Twitter, Twatter, Twotter…and Thumb Gymnastics.
The Twitterati. The word has even made it into the Oxford dictionary. Because nobody ever wrote anything down until humans learnt to dance a jig on double jointed thumbpoint whilst having breakfast with a lover that they haven’t spoken to for six months and won’t get round to speaking to until they’ve answered all 112 total strangers who’ve just appeared on their timeline.
The Twitterati live in a different universe to the rest of us. They travel thousands of miles to the Maldives on holiday, but their unseeing eyes are focussed on a small black screen which dances with ever changing 140 characters detailing the minutiae of their ‘followers’ back home in Salford. They go to the Paris Opera, but their unhearing ears are alert to the soft ping which announces another instalment in the life of the office cat back in Birmingham. They dine in the best restaurants, but their lips barely move as they signal ‘hang on a minute’ to the waiter whilst those busy thumbs career across the keyboard in answer to the stranger wanting to know the nearest MacDonalds to Moscow. They invented ‘sexting’ so that they could enjoy the wonder of sexual excitement without ever giving those thumbs a well earned rest.
We had visitors last year; they had travelled thousands of miles to ‘visit us’. They barely spoke to us. They never spoke to each other. They ‘tweeted’ from either side of the room. At one point they spent the entire afternoon in the Jaccuzzi, mobiles held aloft from the bubbles, twatting away – emerging at dinner time, a pair of perfectly matched shrivelled prunes with carpal tunnel syndrome comparing sun burn – via Twotter naturally.
They spend their entire lives immersed in the opinions – and threats – of anonymous strangers. The answer to many of the world’s thorniest philosophical questions appears to be a picture of a cat that looks like Hitler. Strange, strange people.
And because they are young, they think they have invented everything. Including insults. And Threats.
Once upon a time, people you really knew, people you met every day, might walk into the school toilet and be met by the message ‘Barrington-Smthye Junior stinks’; possibly Barrington-Smythe Junior took this as a hint to take a bath more often; possibly he was left with deep memories of being bullied at school. Older girls who had embraced the call of their hormones more enthusiastically than convention dictated might be treated to the message ‘Janice Smith gives good head’; a timely warning to Janice – but I don’t remember a clamour to dismantle toilet walls.
Once upon a time, folk would take a spray can of paint and daub ‘Pakis go home’ on the nearest wall. Was there a popular movement to suspend the manufacture of bricks and mortar?
Once upon a time, folk would light bonfires on the headland to warn smugglers that the customs men were about – was there a Government call to ban flints and faggots on the grounds that ‘criminals were making use of them’.
Now earnest commentators bemoan the ‘degeneration of respect for each other’, and the early ‘resort to sexually abusive language’ as though it had just been invented. The Government frets about criminals warning each other. The New Puritans are permanently on the look out for the merest hint of any comment that ranks below unalloyed praise and support for their favoured groups – ‘vulnerable victims’ – otherwise known as women in general; homosexuals – honorary women; and anyone with a suntan that doesn’t wash off.
And they call for the dismantling of brick walls, banning of flints and faggots, regulation of Twitter so that it becomes a medium through which only groups approved of by the New Puritans may swap cat pictures expound their philosophy of the universe and breast-feeding techniques. ’FluffyTwit’.
It is, without a doubt, a largely Feminist driven movement. Part of the current obsession with driving young white heterosexual men into oblivion. Stories detailing the tribulations of the unfortunate man in the US whose wife cut off his penis and put it in the garbage disposal unit are whoopingly retweeted – whilst bemoaning (in the regulation 140 characters) the lack of convictions in the UK for female genital mutilation. The Co-op has been cowed into moving ‘lads mags’ onto a top shelf and then only when hidden behind a plastic bag on the grounds that it is ‘sexualising young children’ and giving them ‘unrealistic role models’ – whilst nobody complains of the bare chested Chipperfield lookalikes advertising on-line Bingo ‘for the ladies’. We have endless commentary on the Scottish Golf Club that is ‘men only’ – but where is the clamour for women-only saunas to be shut down?
Men are being quietly corralled into the role previously occupied by prize bulls. Isolated in a field, surrounded by red warning tags, and occasionally led gingerly by the nose to perform the only use anyone can think of for them.
Does anyone know whether there has yet been a settlement in the dissolution of a female civil partnership? Did one lady get to support the other lady for life?
Discuss.
