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    Go Tweet Yourself: 365 Reasons Why Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Other Social Networking Sites Suck
    Go Tweet Yourself: 365 Reasons Why Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Other Social Networking Sites Suck
    Go Tweet Yourself: 365 Reasons Why Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Other Social Networking Sites Suck
    Ebook184 pages2 hours

    Go Tweet Yourself: 365 Reasons Why Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Other Social Networking Sites Suck

    By Janelle Randazza

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Flip Twitter the bird.
    Tell Facebook to f#@% off.
    Lose it on LinkedIn.

    Somewhere between the advent of Facebook and launching Twitter to the masses, the Internet betrayed us. It allowed pages to be viewed by job interviewers, newsfeeds to be flooded by Aunt Julie, and for constant tweets about what color socks that random girl from the study group is going to wear today.

    This book is the hilarious reply all that says: enough is enough. We don’t want to see the pictures from your business trip to Omaha. We don’t want a page-by-page account of what’s going on in Twilight. We definitely don’t want a virtual drink!

    When you can’t fix the problem, fix the blame. And since there’s no way in 2.0-hell that you can put an end to the bastardization of the Book, you may as well have a good laugh while pointing the finger at those who ruined their online experience.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateSep 18, 2009
    ISBN9781440513510
    Go Tweet Yourself: 365 Reasons Why Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Other Social Networking Sites Suck
    Author

    Janelle Randazza

    An Adams Media author.

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    • 4/5
      If you have some experience with social networking on the Internet, this book is a mustread to get to know the shadowside of it all. Janelle Randazza wrote this book in 365 short observations about Twitter, Facebook and others, full of oneliners. You could read one each day, but I couldn't stop laughing and reading, and read it all in a few days.There is some (maybe: a lot of) repetition, but that also adds to the fun of this book. It's like that old joke that returns every time and makes you laugh even harder. There are a lot of possibilities for the contents of this book: 1. Use it as your mirror: it shows you how childish and silly relationships in social networking can be, and how social networking sites only seem to make it worse.2. This is good stuff for the creation of a character in a sitcom. I imagine Janelle's remarks to be the running jokes in each episode.3. If you skip the humor some very strong observations still remain. Every named social networking site (Twitter, Facebook etc.) could take this criticism to heart.

    Book preview

    Go Tweet Yourself - Janelle Randazza

    GO

    TWEET

    YOURSELF

    365 Reasons Why Twitter, Facebook, MySpace,

    and Other Social Networking Sites Suck

    janelle randazza

    9781440503665_0012_0019781440503665_0002_002

    Copyright © 2009 Simon and Schuster

    All rights reserved.

    This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

    Published by

    Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

    57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.

    www.adamsmedia.com

    ISBN-10: 1-4405-0366-4

    ISBN-13: 978-1-4405-0366-5

    eISBN: 978-1-4405-1351-0

    Printed in the United States of America.

    J I H G F E D C B A

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    is available from the publisher.

    This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

    —From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the

    American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

    This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.

    For information, please call 1-800-289-0963.

    Acknowledgments

    Many thanks to those who selflessly and shamelessly aired their grievances about social networking (among other things), and helped keep me good and cynical when my predisposition toward optimism threatened the completion of this book. In no particular order, my gratitude goes out to: Mel and Amber Georgakopoulos, Burke Sampson, Stephanie Cornell, Amy Kucharik, Amy Mees, Emily Beaver, Liz Polay-Wettengal, Marya Emdot Figueroa, Chris Marstall, John Cotter, Elisa Gabbert, Paul McEvoy, Ed Meagher, Brigid Carroll Casellini, Andy Stochansky, Lisa Whynott, Keith Hastings, Betsy Doily Foley, Carlos Arboleda, Alicia Demirjian, Andy Fenenbock, Kevin McCarthy, Sara Ulnet, Chad and Kristina Harter Carlberg, Molly Scannell, Shauna Peck Slome, and Matthew Phillion. Many of you offered up your own social networking nightmares, allowing me to pass them off as my own in this book; I’m forever indebted to you. Very special thanks to Liam King; my parents John and Joanne, who did their best to brainstorm ideas despite rarely logging in to their shared Facebook account and being absolutely certain it is called Faceplace; and my brother Marc John Randazza. Your discontent is an inspiration, my dear brother.

