July 17, 2009

Wanted: Narcissist



I don’t have a Twitter account and I admit to it. I don’t have a MySpace or Facebook profile, either, which means that, given that it’s 2009, I’m essentially “not with it.”

To be honest, I view Twitter with more disdain than the other two, which might sound odd because having seen many MySpace profiles I’ve come to the conclusion that some people shouldn’t be allowed to work with HTML code whatsoever.

That aside, Twitter is a bit different because not only is it designed to be more narcissistic—it’s actually supposed to tell everyone what you’re doing at any given minute of any given day—than the other two, it does so in a way that is based on the premise that we need to limit ourselves in terms of expression: 140 letters or less.

We’re constantly hearing about the “dumbing down” of our culture, and Twitter is a wonderful way to help this movement along. Instead of expecting someone to introduce something, write about it, build upon it, make their point, and wrap their topic up in a conclusion, Twitter now lets people pull off a brief sound bite and carry on.

Our cultural push to make Twitter as popular as humanly possible is helping it happen. Almost on a daily basis I’ve heard “Twitter this” or “Twitter that.” Even C-SPAN is now scanning Twitter posts for viewer input, in place of the usual e-mails that they used regularly. Now their Washington Journal guests get to hear one- or two-sentence quips instead of three or four well-written sentences to which they must respond.

Before I continue, I need to mention that I’m not blaming the guy who started Twitter. He didn’t force anyone to pick up on the fad. (And yes, I think it’s going to be a fad; MySpace was said to be amazing and people thought that it would have staying power but now it’s on its way out. As for Twitter, 60 percent of all Twitter sign-ups quit after only 30 days.) Twitter’s creator simply offered a service and others liked it. It’s akin to texting: no one forces people to text and type things like “kewl,” “u” for “you,” “ur” for “your,” or “2” for “to”—people do it themselves.

On one hand our society laments about the poor writing skills of our students and quickly blames teachers, but then we simultaneously encourage the use of a tool that ostensibly aids in eroding the ability to write properly. We no longer have to present our topic; we can simply fire off a one-sentence comment on it and move on to the next topic.

Why do we do this? Well, because it’s popular. In fact, this reason is one that I see given quite often as to why everyone should be on Twitter 24 hours a day, seven days a week: everyone is doing it so you should, too.

This is why I wasn’t really surprised to learn that Best Buy recently listed these two requirements for being considered for the position of Senior Manager/Emerging Media Marketing: have a bachelor’s degree and have a Twitter account with at least 250 “followers.”

I can understand that Best Buy wants someone with a college degree. I can understand that they want someone in “emerging media” to know how to use Twitter. What amazes me is that they’re so focused on the popularity factor (at least 250 followers) that it seems to trump the ability of the applicant. The exposure is the be-all and end-all.

It’s not hard to get “friends” on MySpace; some people have thousands and tens of thousands because they sit at their computer and just send out friend requests all day. Having a certain number of Twitter followers doesn’t mean that your ability at something is greater than someone else who might have half that number. I wonder what might happen if in a year or two Twitter falls in popularity. Will this senior manager be given the boot?

I can imagine the new qualifications for Best Buy’s CEO position: must like pizza and be good at Halo and World of Warcraft.

References
Albanesius, Chloe. “Many New Twitter Users Not Coming Back for More.” PC Magazine. 29 Apr. 2009.

Kavur, Jennifer. “How Many Twitter Followers Does it Take to Get a Job?ComputerWorld Canada. 10 July 2009.

McDonald, Loren. “Twitter: Email with a 140-Character Limit?MediaPost. 15 Jan. 2009.

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