August
2, 2013 at 07:28
-
UPDATE (2 Aug 2013)
Well, that was a damp squib! Mind you, I can’t blame anybody, for I got
bored talking about myself in very short order – how on earth do celebs manage
it? So tiring.
On the plus side, at least one Twitter follower has delisted me, but I
can’t be bothered to find out who.
Who reads tweets anyhow? If you follow a lot of people then each message
soon gets pushed lower down as the list lengthens. You’d have to be online
practically all the time. Is this service tailor made for iPhone owners with
OCD?
Thanks to Bill Quango and Paddington for their comments on my blog.
- August
1, 2013 at 10:24
-
To all: I’ve just launched World Tweet Like A Celebrity Day, please help
make it a success:
http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/world-tweet-like-celeb-day.html
-
July 31, 2013 at 16:45
-
Btw, in case anyone gives a rat’s rear-end, Fiona and her multiple
personalities may be referring to my fund-raiser to collect money for my
citizenship last year. Quelle horreur!
- July 31,
2013 at 11:28
-
I think you need to google Sally Stevens and Duncroft, was this the link
you meant Saddo Sal?
https://www.annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Fiona1.jpg
-
July 31, 2013 at 17:06
-
Obviously with so many aliases one at least has to be correct – very
small brain indeed!
- July 31, 2013 at 10:24
-
I suppose these rabid twatterer trolls are biting their own hand in the
end. They will bring regulation down on all who remain easy and able to
disgree without using disgusting abuse to older female professors on line.
They put food in the mouths of extreme feministas to trash men still further,
if they can. I can still see that posh young man swinging near the Cenotaph.
How come thay are posh, some of these misguided young men? Where are the
shaven headed tattooed ones, I ask. Ah! in the pub, or on the sofa watching
Warrington get beaten at Rugby League cup match boo hoo. Relarively
respectable, at last, and salt of the earth. Hmmmm.
- July 31, 2013 at 10:45
-
From the North East ….. what an unpleasant fracker…………….
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/north-east-man-arrested-suspicion-5387448
Seeing as it’s a sexual abuse case, why isn’t his name and image in the
press so all the others abused by him can come forward?
If nothing else
his neighbours could laugh at him in the street…………
- July 31, 2013 at 11:29
-
South Shields!! We’re zooming in!!
http://www.cbronline.com/news/more-than-1700-cases-of-online-and-text-message-abuse-were-heard-at-court-in-2012
Both
Creasy and Criado-Perez received rape and death threats on Twitter, and a
25-year-old man from South Shields has been arrested on suspicion of
harassment of the pair. Earlier a 21-year-old man arrested on suspicion of
harassment was bailed until mid-September.
- July 31, 2013 at 12:41
-
aHA!
The other guy was in Manchester! The net is tightening!
http://news.sky.com/story/1121399/arrest-made-after-twitter-rape-threats
A
Scotland Yard spokesman said: “A 21-year-old man has today been arrested
in the Manchester area on suspicion of harassment offences.
- August 3, 2013 at 16:34
- July 31, 2013 at 10:22
-
What link?
- July 31, 2013 at 10:36
-
Indeed, good question. I think she must mean this one.
-
July 31, 2013 at 23:07
-
Susan Melling aka Fiona me thinks? It’s just a photograph!! All teeth
and no bite, yet again.
- July 31, 2013 at 23:59
-
My, you’re good at this!
- July 31, 2013 at 10:22
-
here is a link, I think Saddo meant to leave,
https://www.annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Fiona1.jpg
- July 31, 2013 at 10:21
- July 31, 2013 at 10:16
- July 31, 2013 at 10:15
-
where is the link?
Oh here, thanks x
https://www.annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Fiona1.jpg
- July 31,
2013 at 09:51
-
See you have been fiddling around with posts again, so I will post again a
link, you seem not to want to let your readers see the ‘otherside’ of what is
written.
https://www.annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Fiona1.jpg
- July 31,
2013 at 09:48
-
You will not paste the link! Are you scared that others may know the
truth?
https://www.annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Fiona1.jpg
- July 31,
2013 at 09:46
-
Many wonder why you block the forum link posted?
https://www.annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Fiona1.jpg
- July 31,
2013 at 09:30
-
https://www.annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Fiona1.jpg
Why do you delete the link….I need to post it again so people do not have
to seach for on google!
