Social media began...

Social media? It seems to have been around forever to me. It was, perhaps, more exciting when it was illegal and involved lashing extremely long aerials to chimney stacks, taunting the authorities who didn't want us rampaging over their airwaves. In comparison, the internet seems a nice, safe place to be. Anyway, with apologies to Larkin and his popular toads...

Wonderful Year

Social media began
When I acquired my first CB
(which was rather early for me)
Between the start of senior school
And Ozzy Osbourne's Blizzard of Ozz LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A spate of glue sniffing and
Copious amounts of masturbation,
A shame that started at thirteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A handle and chat
An indecipherable jargon-riddled game

So social media began
When I acquired my first CB
(which was enormous fun for me)
It allowed me to stalk the airwaves
And talk incessantly.

The new paranoia...

If this were a hard copy diary rather than an electronic vanity exercise (sorry, personal brand enhancer) for, if anyone were ever to swing by, public consumption, things would be very different. I could write down everything. But, as I have pointed out previously, this, this thing, is not the sum whole of my life (although, I admit, huge aspects of my existence are aired here). Ah, how I would like to tell you about them. But I can't. Although it would all be true, I wouldn't like to get caught up in a messy defamation action. Occasionally, out of necessity, the odd moment(s) is (are) captured on paper. You have to get these things out of your system, I feel, otherwise they nag and gnaw at you and the whole situation can become quite, well, as I am reading Simon Gray, cancerous. Or I might just be saying all this on the offchance that they might be reading. Does my hard copy version of events actually exist? And, if it does, do I adopt the bitchy Kenneth Williams stance or that of everyone's pal Michael Palin?

In the digital age, paranoia is rife. Why? Well, a huge conversation is taking place. And lots of people who are out of that conversation and can't quite work out how to get in to it have started to think that, well, they must be talking about me. Apparently, another tweeter suggested, my tweets are being monitored by my enemies. And, for that matter, my entire web presence is being logged and filed away for a future appearance in the High Court. Although perhaps I am suffering from the new paranoia and they're not doing that at all?

Churnalism vs journalism...

When I was employed in the heady world of news reporting I was certainly more Jayson Blair than John Pilger (while actually wanting to be Keith Waterhouse). If I were still tied to my desk, as we all were, I would have embraced twitter as a tool that had the potential to get me down the pub before 4.30pm. No surprise for me, then, to read Mercedes Bunz's Digital Content Blog post yesterday regarding the increasing relevance of social media in the day-to-day under-the-kosh efforts of journalists. We also get a nonsense pie chart graphic that an eight-year-old mucking about in Paint/Chris Morris would be extremely proud of:

What I really enjoy about this blog entry is its post-modern insignificance and pointlessness - it is itself an example of the kind of churnalism that results when hacks place too much importance on twitter as a news source. Bunzy's words are sourced from a survey conducted by Cision and The George Washington University but, generally, it's just noisy babble about nuthin'. More please!

On twitter...

If, like me, you're rather fond of twitter, I'm sure that also, like me, you've found yourself defending its masterful ways to people that don't really get what it's all about. My mad camera operator friend Martin is one such person who doesn't comprehend the benefits that such a fine and dandy service could bring to his life. Martin reads my tweets as they automatically arrive over on facebook, where, operating under the mysterious and typographically suspect non-de-plume Russle Hobbs, he appears to be constantly waiting for their arrival so he can tut and mumble about them immediately. Over our bacon sandwiches in a cafe yesterday morning he entertained himself with the uproarious notion that the next natural progression for me in the twitterverse would be telling the world how many sheets of toilet paper I was using on each visit to the WC. He wastes so much time coming up with such hilarious rejoinders to my magnificent tweet output that I feel he'd be better putting that time to much better use by signing up for a twitter account and working out, for himself, what a positive tool it can be. Anyway, not content with that, he decided to complain at a tweet of mine that told the world what I was having for dinner. I am so pleased with my response that I repeat the little light-hearted spat here for your delectation...

Dave Windass Food update: Just ordered the Vegetarian Banquet from Giant Panda. By the time we've done we'll be Giant something or others...
via Twitter

Russle Hobbs
this is exactly what i was bleating on about this morning

Dave Windass
Hmm. And here's me thinking that you actually listened to me earlier. There are, of course, two possible answers to your response to my tweet. Option one is the over-familiar two word response that a man such as yourself must have heard a gazillion times. Option two is a little lengthier. Hmm. Now, which one? Hmm, oh, I know...

Firstly, you assume that just because my tweet about food and, to be more specific, food ordered from Giant Panda, is available on public forums that it is actually there for you. It isn't. It's for me. Yes, that's right, I write these things for me. Now, if anyone wants to get involved in a conversation following such a tweet, I will indulge. But the initial impetus is always a desire on my part to a) record the boring ass parts of my life that I may otherwise forget and b) promote myself on an ongoing basis as a person that does lots of boring ass stuff.

So, that's that cleared up. Don't, for one minute, think that I care whether people may find a tweet about the mundane, boring ass aspects of my life boring. Because, well, I know that they are a) boring and b) still curiously twice as interesting as the boring ass things that other people are getting up to (an element of subjectivity enters into these things, of course. It is the nature of the id, the ego and the super-ego that I find myself more interesting than anyone else ever will. I like to think that I counter this with a heavy dose of self deprecating wit but, occasionally, I forget to do that)....

Moving on - and what you fundamentally need to understand - is that tweeting is A BIG CONVERSATION taking place ACROSS THE WORLD. In responding to my original tweet you have used exactly the same amount of energy as it would have taken to actually engage in the conversation taking place in the twitterverse. Rather than remind me that "this is exactly what i was bleating on about this morning" when I was, of course present, you could have offered something more constructive. For example, I tweet about Giant Panda. Meanwhile, across the city, someone else, somewhere else, has always fancied ordering food from there. They ask me what I think of the place, if I would recommend, if the Vegetarian Banquet is worth the price tag - you see? This is a CONVERSATION. I post a pic so that they can see the quality of the food for themselves, they ask me to let them know at the end of the meal if I enjoyed what I ate. You see what's happening now? Alternatively, you could have taken the Chinese theme and we could, say, have had a conversation about the recent Google/China spat, or have reflected on our memories of, say, the Tiananmen Square protests and subsequent massacre in 1989. That could happen. Alternatively, people outside of the city, outside of the country, just know that little bit more about Giant Panda. What's more, it's from an independent source and, as such, maybe they feel they can trust such an opinion. They think, having chosen to follow me to see if I am a reliable food outlet reviewer, right, the next time we're in Hull we'll go there. You see? Do you? They ask me more questions, we strike up a virtual friendship, heck, they even start watching Hull City AFC on ESPN as a result and promise to visit our fair land. And all because of the CONVERSATION.

What I'm saying is...don't use your energy to knock it. This is happening. Some interesting things are being said. As a promotional tool, both personally and for organisations, twitter is a very powerful tool. You follow people, they will lead you to some very interesting places. You will become a part of big networks full of likeminded people. They will give you work. They will give you advice, help, answers. And all because of the CONVERSATION. Albeit conversation that does start with innocuous, boring ass stuff about what's for dinner. And all written by people who, generally, are doing it not for you, or them, or anyone else, but for themselves. Ok, so you don't get it. Not everybody does. Not at first. But you should join us. Need I go on?