First, a little housekeeping: As an aside to those who have been following my China adventure blog with bated breath, I just want to let you know that my final entry into the series is going to be coming out in the next week or so… I’m just preempting it here in order to talk about something a little more topical.
Also, I’m pleased to announce that the Trifecta (Andy, Reberk and I) have launched a new blog project, wherein we talk about the various facets of games and gaming. It’s essentially the textual scion of the weekly conversations we had on our hit radio show “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” and, if you’re wanting to hear three sweet dudes talk about D&D, review games, and otherwise geek out, you could do far worse than to check it out. Reading the latest entries by Berk and Andy, I was forcefully reminded of their thoughtfulness and eloquence… I’ll have to pull up my socks for my next post!
* * *
Anyway, the title of this post is not simply me indulging in my regularly schedule self-deprecation. It is instead a reference to the fact that I have, after considerable foot-dragging, decided to set up a Twitter account: @frangibility.
“Now, wait a minute,” I can hear you asking yourselves. “Why would this self-proclaimed curmudgeon and ostentatious facebook holdout be adopting a different invasive internet time-sink?”
I have to admit that I thought the exact same thing until just a few days ago, despite never actually having used the offending software, when I ran across this Roger Ebert article that convinced me to give it a try. In it, he discusses his own previous reservations about Twitter (specifically, he thought that it represented “the end of civilization”), but notes that, after suffering a bout of cancer that robbed him of his ability to speak, he has managed to reinvent his love of pointed, adroit repartee using Twitter as a medium. Even though he can no longer make topical jokes in conversation, he can still do so online. As a long-standing Ebert fan (his facile opinions on videogames notwithstanding), I took his discussion seriously and figured that, at very least, I should give it a try rather than writing it off, sight unseen.
Rather than bore you with stories about setting up my account, I’ll just describe two incidents that swung me over to the side of Twitter advocacy. First, on Monday afternoon, as I was getting ready for my literary Chinese class, I happened to notice that my friend Hadge had posted a concern about the termpaper that he was in the process of writing. Now, he probably wouldn’t have explicitly emailed me about this, but since I heard about it passively, it let me jump in and offer him some tips (which I hope were somewhat helpful). Second, I’m using my account to follow all of my elected representatives (as well as the jackasses running my city and country). After our mayor dropped his execrable budget, my city councillor immediately began using his twitter account to dissect its various lies and inaccuracies, as well as detailing the various constituencies that would be hurt by it. Responding to this, I asked him if there was anything that the citizens of Toronto could do. Within six minutes, he had replied, telling when and where concerned citizens could go to make their voices heard. Likewise, I was able to find out about my MLAs involvement in protesting the closure of the OccupyTO movement. In the Canadian political climate, where our prime minister actively attempts to squelch access to information and freedom of the press, I find it incredibly refreshing to have such insights into the daily activities of my city councillor, MLA and MP. It’s an impressively direct form of communication, as well a clear expression of accountability.
Now, that being said, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that it’s an online tool that, like any other, can easily waste time and fill one’s life with an unnecessary dross of “information.” For instance, some people follow hundreds of Twitter accounts and write posts that vapidly broadcast the minutiae of their daily lives… Fortunately, you have the simple option of not “following” those people. By carefully selecting the accounts that you follow, it seems reasonably easy to keep the amount of material manageable, as well as avoiding being inundated in drek. As for me, I’m pretty happy getting daily updates from my elected representatives, some of my favorite authors and artists, and a few friends. I’ve already been introduced to videos, articles and news stories that I never would have encountered otherwise. Check back in a month to see if I’m still so enthusiastic, but so far I’m pretty impressed!
I jumped on board not long ago, too, though my interest is largely restricted to video game developers. Having more than a passing interest in game design, it’s great to not only hear the process that these individuals are going through in their work, but also to be able to provide them with direct feedback.
It’s a great tool, as you’ve mentioned, for connecting directly with the people who interest you. Out of all the possible methods of communication out there, I think Twitter is the most effective at touching people who one might otherwise consider inaccessible.