- July 31,
2013 at 09:28
-
Here is the link to the page, it was posted, but then deleted. Anyone would
think that you do not like us!
https://www.annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Fiona1.jpg
- July 31,
2013 at 09:22
-
Yes I am from the Duncroft forum, we are trying to increase our views on a
discussion called ‘Soliciting Sal’ here at https://www.annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Fiona1.jpg
Seeing as we have advertised this blog, by yourself Ms Raccoon, we feel that
you may like to return the favour, before blocking this IP and deleting this
post.
Thank you in advance Ms Raccoon for showing that you can be fairminded in
the interests of honesty.
btw. Sally Stevens has been telling you all fibs again…tsk tsk
- July 31,
2013 at 09:06
-
Yes, I am from the Duncroft forum, we are trying to increase our views on a
discussion called ‘soliciting Sally’ here https://www.annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Fiona1.jpg
Seeing as we have advertised this blog, we feel that you may like to return
the favour, before blocking this IP and deleting this post.
Thank you in advance Ms Raccoon for showing that you can be fair minded in
the interests of honesty.
- July 30, 2013 at 20:49
-
Well, I only used twitter once. When MWT said that he had been undercover
on a dangerous case and couldn’t twitter for a while, I just asked if he
feared death by twitter. I was blocked and remain so! He seems a sensitive
little sausage. I can’t really be bothered with twitter because only
relatively few words can be used it makes it quite difficult to read. I don’t
understand hardly any of the short terms anyway.
-
July 30, 2013 at 21:20
-
I can’t remember why he blocked me – it was either me asking if he
actually had any evidence of wrong-doing as his programme was just
conjecture, or when someone mentioned David Bowie and he said something like
“David Bowie is a real gentleman” (I’d be surprised is he knew who he was
anyway) – so I said yes, Bowie was a legend – but that he should perhaps
google “Lori Maddox” and stop being hypocritical.
MWT is artless – and I’ve learnt in life it is the artless who should be
avoided and feared, for they have no soul, no values other than fiscal and
no depth. It is the artless who have hijacked Britain and made it a living
hell.
He ordinarily just blocks but I have seen him trying to round his rabble
of retards on people daring to question his spiel.
- July 30, 2013 at 22:59
-
I recall Karin Ward’s ebook includes the tale of her spending an hour
or three with David Bowie, and she says that unlike many other celebrities
she came across, David was a true gentleman. Presumably that’s how Mr.
Williams-Thomas knows so much about the thin white duke………
-
July 30, 2013 at 23:54
-
My son just told me that Lorri Maddox claims she was ‘with’ Jimmy Paige
when she was 14 an he was around 28. She was a groupie as I remember and
well used by a good few guys from that era – her decision though. I agree
MWT does get some right gorgons to have a go. One vile woman stared on me
but I just told her to go f**k herself as I doubted anyone else would. I
can’t understand why the media persist he has some high qualification in
crime when he doesn’t. Sometimes he will be challenged and it’s so funny
to see him back track, and come up with a totally opposite opinion. I wish
I was as eloquent as other commentators here but I’m not, however I’m not
so daft as not to smell a rat.
- July 31, 2013 at 00:29
-
It’s strange that the current panic is all about the Seventies when
the “wild child” was actually a phenomenon of the Eighties and Nineties:
Emma Ridley, Tamara Beckwith, Amanda de Cadanet and of course the
eventual Mrs Wyman.
http://rockpopfashion.com/blog/?p=609
- July 31, 2013 at 00:37
-
You’re doing just fine Charlotte! We all smell the same rodent!
-
July 31, 2013 at 00:01
-
Yea right. I remember the time I had tea with Michael Jackson and
Elvis. Such gentlemen, true gentlemen.
-
July 30, 2013 at 19:13
-
“…was there a Government call to ban flints and faggots on the grounds that
‘criminals were making use of them.”
Well nobody’s banned me ducks and I’m verging on the half-century of
faggotry, criminals are free to make use of me as long as they pay for
dinner.
- July 31, 2013 at 09:33
-
Not so, unless you’re either American, or situated in the US of A.
Over here, faggotry would be:-
a) the art of laying bundles of kindling
or
b) the art (science) of
making delicious liver & herb based meatballs in scrummy gravy….
-
July 30, 2013 at 18:22
-
” … bare chested Chipperfield lookalikes advertising on-line Bingo ‘for the
ladies’ …”
………..
