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400 words about 140 characters

12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, April 16, 2009

GORDON KEITH | NEWSPAPER COLUMN

Twitter has reached the tipping point. Newscasts are now updating us on which celebrity is the latest to begin "Twittering."

Baritone announcer: "And now back to Action Eight News with Johnny Hairpiece and Nancy Whatsherthits."

"Before we leave you tonight, you won't believe who is now Twittering," Johnny says while mentally locating that bottle of vodka in his Beemer.

"The President of the United States!" says Nancy as a nipple pops out. "His latest tweet was sent out just minutes ago. It reads 'OMFG, N. Korea missile is so full of FAIL'."

Johnny straightens his papers and his erection. "I don't understand, Nancy."

"Well, that's all our time tonight. Join us tomorrow night as we talk to Taylor Swift!" The long shot fades into a copyright graphic as Johnny says, "Make love to me one last time, Nancy" when he thinks his mic is off.

OK. So even your grandmother is Twittering and it is annoying, and you're unsuccessfully resisting the urge to tell everyone about how you signed up for Twitter two years ago to follow so-and-so and you haven't touched it since. Blah, blah, blah. I hate this merry-go-round of knee-jerkiness every time something explodes culturally like Twitter. Everyone is falling all over themselves to take a stand.

Curmudgeons, who pride themselves on their latest contrarian opinions, have beaten us down for years with "What do I need e-mail for?" and "Why text when you can just jog over to their house?" and "I'm sticking with vinyl for its warmth."

Then, after they take a break from bold pronouncements, they jump on board and start texting and e-mailing you at all hours with "25 Things" about themselves, funny cat pictures and an album they ripped from BitTorrent.

I know it is human nature, but it doesn't make it any less annoying.

Half of my friends swore they would not get on Facebook. Now all of my friends are on Facebook, and I have the same set of friends. Go figure. The thing we don't take into account is that Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, e-mail, the Internet, are all just tools, and you should never confuse tools with the tools who use them. Just because people send me stupid animal pictures through e-mail doesn't mean e-mail is stupid.

Same with Twitter. Yes, some people tweet like a monkey on crack about stuff that even God wishes was left out of his omniscience, but to assume that everyone approaches Twitter or Blogger or Facebook with the same sort of time-wasting vanity is a mistake.

Now I will STFU.

Hear Gordon on "The Ticket" KTCK-AM (1310) weekdays from 5:30 to 10 a.m. E-mail him at gordon@gordonkeith.com.




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