« Bone Headed Performance Bugs | Main | NewsGator Toolbar Update (1.5.3.233) »
Almost Three Weeks of Twittering - otherwise known as... well... lets call it "venting"
I've now been twittering for almost three weeks (you can follow me @nick_harris) and I gotta say I've been enjoying it.
Unlike NickB's first experience with twitter, I decided (as NickB puts it) "to follow friends, co-workers, developers, and a random assortment of people I've met (online or otherwise)" right from the start. Making fun of how long NickB takes to do his hair is just plain fun :-)
But I think the thing I like the most is "venting" about my coding frustrations. A part of my personality likes to "vent".
Apparently everyone I follow seems to enjoy "venting" as well. From the people I follow I've learned that United Airlines, passwords only known by one person, paypal emails, Flash updates, gas prices, Oscar winners, NetFlix, PayPal emails, kid birthday parties, digital camera battery chargers, rainy days, politics, NVidia drivers and wet socks (among many, many other things - only went back 5 days) give others the need to "vent" as well.
Twitter's tag is "What are you doing?". Maybe they should change that to "What are you bitching about?" :-) Oh well, it is fun. A nice outlet and comforting to know I'm not the only one annoyed by the little things in life!
Not to say that it's all bitching though - there's a lot of cool thing as well. Like people launching sarcastic web sites!
PS:
Going back through my online twitter account made me realize how many tweets I miss through Twitterific. I'm sure that's by design, but still some good stuff in there. Wonder how I could get those... oh yeah... the RSS Feed :-) (fitting that my post about bitching ends with me bitching)
Posted by Nick Harris on February 25, 2008 at 09:53 PM | Permalink
Comments
I've noticed this for years, almost all communication in which you don't have immediate feedback from others devolves into a form of bitching (or posting pictures of your cats).
- On MySpace, almost every post up there will be about someone bitching about a relationship gone South or someone pissing someone else off (because they're all 16 is a good reason why).
- Your basic half-personal/half-technical blog like yours or mine is usually just one long rant, even a good share of Jeff Atwood's posts are just rants, I know I use my blog to bitch at the injustices of the world.
- Half the posts in newsgroups start with "Why does X suck so bad?".
- Blog comments? Again, usually someone bitching about what you just posted.
Twitter is just the natural evolution of being able to bitch about something quickly. What I like about Twitter in that respect is honestly it keeps the bitching *out* of my blog and it keeps my whinging to a 160 character maximum vs. the 8 paragraph rants I used to like to dish out. 40 minutes later and I'd done nothing but basically talk to myself. Now with Twitter it's a quick turn of the old steam release knob and I'm back to work :)
Posted by: Shawn Oster | Feb 25, 2008 10:22:48 PM
Yeah, there is a lot of venting and frustration, but I agree with Shawn. I think Twitter in particular is a great way to vent. You are able to let off steam, but as with everything else, you have to do it in 140 characters or less.
Either you let it off within the limit and move on, or you realize it would take too long and move on anyway. In either event, you've done a little personal therapy and are most likely over it (at least for the moment).
And of course if it's a really big rant you need to vent, you can always fall back to a blog post...
Damn those gas prices!
Posted by: Chris Meller | Feb 25, 2008 11:36:56 PM
Cant say in my sphere (mostly following/followed by wine bloggers) that bitching occurs that often. Mostly we have developed into a little chatting community offering lnks to interesting news, latest blog posts, blog events, suggestions & comments on wine that sort of thing. All very civilised.
Posted by: Andrew | Feb 26, 2008 6:14:55 AM
In my case, "doing my hair" means washing it, then brushing it. I recommend you try that sometime (especially the washing part, sheesh....)
Posted by: Nick Bradbury | Feb 26, 2008 2:49:22 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
