Twitter

Update, Dec. 2009: I wrote this a long time ago. I have not hated Twitter for quite a long time and have since started using it.

There's no way to write these things without sounding like a rousing curmudgeon, especially on all things technology. A lot of things annoy me at first that I end up using or liking. Grand examples include camera phones and MySpace/Facebook.

Anyway, one of my guiltiest pleasures is monitoring/voyeuring people I know on Facebook. I have over 180 friends on the service, the vast majority to whom I haven't spoken in many years. However, it is wildly fun to see that an ex-junior high school classmate is now married and working in amateur theater.

It is, of course, also oddly satisfying to find an ex-crush has gained lots of weight. I understand I've also become chubby, but schaedenfreude is schaedenfreude.

Anyway, the voyeurism inherent in Facebook is all good and well, but problematic is the status message. Most people use it as it is intended, to alert friends about actual status and current activity.

This, of course, is ridiculous. And Twitter is an extension of this.

There are two things at work here: The constant connectedness of our 21st-century lives and the Internet as a repository of everything in creation.

I am not necessarily against either idea. I would be the world's biggest hypocrite were I to complain about stupid shit posted on the Web; this blog is based entirely on the idea that I want someplace to complain. People can read it or not, which is fine. The Web is largely a repository for everything, be it stupid, offensive or brilliant.

Similarly, I own a cell phone -- I have a friend who doesn't and he is difficult to get a hold of. Indeed, my cell phone receives e-mail and the Web, so I am constantly connected to my electronic self.

The problem with Twitter is that its very existence gives people the ability to constantly update the world on their status. Instead of a daily "I am in place X," Twitter gives people the ability to constantly update every minute feeling/detail/bad idea/cheesy joke that pops into someone's head.

This, of course, is preposterous. The proliferation of blogs and the millions of Web sites on the Internet makes for a robust marketplace of ideas. A good, undiscovered writer can write about whatever s/he wants on the Web. Before the Web, this was not possible.

But there is no marketplace of ideas that Twitter satisfies or populates. Rather, it's simply an extension of the voyeurism inherent in status updates on a larger scale. There is no real worthwhile organization on Twitter and there is no real way to navigate the site. It is, for the most part, a clusterfuck of people Tweeting into the void.

"Effing"

I'm 27 and my job title is "Web Producer." I am not aversed to the Internet. It is, no doubt, the most important thing to happen in my lifetime and has changed the way we do just about everything. Unfortunately, aspects of the Web and increased communication mean that the way we communicate has changed. And not for the better.

I understand the need to be succinct. I do not lambaste the move toward shorter news stories or 10-second soundbites. No, I don't love either, but I think short journalism is just as important as long journalsim.

Rather, the advent of certain technologies (smartphones) and software (IM) have created a trend of strange contortions of the English language which I cannot support. The first of these, of course, is the word "effing."

Often, in blogs and even in the mainstream media, you'll see someone write "effing" or "eff" in a blog post or comment section.

This is fucking stupid.

The reason that one says "effing" is because they are trying to use a verbal version of "f--king" or "f-ing." It's pretty simple; They are simple naming the letter to invoke a bad word. While this annoys me a little in speech (we're all adults and bad words are still just words), I have a potty mouth. That particular thing may be a Ross problem.

Nevertheless, when you're typing and you're self-censoring, what is the point of writing "effing." First off, "eff" is not a word. "F" is what you would be saying. That's it. If you're writing an e-mail, type "what the f?" Or "What the f--k?" If you're posting a blog comment, say "f-ing." Don't spell it out. It's two more keystrokes.

Think about it in other contexts. When you're writing to someone to say you got an 85% on a test, do you write "I got a bee on my test?" Do you ever type that Adam Carolla is a "see-list celebrity?" Of course you don't. Hell, for other bad words, people don't spell out the letter. I'm not an aye-hole or a geedee idiot. I'm an a-hole. A GD idiot.

People I know and like do this, which makes it even worse.