There are opinions which
an mistakable majority of people know are facts:
Oranges are the color of
orange juice,
Water makes objects wet,
Known facts are not
opinions,
And Twitter is useless for
politics. Mostly.
What can Twitter
definitively do? Promote the opinions of the already well known, and
occasionally allow the unfamous to ascend into the public sky. It
allows anyone to write on their own public billboard for free, with
hope that someone else will read it. Which is why I joined the
service in January 2016 to announce my articles for Awkward Mixture.
Prior to January, I'd unconsciously avoided Twitter. There's little
reason to look at it if you don't have a profile.
Google is packed
with articles
by those who have quit Twitter, (and some who have returned). There
seem to be two main reasons for abandoning Twitter: its either a
drain on an individual's time, or it's too angry. For those avoiding
the political aspect, spending time on a frivolous topic such as
sharing favorite movies or discussing the Bachelorette live, may not
be considered a waste of time, even if it consumes it.
Rather, when time is spent in angry, exhausting arguments with anonymous strangers, (or even perusing the opinions which one agrees with), suddenly, an hour or two has passed, and the only result is strained eyes, a splitting headache, and a miserable mood.
The worst example of this
is the cycle of outrage and shame relating to well known persons,
sharing outrageous political opinions online (and occasionally
offline). So constant is this spiral, because the number of
semi-well known citizens, willing to embrace conspiracy theories,
spout foul jokes, or denigrate our common humanity, is nearly
limitless.
As a result, the names of Roseanne Barr, Kathy Lee Griffith, Corey
Lewandowski, Melania Trump, Milo Yiannopoulos, Peter Fonda, Ted
Nugget, Samantha Bee, Michelle Wolf, Dinesh D'Souza, James Gunn, Joy
Reid, and many more have (and will) become synonymous, for at least a
minority of Twitter denizens, with disrepute.
These personalities, to
differing degrees, committed a serious error of judgment. They all
said something, that they believed, at the moment they wrote it, to
be true. They didn't do it under duress, but under their own
judgment, and most believe they did nothing wrong, even if the
apologized for it.
What they all had in
common was the casual use of incivility at the least, and cruel
crudity at the worst. Some readers are undoubtedly appalled to see
these names lumped together, but each (and many more) said something
which provoked a virulent reaction, and it was a mistake for them to
have said it, because it was (at the very least) crude and pointless.
Of course, other, random,
normal people, post the same or worse daily, but their lack of
profile protects them. But the posturing of the well known, these
political celebrities, invokes the ire of the partisan mob for their
racist, sexist, threatening, disgusting, and dangerous comments.
Examining
Twitter, one of the recent debates focused on James
Gunn, Mike Cernovich,
a person who is either a prophet or an abomination, and is defiantly
a male supremacy advocate, found and published 10 year old tweets of
Gunn's after Gunn criticized Mark
Duplass for praising conservative
pundit Ben Shapiro. The prompt response to Disney's firing of Gunn
was the wild finger pointing, the yes,
buts, and the calls of hypocrisy. In
minutes the insatiable mob of Twitter attempted to place the blame on
Cernovich, Johnny Depp, John Lassiter, Logan Paul, Patton Oswalt,
Michael Ian Black, Roy Moore, and because it's Twitter, (and I kid
you not), Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland as somehow equal to or
worse.
Twitter encourages this
behavior. They could have developed a tool for discussion, or
problem solving. Instead, the developers sought prominence over
substance, its community became a mirror of its desire. In the realm
of politics, Twitter users employ a few techniques to achieve
prominence: the angry retort, the passive aggressive response, and
the witty reply.
These three tools are the
best means of earning the attention of others. Twitter is often
compared to a game, where the only goal is to secure more followers.
More followers, a larger platform, which broadens one's reach to
acquire more viewers. Wit and Wrath draw the eye more powerfully
than warmth, and this truth isn't confined to Tweets, but profiles.
These mini, personal portraits are composed of esprit and emotion,
which rivals individual messages. Even any attempt to reject wit
becomes a source of cleverness as well. Resistance to wit is a
posture, an impossibility, except for the inept.
Those incapable of
cleverness, or anti-wit, assign labels. #TheResistance,
#StillwithHer, #MAGA, #TrumpTrain, #TheStorm, as if people want to
voluntarily box themselves into containers for others to judge.
In politics there is
no escape. Two of my favorite posters, @petersagal,
and @ggreenwald,
are locked in pointless political confrontations. But it seems as if
this behavior is beneficial for one's Twitter profile, if not one's
writing, or sanity. The amount of content created by writers,
celebrities, and anonymous users is astounding, and seems to be more
important than their regular job. It's possible this whole article
is expressing my inability to understand Twitter. To love the
service, some users claim one needs to immerse themselves in the
community, posting and replay dozens of times a day. The sighs of
relief, offered by those who escape the grind, and the despairing
anger of those who don't dispute this assertion.
If there's an
example of politics done well on Twitter, avoiding the pitfalls of
outrage, sarcasm, yelling fruitlessly into the void, and snark, then
my award for best Twitter Users would be @NateSilver538
and especially @ForecasterEnten
formerly of 538, and now an analyst for CNN. Some aspect of their
profession, their use of mathematics and statistics, alleviates the
otherwise abrasive nature of the medium.
For those readers who follow the political articles. I've found that
I can keep a schedule best, if I'm writing a series. So expect
another article or two along this line.
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