Thursday 25 May 2017

Twitter Patter


There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is Twitter.

I've been spending a lot of time on Twitter recently, and it's doing my fucking head in. I think it's the way every tweet - at least all the ones that get shared - is constructed according to one of just three or four templates. For anyone to get a joke on Twitter, it has to be written like a joke on Twitter. And I find it really depressing when everyone speaks the same.

Some of these lazy Twitter joke constructions include:

Dear... 
As in "Dear 2016. Please stop killing celebrities. Sincerely, the world." I don't know if it's supposed to cute, or funny, or why you'd bother reaching for your phone to add to the endless slew of identical tweets. Dear people who write tweets like this. Please stop.

Your daily reminder that...
I saw one recently that said "Your daily reminder that pineapple, in fact, goes on pizza." It got 310 retweets. Like the previous one, this is just a way of prefacing one's tedious opinion in a way that's been sanctioned by the dullards of Twitter.

Me:... Also me:...
This comes from the Evil Kermit meme, which is essentially about internal conflicts. On Twitter, people say things like: "Me: I have to get up early. Also me: Watches Netflix until 3am." Hahaha, people are so complex! Sorry, not complex. Boring.

I had more of these, but the problem is clearly that I am an old person complaining about the way kids talk on the internet. Who cares? I'm just jealous that my tweets never get any reaction, because they're massively unfunny and mostly to do with Star Trek. 

But while I'm here, here are some miscellaneous tropes that I'd ban if I became dictator of Twitter - or Louise Mensch, as she's known.

Memes, threads, lol used ironically, "lads", lol used sincerely, arguing with trolls, retweeting Katy Hopkins, and shortening the word fascism to "fash".

Here's DJ Shadow.