I love Ms Raccoon! She’s combined Chippendale and
Chesterfield here to come up with her own furniture-based monika for a bunch
of oily muscle men with no tops on – ‘for the ladies’!
Love it.
- July 30, 2013 at 18:29
-
The other bare chested Chipperfield can be seen here…
http://www.rubylane.com/item/58045-6987/Chipperfields-Circus-Rover-Parade-Speaker
- July 30, 2013 at 18:51
-
One of my former work colleagues was a particularly hairy chap. The
office five-a-side football team nick-named him ‘burst sofa’. Maybe our
Landlady has known someone similar in times past…..
-
July 30, 2013 at 17:23
-
An insightful and extraordinarily well written article again Anna.
I was late to Twitter, joining only to secure my name and have used it
little since. To be honest, I’m not really sure what it’s for? Okay, I get the
breaking news angle but Libya, Greece, Cyprus etc were all republished live in
the online newspapers along with expert commentary that didn’t peter out after
140 presses of a keypad.
As for lads mags… Can I just say that having grown up in the days of
Penthouse, Mayfair and Playboy atop the shelves, I didn’t pay any heed to them
until such time biology played its hand at age 13. Once in possession of a
‘working gun’, so to speak, it’s only natural I’d then become interested in
the sorts of targets I might aim it at… and why shouldn’t I, or those of a
similar age today? Frankly an hormone induced imagination is enough to addle
the adolescent mind whether these magazines are visible or not. It’s
irrelevant and I’m only surprised so many are applauding the call to sanitise
yet another part of our lives.
-
July 31, 2013 at 11:30
-
I thought it was for insulting people and learning Anglo Saxo. Well, it
was the last time I looked.
- July 31, 2013 at 11:31
-
Saxon, innit.
- July 30, 2013 at 16:35
-
Re women-only saunas: I asked my local swimming centre to explain why they
have women-only saunas and swimming sessions, but do not offer matching
men-only sessions. Guess what? Allegedly all men are perverts and therefore
could not be trusted together; whereas all women, as you know, are sweetness
and probity (slightly paraphrased). So that’s all right then.
- July 30, 2013 at 16:32
-
Don’t you love all these shiny little ‘Report Buttons’?
Just as for Ofcom, and all those other right on PC entities that have gone
down that sort of path already, the adoption of The Tyranny of the One Twat is
heading for Universality.
The Dark Age of the Omnipotent Moral Busybody, The New Puritan and the
Feminist Harridan is almost upon us, its footsteps echoing on the
doorstep………
- July 30, 2013 at 17:59
-
“The Tyranny of the One Twat”
Love it – remind me to hat tip you if I nick it one day. Its
beautiful!
-
July 30, 2013 at 18:11
-
Would that be MWTwat?
- July 31, 2013 at 05:50
-
OFTwat!
- July 30,
2013 at 16:10
-
Ah yes, Twitter: Designed specifically for the hard of thinking who cannot
string a comprehensible sentence together (or are too lazy). And, of course,
taken up enthusiastically by the target market. A triumph of tedious dross
consumed slavishly by the unthinking.
No, I don’t have a Twitter account and no, I have no plans to open one.
- July 30, 2013 at 16:20
-
I do have a Twitter account, and as Captain Ranty says, it is very useful
for getting first wind of matters that will be in the newspapers tomorrow or
maybe the day after….but you do have to get past a lot of kitty cat
information first…..
- July 30, 2013 at 16:25
-
You can see twitter on the computer. You don’t need a phone do you?
- July 30, 2013 at 16:39
-
Is act hrd wrk tho 2 get +ve & tot answr n2 140chrs
-
July 30, 2013 at 16:07
-
I think I have this De Quervain syndrome thing. 3 lots of cortisone so far.
Still visits me occasionally. Do not do Twitter, as too long winded. I think I
got it doing lace making a long time back. As I have aged it has revisited, if
I overuse my right wrist. Beautiful young couple opposite us on Docklands
railway fairly recently. She ignored him totally and her thumbs really flew.
She laughed and smiled to herself and was clearly in 7th heaven. He was not,
judging by facial expression. Yet another cause of couples becoming uncoupled
perhaps? They used to call such letters ‘poison pen’ and police inspectors
used to track them down on black and white tele.
- July 30, 2013 at 16:10
-
@ They used to call such letters ‘poison pen’ @
Traditionally written in green ink……… istr …………
-
July 30, 2013 at 18:48
-
I bet if they found out that these devices were in fact fitted with
tracking devices that report their every movement back to some sinister
agency they’d still go on using them.
