An Exploration of the Writing of Twitter

Transcription

1 An Exploration of the Writing of Twitter It is human nature to be judgmental. We are all judged in everything we say and do, and we all judge others for what they say and do. Understanding that there are norms to which one must conform if one is to inhabit the real world is a fundamental fact of life. Fulfilling these social obligations grants us acceptance and validation from our peers, while failing to behave in accordance with the norms can have negative consequences. The pressure of this dynamic helps fuel people s innate desire to escape into something that is not the real world. Historically this has been done through reading books or watching movies, or writing one s own creative works. So where do people go in the digital age to escape from their reality and gain acceptance? Here I will demonstrate the ways in which Twitter offers people an interactive opportunity to escape from their real life while gaining validation and acceptance for their thoughts from people all over the world without fear of reproach.

2 The juxtaposition of real life versus Twitter is such a common topic of discourse that real life has its own abbreviation in Twitter-speak (RL). Facebook (FB) is commonly considered to be the place to put on a happy smile for your family and the world to see; you use your real full name, and you post socially acceptable statuses about mundane topics like the weather, and you like your grandmother s pictures of pie. The differences between FB and Twitter are a running joke on Twitter to the point where a social norm of Twitter is to not respect or appreciate FB or FB people. It is viewed as a plastic world where people are fake or mundane, and usually both. It would be easy to call this a hypocritical mindset for people who are using pseudonyms and have avatars (the picture identified with their account) that may be a distorted angle of their face, or even a cartoon character. What is important to keep in mind is that the reason feel comfortable expressing themselves in such a real way is that they are able to stay anonymous. Twitter s validation system is fairly straightforward. When you write a tweet, it is broadcast to all of your followers. If someone likes your tweet, they will reward you with a favorite (star), a retweet (RT), or both. Stars get tallied and give a sense that what you are saying is being well-received, and a RT means that your tweet will be rebroadcast to all of the followers of the person who RTed you, where it will have the opportunity to be given stars and RTs by even more people. The tweet on the top left from Snafu Davis is written as a joke, but there is

3 quite a bit of truth to that anxiety that many tweeters feel when they post a tweet and wonder if it will be a complete bomb. Just because Twitter offers the opportunity for validation, it is not guaranteed. It should be noted that Twitter very much works on a you scratch my back, I ll scratch yours principle, in that one must be willing to read other people s tweets and validate them through stars and RTs in order to get the same courtesy shown in return. The hardest part of Twitter is breaking through and reaching a point where you have enough followers to guarantee that someone somewhere will probably see the tweets you write and give you that first star. Favstar is a service that corresponds to Twitter. It collects and tracks all of the stars and RTs every tweet receives, and people who have Favstar links in their bios comprise nearly every tweeter about whom I am discussing in this paper. Getting that first star, as I alluded to, is the most important because tweets are not collected and stored by Favstar until they receive at least one star. In addition to helping keep track of one s tweets success as far as stars and RTs go, it offers the additional validation option of trophies. People who subscribe to Favstar s service are allowed to give out one trophy per day, and it is considered an honor to receive one. People customarily write thank you acceptance tweets for trophies and will generally run through the giver s Favstar account to star and RT some of their work as well.

4 I ve been part of the Twitter community long enough to be able to chat with people, and I discussed with a number of them why they are here and what they get out of Twitter. One person, who uses a picture that is not himself and a name that is not identifiable in any way, told me that he uses Twitter to unload his brain by simply spewing forth whatever thoughts are coming to mind. He is then able to reflect on his thoughts and gain perspective about himself and who he is as a person by re-reading his own tweets. While he claims to make no connections with people online beyond reading and RTing their work, he uses the insights he makes about himself to help him build better connections with other people in RL. He said that the anonymity of Twitter is what allows him to be so free with his thoughts, knowing that he is not in any real danger of a RL person finding his account. It should be noted that he receives ample validation for those thoughts, having amassed in excess of 7000 followers and gathering in excess of 300 stars on nearly every one of the 5ish tweets that he posts daily. It should be noted equally that he gives as much validation as he receives, being one of the most avid providers of stars and RTs to the people he follows.

5 The only tweeter I spoke to that I am comfortable sharing with you that they spoke with me is my friend Amy. We chat fairly regularly, and I told her I was doing a project about Twitter and, without giving any information as to the topic or my thesis, asked if I could ask her a couple questions. I m just going to quote her directly here, as she told me that I was welcome to since she feels her anonymity would not be jeopardized in any way. Me: What draws you to Twitter and what do you get out of it? Amy: Humor. I turned to Twitter to escape reality because it was just too miserable. It started as a way to make myself laugh from reading other people s tweets, but it expanded to include validation when I found out that other people think I m funny, too. It really did help me feel better about myself to know other people can relate to my humor. In RL, I m usually the only one laughing at my jokes. Amy very glibly summed up most of what I m presenting here through her own particular case. I had several people tell me they were just here for the humor, that reading other people s funny tweets helps brighten their day. Think of Twitter as replacing the funny papers for these people, except there are thousands upon thousands of hilarious writers sharing their work, and it streams to you endlessly twenty-four hours a day. Another tweeter also told me that his RL was a nightmare. He claims terrible OCD and hypochondria to the point that he spends much of his free time stressing out about things that could kill him. He is an example of someone who isn t writing tweets that reflect his true self, instead he comes up with funny tweets that have nothing to do with his real life because the activity gives him an opportunity to use his brain power constructively. He also stars and RTs religiously and get as much validation as virtually anyone in the Favstar community.

6 There can be a negative side to seeking validation on Twitter, most infamously the Twitter Meltdown. A meltdown is essentially when someone appears to completely lose touch with reality or has an unbecoming ranting session. Twitter offers the opportunity to say whatever you want without fear of reproach in your RL in theory, but it is still not without judgment or the same voyeuristic tendencies as other forms of expression that we discussed in class. The difference is that it has the potential to be voyeurism on a viral, global scale. I have seen countless within the Favstar community, but I am showing here one tweet of Amanda Bynes most recent meltdown. Generally a meltdown is not summed up in a single tweet, but is more of a rapid fire situation with someone doing the closest thing to throwing a tantrum that one can from behind a keyboard. Amanda s meltdown goes much deeper than this single tweet, really stretching back to the spring of 2013 before she went to a rehab facility. I mostly wanted to illustrate the type of psychotic-sounding tweets that are representative of what she tweeted and to point out the number of stars and RTs that this tweet, and all of her meltdown tweets, received nearly immediately. The Favstar community, as a general rule, stays away from the celebrity wing of Twitter, so those numbers are really reflective of a different part of the population, but even the Favstar community can come to relish watching someone fall apart before their eyes. For a celebrity the stakes are higher in a public presence sense, but for the average person it represents the same thing: a cry for help. Sadly, since we do not know these people in RL, there is nothing more we can really do for them but watch. This is also really a reason many people

7 have meltdowns on Twitter, they may just be throwing a tantrum and getting it out of their system so that they can vent and go back to RL able to breath. The truth is we never really know. Many have been known to have a meltdown and simply twittercide, that is, deactivate their accounts never to be seen or heard from again. Another friend of mine recently deactivated her account for a completely different reason: she was getting more attention than she was willing to deal with. She did reactivate her account after about a week, and I was able to talk to her about what really happened. She said that between Twitter and a couple other apps where she chatted with people, she was getting hundreds of messages a day. She said they were all from friends who just wanted to say hello and drop in, but it became so over-whelming that she simply wanted to go back to RL. This is someone who has in excess of followers now, and she is incredibly funny and popular as a tweeter, but I had no idea that so many people felt such a close connection to her. She used to obsess over Twitter, saying that she would even use it when she was at the movie theater. Twitter had consumed her RL to the point where she needed to escape from it. She was taking steps back slowly, but finally she just wanted to look up from her phone and go back to RL. As I said, she has come back to Twitter, but she has deleted the other apps from her phone and is going to look

8 out for her own time more now. While this isn t a typical extreme for people to reach, it is common for people to become sucked in to Twitter. It can be an addictive hobby with people their next Favstar trophy like a heroin addict chases their next score. Another common phenomenon is people perpetuating a negative attitude or lifestyle because they receive validation on Twitter. Not everyone who writes about self-harm or abusing drugs and alcohol is actually living that lifestyle, they could be hiding behind a persona, but many are legitimately wallowing in self-hatred, self-pity and self-destruction. The stars and RTs they receive endorse this behavior in ways that are not healthy by helping people stay stuck in negative patterns. These people aren t using Twitter as a healthy escape from their RL, but instead as a crutch to perpetuate the negativity they are bringing on themselves in RL. I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to mention trolls. A troll is essentially someone who hides behind their account s anonymity and uses it to leave nasty comments on other people s tweets. As a social norm, most Favstar tweeters do not regularly comment on each

9 other s posts, rather formulating their own ideas and posting them as unique tweets that do someone else. Trolls do not formulate their own thoughts, instead they tend to target women and say lewd disgusting things to them that may or may not even relate to the tweet that was posted. The validation they are seeking is the knowledge that they successfully got under someone s skin. They are the equivalent of a heckler at a comedy club: they aren t funny enough to tell their own jokes, but they think they can be funny if they spoil yours. They are seeking attention, not in a healthy or productive way, but in a decidedly destructive way, and they use their anonymity to get away with being jerks. We ve touched here briefly on a number of different ways that people feed their needs for validation and escapism by playing into the world of Twitter. Like anything, it can be used positively or negatively, all depending upon whose hands it is in. When used in appropriate doses and in healthy ways, it has the potential to ease suffering and provide personal insights that can lead to happier, healthier lives outside of it. By contrast, it can also be the ultimate enabler for protracting one s negative impulses, or overrun one s RL with excessive use. Either way, it serves people s need to be validated while offering an escape from RL.