Twitter is for Stalkers

I.
Summer 2006

Girl: Hello?
Jeff: Hey, it’s Jeff. How’s it going?
Girl: Oh… good.
Jeff: Yeah? How’s your week been?
Girl: Still good since yesterday, when we last talked.
Jeff: Well… just gotta keep making sure, ya know?
Girl: …
Jeff: Hey, are we still on for tonight?
Girl: Actually, I have a lot of homework to do.
Jeff: It’s summer.
Girl: I know, but I just have a bunch of homework. I didn’t know I was going to have it, but then I did.
Jeff: Wow. Crazy how it just sneaks up like that.
Girl: Sick.
Jeff: What?
Girl: I’m also feeling sick.
Jeff: Really?
Girl: Yeah.
Jeff: I’m sorry. Maybe I should bring you some chicken noodle soup–
Girl: No, I’ll be OK. It’s actually my roommate so I have to take care of her so…
Jeff: Your roommate?
Girl: Listen, I’m just walking out my door to go to work so…
Jeff: OK, yeah. Nice shoes by the way.
Girl: What?
Jeff: I didn’t– nothing… Well, have a good day. I’ll call you later. [Click]

II.

Recently, I became acquainted with a website called Twitter. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Twitter is like a mini-blogging platform. Unfortunately, this is as simple a description as I can give. You set up an account with a username (mine is jeffisnotart), and as long as your message is within 140 characters you can put up whatever you want. It’s a little bit like cellphone texting, but it gets placed on the web for anyone to see. I swear that it’s all the internet rage right now, even though it resembles the feeling of being in a hot, crowded room listening to the cacophony of millions of voices, all yelling to be heard at the same time. The creators of this “service” named it Twitter to draw upon the imagery of a lot of little birds sitting in a tree, tweeting away. I’m not sure that birds have ever been this ugly, obnoxious, or egocentric. This might be because the general prompt for what to write on your account is “what are you doing right now?” This results in things like “making coffee and getting ready to head out to Beaver Lake!”, “ is finishing of the morning start with Hall & Oates Greatest Hits.” or “地 味にショック”. Under these conditions, I find my own “tweets” leaning more towards the absurd, with comments like, “has the brain of an elephant, and the pores of a sweaty pubescent boy.” or “is not eating bagels.” For some of you out there reading this, I give a word of warning: If you bristle in the presence of grammar mistakes and spelling errors, Twitter is not for you.

But who is Twitter for then, if not for those who love grammar and writing? Twitter is for stalkers.

Twitter is to stalkers, what menus are to restaurant customers. What could be better in the mind of a stalker than a global repository of people telling you what they’re doing right at that moment? One popular function even let’s you “follow” people.

And so sensing the eerie proximity of an unseen presence, today I put in: “I know you’re out there, stalkers!” And though I received no reply, I still have the feeling some internet voyeur is out there, peering through Windows at me…

III.

Received: 11-13-2008 5:36:02 PM
From: daemont@mail.co.cn
To: Jeff

Dear Jeffisnotart,
You dont know me but Im been following you on Twitter for a cople of days now. Surprise! LOL! 😉 Anyway, you haven’t tweeted in a while and I was wondring if everything is ok? Do u think you will post soon? Your great! Well anwyay, I hope to see you tweet again soon.

Sincelrey,
Yur secret admirer.

PS I miss you.

PPS I made you a picture. BFF! LOL