irony, the best tweets are probably also heavily manicured. Not unlike “natural make-up”, I’m fairly sure the most popular remarks are edited to look unedited and effortless – which won’t sit right with you if you value authenticity.
Not to say everything on this blog just spills out of my prodigiously deep soul (sarcasm intended). I spend hours on some of these posts. Not so they’ll read like high literature or make me look good, but because I’m getting my thoughts straight in my own head so that I know what it is I’m actually trying to say.
And to know what I’m trying to say, I have to know what I actually believe.
More so than the other major social media platforms, Twitter encourages the having of an opinion. It doesn’t matter how much you know about the topic, you’re allowed to have an opinion that’s on par with academics and academic journals, broadsheets and tabloids alike.
Twitter doesn’t just encourage the having of an opinion – it glorifies it, without caring how you arrived at said opinion. Don’t think too hard about it. Just pick an opinion that feels right and then run hard with that.
By “run hard”, I mean make it really witty, or really incendiary.
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If I could be bothered, here’s what I would actually tweet
If I were to strip back the snark, stop worrying about looking smart and/or on trend and just be myself on Twitter, this is what I’d tweet. Insofar as I can say anything worth saying in 140 characters, that is.
Header image: Sara Kurfeß.
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