    Thank you to my blindingly talented editor, Wendy Simard. When the entire world gave me nothing but cricket chirps, your gleeful laughter at my sick sense of humor got me through. Thank you for your tireless and creative work on this project, and for everything else, my dear friend. Thanks to everyone else at Adams Media who made this book possible, especially publisher Karen Cooper, Brendan O’Neill, and designer Elisabeth Lariviere.

    For Niamh Antoinette Sheedy and Natalia Antoinette Randazza: My favorite little girls on the planet. Social networking really can suck but you two never cease to rule.

    Contents

    Introduction

    PART 1

    TWITTER: THE WHOLE WORLD,

    GONE TO THE BIRDS

    Chapter 1 > You Are What You Tweet

    Chapter 2 > Blah, Blah, Blah . . . But Keep It Brief, Dammit

    Chapter 3 > The Twittersphere Time-Suck (or, How to Avoid Adult Activities)

    Chapter 4 > Work It, Twits

    Chapter 5 > Twitterrific! Code Words and Apps Galore

    Chapter 6 > Retweeting, Trolling, and Shameless Plugging

    Chapter 7 > Celeb Twittergasm: The Big O Has Joined the 21st Century

    Chapter 8 > Not So Tweet: Beware of Bird Shit

    PART 2

    FACEBOK: A FACE

    ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE

    Chapter 9 > The Great Facebook Debate

    Chapter 10 > To Friend or Not to Friend (Unfortunately, That Is the Question)

    Chapter 11 > It’s High School, All Over Again

    Chapter 12 > Why Picking the Perfect Profile Pic Is like Picking a Prom Dress

    Chapter 13 > Office Facebooking

    Chapter 14 > The Facebook Follies: Dating in a Fishbowl

    Chapter 15 > Power Apps Are for Pussies

    Chapter 16 > The Poke and the SUPER Poke: Not as Fun as They Sound

    Chapter 17 > Life Gone Public: Your Wall, SuperWall, Groups, and Party Invites

    Chapter 18 > Screw Your Virtual Beverages and Hugs, I’d Like to Get Drunk and Laid

    PART 3

    EVERYTHING ELSE:

    THE ONLINE OUTCASTS

    Chapter 19 > Friendster: Adding ster to Anything Means You’re Trying Too Hard

    Chapter 20 > MySpace: Rupert Murdoch Must Be Kicking Himself

    Chapter 21 > Blogs, Glorious Blogs: The Narcissistic Land of Live Journal and Blogger

    Chapter 22 > LinkedIn: More Inflated Egos and False Expertise

    Chapter 23 > Social Networking Freaks and Geeks

    Sources

    Introduction

    I hope you’re sitting down as you read this, because I’m about to deliver a shock of biblical proportions. No one cares if you’re going for a walk, eating lunch, playing the banjo, or taking a nap. And we care even less if you tell us in a mere 140 characters. Somewhere between the time Facebook became a club even Great-Aunt Suzy wanted membership in and Twitter went pandemic, we began to exalt the mundane and worship the inane.

    We have entered a new age of excess, only with the world’s economy in dumps we’re turning toward an overabundance of blather, in the form of Insipid Status Update, over-posting of photos, over-liking of posts, and self-important drivel about what color socks we plan to wear and what brand of ketchup we prefer on our fries. The more we talk, the less we listen and the more Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and LinkedIn connections we acquire the greater the chance that any sliver of meaningful contact we could forge will get lost in the din of nudges, pokes, prods, and virtual two-steps.

    Social networking has become a game that no one can win as we try to eek an iota of meaning from where there is none through silly status posts, and insincere cyber gift-giving.

    Let’s be perfectly clear people, I don’t want a virtual drink, hug, or pet pterodactyl, nor do I want social interactions that are limited to 140 characters— and neither should you! Hopefully the following 365 reasons will convince you that social networking is akin to a zombie invasion that is eating all of our brains, leaving us as vapid nodes who somehow believe there is importance in telling the world we’re buying a carton of milk.

    Consider it my mission to motivate (or shame) you into getting a life—a real life, not the virtual variety. If that doesn’t work, at the very least you’ll have something to tweet about tomorrow.

    PART 1

    TWITTER:

    THE WHOLE

    WORLD, GONE

    TO THE BIRDS

    Everybody gets so much information

    all day long that they lose their

    common sense.

