[lbo-talk] Tweeters, Twitterers and Twats

[Alan P. Rudy]

> On May 30, 2012, at 11:02 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> > [WS:] I understand the virtue of brevity, but what on earth can you
> > say in 144 characters of less that has any gravity at all - unless of
> > course your persona already has gravity i.e. power so every word you
> > say also has gravity.
> >  
> > If I say "Down with capitalism" who gives a flying fuck? However, if I
> > write a 300-600 word essay that explains particularly well why we
> > should get rid of the pesky thing, some people may pay attention. If,
> > otoh, the POTUS or a US senator says "Down with capitalism" - that
> > already has gravitas and he/she needs to say nothing more.
> >  
>  
>  
>  

So, let me get this right… you have no experience with the medium but are wholly convinced that it is useless and that all the millions of people using it couldn't possibly be saying or linking or showing or networking anything of any gravity at all?  Yeah, all that stuff from Doug - useless, the tweets from Verso and the London Review of Books - farcical, Delong and Robin - fooling themselves, Dave Zirin and Chuck Prophet, not to mention Howe Gelb - they got nothing to communicate this way, my sister - never shared a photo worth a damn… I mean, really, Woj says there's surely no one of any genuine or emergent gravity (which, as we know, is the sole measure of the utility of social media) using the medium so it must be a ah, well, what's the point neither Woj nor I have any essential gravitas anyway…

I signed up, was quickly overwhelmed with the number of cool, interesting and provocative tweets, retweets, links, pics and thoughts to follow and/or track down and only look about once a week for fear of never doing anything else.