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No, YOU don’t “get it”

Here we go again. Back when I was in high school, one of the coolest things to do was to be into a band that no one heard of. We’d look down our noses at the very happy pop music lovers, thinking that they had no idea what good music was. And when we were asked what music we were into, we’d proudly fire off a half dozen names and praise their awesomeness. We’d even lend our friends tapes, and records in hopes that they, too, could see what they were missing. But, inexplicably, the moment that one of our favorite bands got popular, we considered them “sell-outs” and swore that all the new “fans” were into them just to be cool. These so-called “fans” didn’t “get it”, they were posers.

As immature as doing this was, I guess it was our way to express how we felt, how we lost a bit of our coolness, and we resented it. Well, I’m sorry to say, this high school pettiness is happening all over again. But this time, we’re not talking about R.E.M. or NIN, we’re talking about Twitter, you poser.

Sorry Oprah and Ashton, you don’t get it

Recently, I discovered a site called Here Before Oprah. Essentially, it’s a way to prove that you were old-school and a fan of Twitter before Oprah discovered it and brought her legions of fans onto along (enter the fail whale, stage left). But, weren’t we the ones praising Twitter just yesterday? Weren’t we the ones pushing for more people to get on it? Was I the only one that got tingles when newspaper writers started asking Twitterati for their opinions on articles? So why the about face? Instead of embracing Oprah, why make the point that we were on it before her? To keep cool, I guess.

Add to this, recent posts saying that celebrities only see Twitter as a broadcast channel, that they only talk amongst themselves, and that they don’t see it for it “truly is”. Truly is. What a crock. Yeah, because we all “got” Twitter when it first came out. Uh huh, sure. Y’know, I don’t recall Twitter originally being designed for retweeting (RT for those of you who don’t “get it”), but all Tweeters do it these days. Like so much in this world, many things grew and evolved into something greater than they were originally designed for, or were truly meant for.

Dinner knives make great screwdrivers

How many of you have cell phones, but primarily use it for texting? How many of you own TVs and use them to babysit your kids? How many of you have used a dinner knife as a screwdriver? In the end, it doesn’t matter what a tool was originally designed for, each person will use a tool as they see fit. If they derive some value that’s important to them, then great! If not, who are we to jump down their throats and act elitist?

If we stuck to using things for what they truly were designed for, we wouldn’t have Krazy Glue, Post-it notes, pace-makers, nor Twitter itself (I do recall that the internet was originally designed for the military - what’s your name soldier?).

Twitterati, Schmitterati

Looking down at Oprah’s plunge into Twitter is shameful, and seeing her presence on Twitter as the end of it is ludicrous. The web is undergoing an age of engagement and collaboration, i.e., the ultimate in marketing. The web is engaging, accountable, and collaborative. All this elitist behaviour is counter to the evolution.

So for those of you who see celebreties on Twitter as a negative thing, grow up, and embrace their curiosity. Welcome them and be friendly… you web 2.0/social media “expert” posers.