    9781440503665_0012_001

    -Gertrude Stein

    Chapter 1

    You Are What You Tweet

    1 > Thought blogs were self-indulgent? Try microblogging!

    If a tweet goes out in a forest, and no one sees it, does it make a sound? When your thoughts or tweets or twits—or whatever you want to call them— get pushed further and further down your friends’ update feed with each passing second, it’s not connecting you to anyone. You’re just yammering to yourself and everyone is so preoccupied with the sound of their own tweets that they don’t care what you have to say—you’re in a virtual middle school bathroom and you’re surrounded by self-absorbed cheerleaders. It’s as if all this tweeting is a territorial call, as opposed to a mating—or friendship—call.

    You know who the most social of all birds are? Penguins. That’s right. Why is that? Because penguins know how to hang, how to take time out to share a fish—and how to listen. No obsessive tweeting goes on in Antarctica. We could learn a thing or two from a penguin.

    Twit Lingo

    Twitterize (verb): Using peer pressure to convert a new Twitter user into a Twit.

    2 > The anatomy of a Twit

    I didn’t think birds got rabies, but Twitter has proven science wrong. Get a die-hard Twit in a room and she’ll start pecking you on the skull about the importance of Twitter like a raccoon that wants your lunch or a Jehovah’s Witness dead set on saving your soul. There is no stopping these Twits. They bang on your door and damn you to hell if you don’t convert to their cult. I know that when we refuse to believe in Twitter the terrorists win, but Twitter was founded in 2006; if 60 percent of its users still don’t get it, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s not working.

    3 > Twitter can’t even figure out the point of Twitter

    If Twitter is so revolutionary, than why can’t even Twitter figure out what the point of it is? It’s as if Paris Hilton wrote their mission statement. Don’t believe me? Check out Twitter’s Why page, which explains why the service is so useful. The first bullet point—in an alarmingly succinct three-point list—reads, and I quote: Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know. Eating soup? What does that even mean? There is more meaning and depth in episodes of 90210 than in Twitter’s self-stated purpose.

    4 > The fragmented life

    The @reply feature is the only thing about the site that allows for interactivity. But if you’re going to have a twenty-point discussion—complete with the occasional LOL thrown in there for good measure—does the whole world need to see it? And if you are thoroughly convinced the whole world does need to see it, could you at least let us see both sides of the conversation so we have some semblance of a clue as to what you’re talking about? (Twitter’s fault, not yours—but I have to yell at someone.) fail wail ninirific: The #FailWhale is lucky I can’t condone animal cruelty.

    Il_9781440503665_0016_001     fail wail

    ninirific: The #FailWhale is lucky I can’t condone animal cruelty.

    5 > One of the founders goes by the name of Biz

    The company was cofounded by a guy who wants you to call him Biz. And it’s not like his parents played a cruel joke on him and we should all be nice. The guy’s name is Christopher! Some might say that Christopher is a mouthful, but aren’t there other, more suitable nicknames for Christopher? Like, I don’t know . . . how about Chris? Or if you hate the name Chris, why not try Topher, like Topher Grace. How does Biz even fit in there? If insisting people call you Biz isn’t pompous, I don’t know what is. There’s another guy in charge, Evan Williams, but his name is pretty vanilla.

    6 > And while we’re on the subject of silly names . . .

    It would have been way more fun if they named Twitter something like Twatter. Just think of all the fun we could have had if all the users were called Twats. And when you tweet they called it twatting. Way more fun. Gets you thinking. Puts a smile on your face. Twitter should have had me in on those first business-planning meetings. People would have been way more enthusiastic about adopting my idea and I bet there even would have been more opportunities for ad revenue! It would have ruled.

    7 > I’m allowed to make fun of Biz Stone twice

    I think he can take it. Stone was quoted in New York magazine as saying, Twitter is not about the triumph of technology. It’s about the triumph of the human spirit. Aw, that’s a nice sentiment, Biz. Thing is, I can’t help but feel like my spirit is shackled to an electronic device every time I tweet. I’m not so sure my spirit is triumphing. Maybe my iPhone is, but my spirit? Not so much.

    8 > The media’s crush on tweeting

    Maybe it’s newspapers’ way of trying to stay relevant as they all go the way of the Dodo, but they really got it bad for Twitter. The New York Times has gone so far as to elevate tweeting to

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