In defense of Twitter

While businesses and professionals have embraced Twitter as the new revolution, the news and entertainment media have been quick to dismiss the service as a superfluous addition to the smorgasbord that lies before my generation of techno-wastrels. Everybody from CNN to The Daily Beacon is accusing "tweets" of marginalizing organized thought and perpetuating the myth that minutiae matters.

Well, the time has come for an honest and decent man to give the ubiquitous microblog a helping hand.

To begin, some questions: Is Twitter a vice, one of which to be ashamed? Is it hurting anybody? Would staging an intervention be appropriate? If congressmen stopped tweeting, would the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan come to a halt? Would North Korea cease the launch of their satellite / missile? Would the economy stop its seemingly endless free-fall?

The answer to each question, of course, is an emphatic "No way, Jose!"

So how bad can it really be?

In defense of Twitter, it is a harmless outlet for the delusions of importance that every single human feels from time to time. From the actually important (Barack Obama, Bill Gates) to the faux-famous (Mark Zuckerberg) to the so-unimportant-that-they're-somehow-important (Paris Hilton), the endless stream of tweets, twitterers and followers is nothing more than an expression of freedom of speech.

Twitter has plenty of good qualities, too. For starters, it's absolutely, totally free. If you tweet from a computer, it's free. If you tweet from your iPhone, Blackberry or PDA, it's free---except for your monthly service, which you pay anyway and are unlikely to give up. If you tweet from a standard cell phone, it's free---standard text charges apply, but what the hell? Compose an update or two.

The next best thing? Absolutely nobody can force you to use it or update it. My journalism teachers recommended I get an account, so I did. Do I think it's kind of dumb? Sure---but nobody can accuse me of neglecting to follow orders. I have "device updates" turned off, so I am not bombarded 24/7 with "tinyurls" I can't even access on my basic cell phone. Essentially, it is just a bunch of status updates that I only check on a computer. No harm, no foul.

So if people want to pretend that other people actually follow them, go ahead. I'm not part of Gawker's "Twitterati," nor do I want to be. Maybe people Facebook-stalk me; maybe they follow my few tweets; maybe they read my blog...or maybe they don't. This blog is no more legitimate than my own Twitter account, except that it is more well-written and thoughtful (I hope), and longer than 140 characters.

The point is, Twitter is not hurting anybody. Except, of course, the rare update-whore who gets his fix during class or a board meeting. But if it wasn't Twitter, it might be something else more dangerously addictive, like Facebook's Scramble or online Sudoku.

Twitter = my anti-drug

If you know me, this will make sense

Newrotic... mellow dramatic... what do these seemingly incorrect word combos have in common, besides being totally made-up? They're part of my new school of philosophy, as related to the cycles of my ever-developing thought processes.

Not unlike Stephen Colbert's "truthiness," these descriptors are meant to appeal to the guilty pleasures we all have, but can't describe or admit to without suffering embarrassment at the hands of our supposedly more level-headed peers. It's time somebody came clean and gave these internal conflicts the attention they deserve. I'm no Freud (who would want to be?), but I suspect I'm not the only person experiencing these influxes and withdrawals of emotion.

I dream big, but maybe not big enough. I don't want to be a modern-day robber baron/press mogul like Rupert Murdoch...but I sure don't want anybody to outperform me at what I do choose to pursue. It's evident, then, why I was sick to my stomach upon earning a C-minus on my editing midterm. Pardon my slang, but WTF? I know I'm not yet a trained professional, but come on--that's my career choice.

When I was forced Tuesday to acknowledge a factual mistake at work and issue a correction, it compounded my miseries. All at once, I lost credibility; now I'm tasked with starting at the bottom and earning back the trust of my readers (and editors).

The challenge, however, is in how I handle the situation. Do I complain to everybody I come into contact with? Yes--and I'm sorry. But I don't want to be "that guy" who complains about all the (mostly voluntary) work he does, so I play it off with dry sarcasm to deflect the criticism. Hence, freaking out while still trying to appear cool, calm and collected = mellow dramatic.

And sure--I'm a little neurotic. Once upon a time, it was hip to be a worrisome, sexually frustrated, self-examining dude (think High Fidelity), but that ship has sailed. Now it's an antiquated way to steal a cheap laugh. It's still fine to turn the camera inward, but don't assume that everybody is fascinated by an uber-introspective loner. Learn and teach, but don't preach. Maybe others feel the same way; be a guiding light. That's newrotic--worrying about the little things, and applying them to the outside world. It's not all about you.

This made more sense when it was only in my head. I'll try to develop it later.

Five days...

...is how long I made it without eating any meat. And you know what? I'm fine with that. Those 15 meals were long enough to prove that 1) I can survive without the animal flesh, and 2) I'm a happier, healthier person with it.

The first two days weren't too inconvenient. If you think about it, all my meals of PB&J sandwiches, bagels or pasta exclude meat on a regular basis, so I felt like I was giving up surprisingly little.

Then the hunger set in: a constant gnawing within my stomach walls. I was unsatisfied, even when I had just eaten.

"But you're not full," my stomach would say. Well, yeah...that's true. Being a little hungry doesn't necessarily mean you didn't eat enough, though.

"But wouldn't you feel better if you ate some more hash browns, or maybe that doughnut? How about a handful of chocolate chip cookies?" It was beginning to taunt me.

I gave in to the demands. Sometime Sunday, I realized that cutting out meat was leaving me with unrealistic cravings. Hash browns fried into oblivion have absolutely no nutritional value. Two slices of bacon would have provided me protein and fat, at about the same caloric cost.

To dedicated vegetarians, I say: Give me animal flesh or give me death!

Not really; I actually admire people who can eat a veggie diet with no significant shortcomings. But I was sluggish, tired, hungry, cranky and quite possibly unpleasant to be around (although a 3rd party source would have to confirm that). All I could talk about was my diet. And I don't want to be that guy.

To "celebrate," I ate a well-made regular-size Baja Chicken sandwich on wheat bread from Quizno's. I think I can keep the red meat out of my diet for the most part, but without my bird flesh, I'm a fowl person.

(Let that one sink in.)