- July 30, 2013 at 21:12
-
@sally stevens
Sinister? The NSA say they only did it by accident……
several million times…..
- July 31, 2013 at 00:34
-
I guess the elected nincompoops recently voted to allow this
data-collection to continue unabated. I own a flip phone and rarely use
it, except in the same manner one might, in the olden dayes, use a call
box. I knew we were doomed when some angry young man in an elevator
asked me just what the hell was a call box. That was at least six years
ago if not longer. Poor old Superman, no more changing room!
-
August 1, 2013 at 01:27
-
Making lace! I’m impressed!
- July 30, 2013 at 16:04
-
Didn’t Twitter “take off” when Stephen Fry joined and suddenly everyone
thought they could be a celeb too?
Twitter are making it very hard to get rid of False Alexei, apparently I
have to send a fax proving MY identity to a phone number in Iowa or somewhere.
Presumably after that I’ll have to send them a VHS tape of me saying I’m
actually me to an address in New Mexico, then…well I can’t think of a third
anachronistic thing but you get the idea.
http://www.alexeisayle.me/home/2013/4/30/blog-72.html
- July 30, 2013 at 15:53
-
You can send the most foul and threatening insults by post, yet there is
never a call to shut down the Royal Mail, or even to hold it responsible as
‘carrier’ of the material: only the sender remains accountable for the words
used.
- July 30,
2013 at 17:12
-
THIS!
- July 30, 2013 at 18:42
-
True – but until the receiver of the envelope opens it, nobody knows what
the message is. The difference with this new-fangled Twitter is that when
the message is sent, anybody with a personal hand-held mobile telephonic
receiving device can see the message – it’s a form of publishing rather than
private communication.
In other news, I was reading earlier (in the printed version of the Daily
Telegraph – yes, I know I’m a dinosaur, but I don’t care) that some
enterprising chappie has invented dumb-bells for thumbs. You can now give
your thumbs exercise to strengthen them and increase their endurance, thus
reducing the liklihood of strains and chronic injury. I did check the
calendar, and it isn’t the 1st of April, so as it’s in the Telegraph it may
even be true.
Whatever will they think of next?
-
July 30, 2013 at 15:50
-
I don’t tweet either. All I have to say to these people is enjoy the De
Quervain’s, because it is coming your way. I’ve had it – hurts like hell.
Cure, cortisone – can’t be done often without risk of tearing the tendons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Quervain_syndrome –
(pronounced de.kervains).
- July 31, 2013 at 08:58
-
I am from the proper, official Duncroft site, we feel that our viewing
figures should improve for our discussion on ‘Soliciting Sal’. So, we
thought that seeing as we have promoted your blog, you would like to return
the favour, (before blocking this I.P or deleting this post).
Here is the link to the TRUTH about Sally Stevens, please help support
this excellent cause. She is telling you naughty little fibs again, btw.
- July 31, 2013 at 10:29
-
July 30, 2013 at 15:42
-
I hate Twatter. HATE IT.
I couldn’t see the point in it two years ago –
why would anyone want to tell strangers anything, be it trite or personal, in
soundbites? It seemed ridiculous.
Now I see the point – it has reduced debate and reason down to
140-character soundbites which idiots use to rally other idiots.
None more so than Dr Tosspot and his moronic fan club.
- July 30, 2013 at 15:44
-
tldnr
- July 30, 2013 at 15:36
-
@ Did one lady get to support the other lady for life? @
Yes
http://www.queerty.com/martina-navratilova-v-toni-layton-3-million-no-love-20100622/
- July 30, 2013 at 16:10
- July 30, 2013 at 15:27
-
A tad harsh.
Yes, there is a lot of crap, (and I add to it as often as my tired old
thumbs permit), but OTOH, (not sure if there is a pun in there), I learn about
events 10 times faster. The MSM is pitifully slow in comparison. Events in
Egypt, Syria, & Libya show up on Twitter as rumours and are then
solidified.
I like it.
And the profanity, the insults, the character assassinations? Yes, I really
must stop doing that.
CR.
- July 30,
2013 at 17:12
-
Seconded. I scorned Twitter at first (only 140 characters!?) in favour of
blogging and even sometimes, actually talking to other people; but it has
its uses!
{ 68 comments }