Twitter and Facebook, Oh My!

I thought I was pretty tech savvy. After all, in high school, I was a computer tech. Just after graduation, I went to work for a company selling computers. In college, I was a computer science major for a while and then worked for a pharmaceutical company in the IT department. But, I admit that I don't get a few things about computers these days.

Twitter. Yep, I don't get twitter. I had someone tell me today that she was being interviewed via twitter. No, actually, she told me she was having a twitterview. A WTFview? What is a twitterview? Apparently it is when a tweep says twello on in twitterverse via a tweet and you respond with a tweetsup (different from a tweetup) in twitterverse and this goes twiton and twiton. For those of you like me who prefer to speak English, a twitterview is not when a twit interviews you or you interview a twit. A twitterview is when you interview someone on twitter. I still don't understand how you interview someone in 140 character statements. There seems to me to be no way to get any flow. It would go something like this:

Q: wat r u doing these days wit your biz?
A: my biz is doing well since i began mktg with u.
Q: how has ur mktg changed since u hird me?
A: i know say things in 140 char or less.

I mean, seriously, does anyone know what I just said? I don't know if I know what I just said and I made it up. And, for those regular readers, this is worse than my Chiller parody of Michael The-Gloved-Wonder-Hair-Caught-On-Fire-Wacko-Used-To-Have-A-Nose-Slept-With-Boys-In-Bed-But-Didnt-Molest-Anyone Jackson. (Fit that on twitter you twitaholics.) Its like people on twitter want their own language. Wait, I have seen this before. Maybe the twitter folks are the some knuckleheads who blawg instead of blog. Just a thought.

Then there is Facebook. I thought Facebook was a place to talk to friends, get caught up, and generally waste time. I get that. But then people do stuff on Facebook and it makes me think "Do your brain cells stop working when you sign on to Facebook?"

Of course, there is the friending people you dont know. Wait, first there is friending and defriending people. We have to make up words to deal with this? Okay, but once we do, why would you want to be friends with my friends? And why would you want to be friends with my female friends? And then why would you want to be friends with my female friends' daughters? That is just creepy. Really creepy. Like call in my friend the professional badarse creepy.

And then why do you want to argue with my friends? I mean, my friend comments on something I write. You comment. Then you responded to my friend who you don't know? Then you argue with said friend? Why? Then, after a while, and I mean like an hour, you delete all of your posts so my friend appears to have been arguing with himself? First, why do you are that much what my friend says about what I wrote? Heck, why do you care what I wrote? I don't really care what I wrote. Second, why do you respond? You don't know the person. You haven't met her. Why does it matter? Third, why do you then spend time removing your comments? Does it matter that much? Does anyone actually care what is put on Facebook? Unreal.

Folks, relax a bit. Its a website. And a website with games. And you care what people you don't know are saying? If you are riding the subway, do you listen to what the person next to you says and comment to them? Probably not. So don't comment on Facebook.

This "social media" stuff really is unsocial. People do things on these websites that they would not do in person. We don't make up words. We don't talk in 140 characters. We don't comment on things with people we don't know. We don't care that much what people around us are doing. How about we get back to social norms and we start talking to people, stop making stuff up, and start being nice. Well, except to debt collectors and landlord attorneys who dont think the law applies to them.