One of the most beloved and reviled internet fads of the last few years has finally reached critical mass. That's right, Twitter is the most ubiquitous meme this side of Charlie's finger biting antics. Everyone from Ashton to Sarah has gotten in on the act.
Now, there is certainly a place for Twitter in our national consciousness. For instance, the Twitter page for this website is probably something that you should check at least hourly. It is a way for people and organizations of all statures to reach a virtually limitless audience with their musings, and that quality is precisely the program's Achilles' heel. We decided to put together something of a sliding scale of tweet relevance, from the most insightful to the most ridiculous. The following are examples of things you can/should be tweeting about to things better left untwittered.
10) "Iranian elections sure are crazy right now, keep an eye on it" - OK, that isn't too bad, not anything particularly deep but not the end of the world.
9) "Iranian elections proving LaRouche right" - This is something you probably want to avoid, expressing your fringe political beliefs culled from years of HAM Radio listening and newsletter reading is probably not a way to make new friends. In fact, it will probably land you on an FBI watch list.
8) "Chaos in Tehran. Kobe wins MVP!" - These two things are both true, but they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Twitter's 140 character-per-tweet limit lends itself to some creative editing. But if you're going to be sending out unnecessary tweets anyway, might as well split up your posts.
7) "OMG WTF IRN?!1" - No one outside of your Warcraft buddies knows what the hell you are talking about here; this is just a random set of letters and poor punctuation. If people want that, they can just go out and pick up a Chuck Palahniuk novel. Seriously, does anyone actually like those things?
6) "New Dane Cook is hilarious!" - This has nothing to do with Iran, you should just never ever admit to liking Dane Cook. He steals other people's jokes and isn't funny.
5) "Really insightful article on the Iran situation [link to a post from an "author" who has published a book where the cover is a picture of their face, i.e. Olbermann or O'Reilly]" - Linking to an obtuse and/or shallow analysis of a current event in a futile attempt to show your supposed "intellect" will only serve to a) preach to the choir or b) confirm people's suspicions that you can't think for yourself. This also goes for linking to articles from The Economist or The New Republic --- we all know you never actually finished reading past the second paragraph so don't expect us to finish it.
4) "Hey maybe we can send a bailout to Iran!" - OK, slow down there, Conan! Let's leave the satire to the professionals. Your heart is in the right place, but your funny bone is nonexistent.
3) "[Insert random historic quote that (in your mind) is somehow relevant to current events]" - This is the thing about quotes from everyone from Gandhi to Ferris Bueller: they can be used to describe pretty much anything. Sure "Give me liberty or give me death" can be used to express your solidarity with oppressed peoples the world over, or it can be in reference to the fact that you're going to traffic court over that open container ticket you got while driving home from Bonnaroo.
2) "I thought they declared peace in the middle east" - Seriously, you gotta put down the Twilight and pick up a newspaper once in a while. Also, avoid voting next time out...we don't need you participating in choosing leaders.
1) "A joke involving Bristol Palin" - This will just end up causing a lot more trouble than it's worth.
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