In defense of twitter

I was a latecomer to twitter. I avoided it for the same reasons many people avoid it. It has a tendency for the infantile, disposable and self-indulgent. Eventually I signed up because it seemed like a wise way to promote this web-site. By reminding people of my articles through a short, 140-character micro-blog, I could promote the site in a friendly, intimate and most importantly, non-annoying way. Then I got into twitter, and began to see the real value of it as an intellectual tool (which I'll get to in a minute).

So when Ricky Gervais, a man I admire greatly for his work in film and television (I've said many nice things about him on this site in the past), quit twitter because he found it banal, I was a little disappointed. This is what Gervais, in a nutshell, has to say about the social networking site:

"As you may know, I quit Twitter. I’m sure it’s a fun site for teenagers, but there is a certain lack of dignity for adults who use it. Especially celebrities who seem to show off by speaking in public. If I want to tell a friend what I ate this morning, I sent him a message. I do not need to have virtual friends, I find it absurd to be honest."

There are a multitude of implications that we can extrapolate from Gervais' comments. The first is that he tarnishes all of twitter with the same brush. Yes, there are plenty of tweens and even adults who think the world absolutely must hear tweets like: "Just fed my cat. LOLZ!!!" or "Just saw #NewMoon, lk Taylor Lautner is lk rly hot, srsly." Additionally, there are plenty of shitty celebrity tweeters (I think these are the people Gervais says "show off by speaking in public") who do nothing but expound about the party they were at last night, or the new album/book/movie they're promoting. These people are, unfortunately, the backbone of twitter. But their existence does not mean twitter as a whole is  useless and/or pointless.

The trick to using twitter correctly is to find people that you find interesting. If they tweet correctly, they can offer you a window into the way they think, or they can just point out things that you would find interesting, too. Moments like British mentalist Derren Brown pointing out a study that shows that self-control -- or the lack of it -- is contagious illuminate just how Brown thinks, and even offer the tiniest of insights into how Derren Brown does the amazing things that he does.

Roger Ebert is one of the best exponents of intelligent tweeting that I've seen. His posts are often funny, sometimes thought-provoking, or touching. His twitter account offers a friendly relationship with one of the most knowledgable and encyclopedic film critics on the planet -- who wouldn't want to know what that guy thinks about?

Similarly, Kevin Smith's twitter account offers us the chance to actually have a conversation with this funny, intelligent and industry-savvy film-maker. Almost all of Smith's tweets are responses to questions from fans. Often the questions are inane, I'll admit, but Smith never resists a chance to crack a joke (I personally love it when he responds to hecklers with a witty one-liner before he blocks them), and the number of smiles his twitter account brings me each day is easily worth the millisecond of clicking it took me to follow his account.

It may sound, from the previous two paragraphs, that all I do is sit on twitter all day and wait with baited breath for some celebrity to deign to let me know what's going on in their mind, but one of the best things about twitter is that you can have it going on in the background as you go about your work. Every half an hour or so an alert will pop up letting you know of a new tweet. It takes but a second to read. Because I've chosen to follow people that I find interesting or that I believe think in an interesting way, usually I'll find something to smile about, reflect upon, or an article to divert me from the tedium of my daily tasks. Kevin Smith, Roger Ebert and Derren Brown are but three interesting people that I subscribe to on twitter. There are plenty more interesting thinkers and witty entertainers out there that are worth your time. Unfortunately, people like John Mayer, Paris Hilton and Lady Gaga get all the press.

The point of this article? Nothing major, really. Just to point out that I think Ricky Gervais is mistaken when he says it's undignified for adults to use twitter, and that he's wrong about twitter's lack of usefulness generally. As with most social networking sites on the internet, twitter is but a tool. It's up to the individual to use it properly. Like just about everything on the internet and in life, twitter will be of more use to those who can think, want to think, and want to converse with people who like to think.

Now I'm going to go feed my cat...

Follow the film brief on twitter.Actually, scratch that. I'm not Jesus Christ. Drop by for a visit on twitter.

How to use twitter: